Double-page Spreads Research Articles

Breaking to the Beat! by Linda J. Acevedo

Reviewed by: Breaking to the Beat! by Linda J. Acevedo Kate Quealy-Gainer, Editor Acevedo, Linda J. Breaking to the Beat!; illus. by Frank Morrison. Lee & Low, 2023 [32p] Trade ed. ISBN 9781643796390 $19.95 E-book ed. ISBN 9781620149836 $19.95 Reviewed from digital galleys R Gr. 3-5 In the 1970s, when people “said the Bronx was nothing but rubble,” Manolo, a young Puerto Rican boy, immersed himself in the rich music that saturated his neighborhood. Eventually finding his passion among the b-boys and b-girls, dancing “with a mix of splits, twists, and shuffles,” he honed his breaking skills and joined a neighborhood crew. In the 1980s, Henry Chalfant, a photographer on the Hip-Hop scene, pushed breaking into the mainstream; soon Manolo—now known as Kid Flex—and his crew were crushing it around the globe, but Manolo still held true to the music of his home in “the Boogie Down Bronx. The place where Hip-Hop rose from the rubble.” While Chalfant was a real photographer, Acevedo explains in an afterword that Manolo and his crew are fictional characters based on a number of real dancers from the 1970s and ’80s. Acevado’s text is undeniably energetic and rhythmic, easily pulling on the dynamism of its subject, and it also manages to be informative while maintaining a peppy pace (“B stands for BREAK, the part of a song where the drum flies solo. The neighborhood kids didn’t know it then but something new was rising—HIP-HOP!”). Morrison’s art is masterful, with acrylics washing over the double-page spreads, effortlessly capturing the intensity and talent of the dance crews, populated with slick, sinewy figures in gravity-defying moves. That zeal falls against a background of decrepit buildings, busted fences, [End Page 318] and patrolling police, giving a fuller picture of the rise of breaking amidst a then-broken community. A dazzling mix of spirited text and striking illustrations, this beautifully evokes a time period and the art it gave rise to. Copyright © 2023 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

The Eyes and the Impossible by Dave Eggers

Reviewed by: The Eyes and the Impossible by Dave Eggers April Spisak Eggers, Dave The Eyes and the Impossible; illus. by Shawn Harris. Knopf, 2023 [256p] Library ed. ISBN 9781524764210 $21.99 Trade ed. ISBN 9781524764203 $18.99 E-book ed. ISBN 9781524764227 $10.99 Reviewed from digital galleys R* Gr. 4-7 Johannes is a quicker-than-lightning dog, spotting everything as he explores the park where he and other animals live, and his speed and dutiful reports of the park’s ongoings have made him essential to the Keepers of the Equilibrium (three wise [End Page 325] but cloistered bison). A new building sparks a series of events that lead to Johannes discovering human art, being captured for the first time ever, finding out his true lineage, and, ultimately, outgrowing what he imagined the rest of his life would be. Johannes’ escape from captivity, aided by the motliest of inter-species crews, demonstrates the closeness of the animals in the park and how important Johannes is to the balance (and goodness) of their home. Johannes is a brilliant narrator as he speculates wildly (he estimates the bison, for example, to be six thousand years old), approaches life with a mixture of experience and wonder, wryly comments on the unreliability of ducks, and captures the world around him with a poetic framing that makes everything seem amazing. In a brief author’s note, Eggers emphasizes that none of these animals are human stand-ins: this is a world where humans are mostly destructive and not central to the story other than as beings to be avoided. The goats are laser-focused on goat things (e.g. eating), the raccoons are cranky if woken during the day, and the seagulls are dramatic as heck, an accurate assessment of their nature. Double-page spreads reproduce famous landscape painting, mostly from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with a speedy Johannes cleverly integrated to create the striking, memorable artwork; a note at the end offers readers more information about each of the original paintings. Animal lovers will be enthralled, and even for readers who mostly stick with humans, this is a standout example of the power of chosen family rather than biological ones. Copyright © 2023 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Queer Scrapscape: Hudinilson Jr.’s Cadernos de referências

This essay sheds light on Brazilian artist Hudinilson Jr.’s Cadernos de referências (c. 1981-2013), a series of dense and layered scrapbooks. Through an analysis of layouts and media, the investigation highlights the extensive design and cultural implications that the practice triggers. The focus lies primarily on formal recurrences and narrative strategies identified on double page spreads, revealing how they condense the artist’s queer poetics. The Cadernos emerge as an everyday practice of exploration of the human body, a space for self-design and cultural resistance, and a tool for questioning the relationship between the exposed body, self-image, and mass media.

India: A history in objects

Presenting a history of India in objects is an ambitious concept by any stretch of the imagination, even if the material in question is drawn exclusively from the collections of the British Museum. Richard Blurton’s thirty years’ service there as curator for South and Southeast Asia places him in a position to make the most of it, and he does not disappoint. It would certainly be impossible in a conventional narrative to contemplate such an ambitious sweep – the text ranging from the Palaeolithic to the late twentieth century and from stone tools to present-day film and music-making. The format adopted by the author and his publishers, already tried and tested in companion volumes on China and on the Islamic World, successfully resolves this problem: the bulk of the book is arranged as double-page spreads, each introducing a new topic, period, dynasty or category of object. In this way the reader moves through this mass of multi-faceted material in a structured, coherent and accessible way. The many colour images, most of them from the museum’s own photographic studio, are well reproduced – mostly as cut-outs, adding considerably to the pleasing appearance of the volume – and all are captioned in a uniform configuration that presents information on the objects themselves, their provenance and their donor or source.

INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

Review: The Atlas of Boston History

Review: <i>The Atlas of Boston History</i>

Birds: Explore Their Extraordinary World by Miranda Krestovnikoff

Reviewed by: Birds: Explore Their Extraordinary World by Miranda Krestovnikoff Elizabeth Bush Krestovnikoff, Miranda Birds: Explore Their Extraordinary World; illus. by Angela Harding. Bloomsbury, 2021 [64p] Trade ed. ISBN 9781547605293 $23.99 E-book ed. ISBN 9781547607464 $16.79 Reviewed from digital galleys R Gr. 3-6 Somewhere between primary schoolers learning bird basics and older dyed-inthe-wool birders are the kids with a general fascination for the wondrous variety, mind-boggling physiology, and aesthetic allure of the avian world. This British import hits that sweet spot, with a browser-friendly overview that features paragraphs of information beyond science class coverage, a broader scope than field guides, and sophisticated illustrations that invite engrossed lingering. Krestovnikoff is no slave to formal organization, but instead gratifies this audience’s proclivity to meander among topics of established and novel appeal, offering longer opening sections of three or four double-page spreads roughly grouped by habitat (e.g., tropics, fresh water) and crumbs of miscellanea in closing spreads (e.g., birdsong, extreme cold). Harding’s linocuts are lavishly textured and detailed; most coordinate [End Page 341] closely enough with the text to function like thoughtfully staged museum exhibits accompanied by exemplary notes. This title, which is also bound to capture the interest of passing adults, is a strong reminder that there’s no age ceiling for the picture book format. Copyright © 2021 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Japan Supernatural: Ghosts, Goblins and Monsters, 1700 to Now ed. by Melanie Eastburn

Reviewed by: Japan Supernatural: Ghosts, Goblins and Monsters, 1700 to Now ed. by Melanie Eastburn Adam L. Kern Japan Supernatural: Ghosts, Goblins and Monsters, 1700 to Now. Edited by Melanie Eastburn. Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales (NSW), 2020. 312 pages. Softcover, $45.00. Once upon a time, back during my graduate research days in Kyoto, I found myself in the nearby town of Maibara at Tokugen’in within Seiryūji Temple (if memory serves), strolling through a labyrinthine stretch of corridor. Turning the bend to an especially dark nook, out of the corner of my eye I caught a fleeting glimpse of a ghost. Or so I thought. It turns out that the ghost was mere effect, a mischievous trompe l’oeil—or damashi-e, as the Japanese refer to “images that deceive” the eye—in the form of a life-size hanging scroll. The scroll, attributed to Shimizu Setsudō (1876–1951), deployed the artistic technique of kakibyōsō, in which a realistically depicted frame within an image is deliberately flouted, resulting in a lifelike if momentary three-dimensional illusion. In this case, the “ghost” had been painted in front of the depicted frame, while the actual edge blended in seamlessly with its physical surroundings, giving the figure the appearance of materializing from out of the scroll itself. Much of the shock of the experience had to do with the particular circumstances of the encounter: the corridor was open to direct sunlight on an unusually bright day, so when I came upon the cannily situated scroll, my eyes took just enough time to adjust to the contrast in light that the effect seemed genuinely uncanny. In hindsight, I not only admire the sense of humor behind the staging of the scroll but also chuckle about my reflexive reaction to it. For a split second, my supposedly unshakable belief [End Page 180] in science over the supernatural had been shaken to the core. There are things, after all, that science cannot explain. This visceral reaction was triggered only by seeing Setsudō’s scroll for myself in its physical location, not as a reprint in some book. Accordingly, writing about the catalogue to an exhibition without having visited the exhibition itself (held in Sydney, Australia, from November 2019 to March 2020), let alone observed even a fraction of the artworks in the original architectural space for which they were designed, presents a double challenge. Be that as it may, Japan Supernatural is a rare gem. Edited by the organizer of the exhibition, Melanie Eastburn (senior curator of Asian art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales), the catalogue brilliantly presents nearly two hundred images of the supernatural in Japanese art. These images consist primarily of ukiyo-e prints, though other forms are also represented, and cover from the early modern or Edo period to the present day. Their overall presentation is, to my delighted surprise, amazing. Some works are generously afforded double-page spreads. The color reproductions are so vivid one can make out dark ink against darker backgrounds, or lighter ink on light backgrounds—as with the apparitional skeletons in Tsukioka Yoshitoshi’s The Enlightenment of Hell Courtesan (1890)1—techniques that are especially prominent in rendering supernatural beings (yōkai) but that typically do not come across well in printed matter. The sheer range of materials also impresses. The images are arranged into four overarching categories: (1) objects, including installation art (some of it large-scale), carved masks by Kitazawa Hideta, clothing, statues by Murakami Takashi, and ne tsuke (mostly dating to the Meiji period, but some to late Edo); (2) photographs and moving images, including video installations by Aoshima Chiho and by the mononymous artist Tabaimo, projections by Matsui Fuyuko, and gelatin silver prints by Yanagi Miwa; (3) paintings, including acrylics by Murakami, watercolors by Aoshima (nearly two dozen), and hanging scrolls and handscrolls by Matsui, Kawanabe Kyōsai, Tsukioka Yoshitoshi, Itaya Hiroharu, Toriyama Sekien, and so on; and, most abundantly, (4) books and prints (a partially overlapping category, since some prints were originally bound in albums) from the Edo period to the present day. This last category encompasses works by Sekien, Kyōsai, Yoshitoshi, Utagawa...

The Politics of Lace in Kate Evans’ Threads: From the Refugee Crisis (2017)

Kate Evans’ 2017 comic Threads: From the Refugee Crisis chronicles her visits to the ‘Jungle’ refugee camp in Calais, where she volunteered with a group of other British nationals to help build shelters and offer general assistance to those in the camp. The comic is bookended with double-page spreads that depict traditional lace making processes. Calais is particularly famous for lace production and it is a trade that has long been the domain of women. In addition, lace is used throughout the comic in the gutters of the pages.Using close textual and visual analysis, this article considers the use of lace throughout the comic. Beginning with a brief history of the fabric itself, it is argued that the use of lace provides a clear socio-political and cultural framework by which we can read the comic, positioning the stories of refugees within representational frameworks governed by white, European artistic and cultural production. Moreover, the lace can be read as a metaphor for the geopolitical interactions which led to the massive displacement of people and, so, the creation of ‘the Jungle’.

Products and Services of the Products to the Potential Consumers of the Hindu

A notable feature of the print media, in recent years, has been the greater availability of color printing in periodicals as well as few newspaper. Among the periodicals referred to above 68 out of the 105 accepted advertisement in color. Rates for advertisement in color were double that of black and white as rates, or even higher. Two other developments of interests in magazine advertisements were the use of bleed both in color and black and white and double page spreads. These indicate that a competitive era has already set-in advertising in print media. Increased rated to the face of static circulation have begun to dictate the need of greater attention seeking power of advertisement so that the expenditure incurred on placing them could be justified. Moreover, the print media itself has stated encountering increasing competition from television. Outcome of the projects are, a) Leading Newspaper of Southern India. b) Strengths reflects in the statements “India’s National Newspaper”. c) Acknowledge for its unbiased editorial and articles. d) The newspaper caters to the need of intellectual people and is very favorite among the students who prepare for competitive exams (especially civil services). e) One of the oldest newspaper of India. f) Salaries to the employees are the best when compared to others newspapers. g. Sports coverage is the best among all the dailies.

Marine Science: Cephalopods

Fascinating, alien, complex, and intelligent, cephalopods are among the most interesting creatures on Earth. Written by an international team of cephalopod experts, Octopus, Squid & Cuttlefish presents an informative and visually stunning overview of this amazing group of creatures. Each chapter contains two main sections. The first half of each presents aspects of cephalopod biology covering five overarching topics: “Cephalopod Anatomy,” “Phylogeny & Evolution,” “Peculiar Lifestyles” (reproduction, development, locomotion, migration, and other topics), “Behavior, Cognition & Intelligence,” and “Cephalopods & Humans.” The discussion of each subject is brief, as is appropriate for a general overview text such as this. The remainder of each chapter is devoted to several double-page spreads of representative species. Beautiful, richly colored full-page photographs provide portraits of each species presented. The text is informative and readable, and generously illustrated with clear and useful diagrams.Cephalopod biology is so unusual that almost every page of the overview section reveals interesting biology. A discussion of the biochemistry and anatomy of cephalopod skin gives readers an understanding of how squids and octopus can display a vast array of colors and skin textures for communication and camouflage.A section on “Dwarfs & Giants” presents the vast adult size range, which is greater than that of any other animal on Earth; included in this section are the mysterious and mythic giant and colossal squids. A section on locomotion presents the anatomical adaptations that allow for the many different methods by which cephalopods move through their aquatic environments: walking, swimming, jetting, and even flying. The section on behavior and intelligence is particularly fascinating, highlighting some of the characteristics that make this group of animals particularly unusual and unique. Within this section, readers will learn the details of communication by rapid changes in skin coloration; decision making processes (in mollusks!); the use of mimicry in some octopus species; and mating behaviors, including fights between males and sneaky cheating techniques for mating opportunities in both males and females.The individual species profiles provide basic information for each group: a world map showing the species' range and a brief description of its classification, typical habitat, feeding habits, and other key behaviors. A full page of photographs gives the reader a look at each animal, often showing details of behavior and habitat as well. Finally, a two-paragraph discussion of each provides some more details about habitat, behavior, ecological niche, conservation status, and more. Here we find the magnificent giant Australian cuttlefish, the charming striped pyjama squid, the breathtaking blanket octopus, the “living fossil” vampire squid, and the rare shelled fuzzy nautilus, among many others.Octopus, Squid & Cuttlefish provides an excellent overview of the world's cephalopods, detailed enough to be interesting and informative to a reader with a good biology background. Experts will probably want a more in-depth text. Students in biology, ecology, marine science, and animal behavior classes will all find value in this book. Furthermore, anyone interested in biology, evolution, and adaptation will find perusing the pages of Octopus, Squid & Cuttlefish fascinating and rewarding.

"For the Undefeated": The 2020 Lion and the Unicorn Award for Excellence in North American Poetry

"For the Undefeated":The 2020 Lion and the Unicorn Award for Excellence in North American Poetry Krystal Howard (bio), Catherine Kyle (bio), and Rachel L. Rickard Rebellino (bio) Winner: Kwame Alexander. The Undefeated. Illustrated by Kadir Nelson. Versify, 2019. Honor Books: Nikki Grimes. Ordinary Hazards: A Memoir. WordSong, 2019. Aida Salazar. The Moon Within. Scholastic, 2019. Patrice Vecchione and Alyssa Raymond, editors. Ink Knows No Borders: Poems of the Immigrant and Refugee Experience. Seven Stories P, 2019. Though many of the works of poetry published for young readers in 2019 were imaginative, engaging, and delightful, a few stood out as particularly excellent contributions to the larger field. Written by both veteran and debut poets, these works—picture books, memoirs in verse, verse novels, and collections of voices for all ages—by and large sought to bear witness to our unique moment in history, and to celebrate, in the words of our winner, "the undefeated." The poetry published in 2019 was part of a larger project undertaken by poets seeking to reflect upon and recover histories, cultures, traumas, and triumphs of the past. Speaking of the blurry line between poetry and politics, Major Jackson asserts in his introduction to The Best American Poetry 2019 that "poets today write in the wake of a long tradition of resistance in American poetry. They heed the ethical imperative to [End Page 317] bear witness, to speak out, to advocate for social and economic equality, to combat the forces of various '-isms,' yet not at the expense of artful language or a loyalty to self—a duality of purpose that is consistent from generation to generation" (xxviii–xxix). While Jackson's comments are focused specifically on poets writing for adults, his assessment holds true for poets writing for young readers as well, who—as is evidenced by the works published this year—are very clearly working in that same rich tradition of resistance. Our winner this year is Kwame Alexander's The Undefeated, a powerful poem—an ode in picture book form—illustrated by Kadir Nelson in his signature figurative-style oil paintings against white backgrounds. Winner of the 2020 Caldecott Medal and a Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award, as well as a Newbery Honor, The Undefeated is striking not only narratively and visually, but also poetically. The poem makes use of anaphora, intertextuality, repetition, imagery, and lyricism, examining the African American experience throughout history and into the present moment. It is, as the book's dust jacket proclaims, "a love letter to America. To black America," creating a woven tapestry and celebration of Black history, resilience, and joy. This love letter, as both a poem and a picture book, aches to be read aloud–a plea which is not lost on Alexander, who includes a link to an audio version of the poem on the copyright page. Across the book as a whole and within individual double-page spreads, Alexander's poetry and Nelson's images create a collage of the past and present. Many of Nelson's illustrations are literal collages of notable figures from Black history and culture, as when artists and writers such as Romare Bearden, Zora Neal Hurston, Phillis Wheatley, and Langston Hughes mingle across two pages. The figures are identified in The Undefeated's substantive paratextual material, which provides details about the people and events depicted in the book's pages. Alexander's poetry similarly pulls together the writings of Black figures, highlighting this intertextuality through the use of italics and capitalization. He utilizes words from Frantz Fanon made famous during the Civil Rights Movement by Malcom X as he writes that the poem is for "the ones who survived / America / by any means necessary" (emphasis original), accompanied by an image of an unnamed family. Langston Hughes's poem "Weary Blues" is juxtaposed with Nelson's illustration of a Black Union soldier during the Civil War, one of The audacious oneswho carried the red, white, and Weary Blueson the battlefieldto save an imperfect Union. (emphasis original) The linkage of past to present is powerfully accomplished in three separate double-page spreads that each contain the phrase, "This is for the unspeakable." [End Page 318] Each spread...

Birrarung Wilam: A Story from Aboriginal Australia

Birrarung Wilam:A Story from Aboriginal Australia Aunty Joy Murphy, Andrew Kelly, Lisa Kennedy, and Deborah Stevenson, Editor Murphy, Aunty Joy Birrarung Wilam: A Story from Aboriginal Australia; written by Aunty Joy Murphy and Andrew Kelly; illus. by Lisa Kennedy. Candlewick, 2020 [40p] Trade ed. ISBN 9781536209426 $17.99 Reviewed from galleys R* 4-9 yrs What's home, and how do you describe it? What's special about what lives there? Those are the questions answered about the great Australian river Birrarung, in English the river Yarra, by the partnership of Murphy (the Senior Aboriginal Elder of the Wurundjeri people, and a noted storyteller), Kelly (the Riverkeeper of the river Yarra), and Kennedy (descended from the Trawlwoolway people). Drawing on the Woiwurring language of the Wurundjeri, this gentle story chronicles a day in the life of the river and those who live in its habitat ("wilam" means "home"), traveling from its source to its mouth as the day goes on. Woiwurring terms for local flora, fauna, and geography combine seamlessly and unitalicized with English in what is essentially a bilingual text ("Deep in the yerin, wallert comes home. … Parnmin falls on djerang, flows down wirrup, and soaks into yeameneen beek"). It's a musical and well-crafted text that evinces Murphy's roots in storytelling, but the synthesis of languages immediately sharpens listener attention. Young audiences will enjoy scrutinizing the art and using their deductive skills to guess what the words mean (an appended glossary of the Woiwurrung words, keyed by thumbnail to each spread, offers a pronunciation guide as well as definitions for preparation of readers aloud and revelation of answers for those guessing youngsters). The text starts and ends with Bunjil, the wedge-tailed eagle that is the creator spirit of the Wurundjeri, in between noting birds, mammals, and fish, river, farmlands, and city. The result is an evocative depiction of an ecosystem that emphasizes the view of the people who have been there longest. The acrylic illustrations are intoxicatingly beautiful. Lush full-bleed doublepage spreads are packed with flora and fauna (including people) and they glow with saturated color. Kennedy's deft hand ensures that compositions are perfectly weighted, with white and light highlights lifting every page, patterned elements echoing traditional Aboriginal design, and easy visual rhythm suffusing every spread. Nor is it just the river that shapes the illustrations: in one, rhyming pale tree trunks provide vertical emphasis, in another, an underground burrow snakes across the page (a shape echoed by a bike trail on a subsequent spread); in all, plants grow and flower vigorously, bursting with life, and animals unusual to American eyes go about their riparian existence. There's an Edenic flavor to some scenes, like the one featuring kangaroos grazing alongside the winding river, knee deep in verdant flowering vegetation, but this is less Eden than a kindly post-industrial world with people biking alongside the river or rowing in it, and the gleaming city skyline is a geometric accent rather than an intrusion. [End Page 461] Kids who would normally snooze through a travelogue will find this inviting, and those already interested in in ecosystems may be encouraged to similarly document their own. It's also a book that offers many possible approaches. You can draw on it it for a discussion of place alongside books like Wheatley's My Place (BCCB 7/90), or as an introduction to Australian wildlife in partnership with Nic Bishop's photoessays such as Nic Bishop Marsupials (BCCB 11/09). Or bring it out as part of an exploration of rivers, alongside Cooper's River (BCCB 10/19) or even that old American classic, Holling's Paddle-to-the-Sea. However you use it, it's a dazzling literary journey. (See p. 489 for publication information.) Copyright © 2020 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

A Ray of Light: A Book of Science and Wonder by Walter Wick

Reviewed by: A Ray of Light: A Book of Science and Wonder by Walter Wick Elizabeth Bush Wick, Walter A Ray of Light: A Book of Science and Wonder; written and illus. with photographs by Walter Wick. Scholastic, 2019 [40p] ISBN 978-0-439-16587-7 $17.99 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 5-8 Over two decades have passed since Wick delighted audiences with his science-infused picture books A Drop of Water: A Book of Science and Wonder (BCCB 2/97) and Walter Wick’s Optical Tricks (BCCB 10/98). This title, a long planned companion to Water, examines light through text and gloriously photographed demonstrations, which are expanded and explained in closing notes for readers with advanced interest in science and/or digital photography. Topics related to the physics and the investigation of light and color occupy double-page spreads, and although text for each is only a paragraph or two long, some content can be as challenging as textbook lessons. The book’s greatest strength is the way explanations of wave length and refraction, spectrums and incandescence and iridescence come to life through pristine and artfully composed photographs that coordinate closely with the text, making this a pleasure for browsers and a rewarding surprise for science phobes. A closing double-page spread offers additional information, a graph on the full spectrum of electromagnetic radiation, and notes on each featured topic. Copyright © 2019 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Hellboy’s World: Comics and Monsters on the Margins by Scott Bukatman

Reviewed by: Hellboy’s World: Comics and Monsters on the Margins by Scott Bukatman Ellen Kirkpatrick (bio) Hellboy’s World: Comics and Monsters on the Margins by Scott Bukatman. University of California Press. 2016. $60 hardcover; $19.92 paper; $18.92 e-book. 280pages. Before settling in to read Scott Bukatman’s Hellboy’s World: Comics and Monsters on the Margins, I took time—perhaps a little too much time—to admire the glorious, and gloriously reproduced, images contained within it. And, having now read the book, I don’t think Scott Bukatman would have minded that digression at all. Hellboy’s World is a lovely object. The soft-touch matte cover feels luxurious in the hand, much like actual Hellboy trades. Its roughly A5 pamphlet size makes it easy to hold, and it is crammed with full-color images, which often take up double-page spreads. Congratulations to the editorial folks at the University of California Press who supported the inclusion of so many images, and of course to Mike Mignola, who allowed his artwork to appear so profusely throughout the text. Other academic publishers should take note. It is fitting to open this review with a description of the material book itself, as this is a central aspect of Bukatman’s treatise. Hellboy’s World is at its heart a book about “bookishness” (“codicological consciousness”) and is concerned with the “changing status” of books in an increasingly digitized world.1 Bukatman argues that comic books—in their form, materiality, and marginality—are just as monstrous, or [End Page 160] disruptive, as the characters appearing within the pages of a Hellboy comic book. Bukatman is interested here in exploring the raw power of words, images, books, and reading. Descriptions denoting Bukatman’s, Mignola’s (“undeniably, a book guy”), and Hellboy’s bibliophilia abound.2 Mignola even says that his parting gift to Hellboy may well be to leave him in a library. In so doing, Bukatman—consciously or not, and not unproblematically—sets about privileging the book, and comic book, as material object. This motif recurs throughout the entire text. Hellboy’s World is not an intimidating book in either its materiality or its content. And to start with, it is perhaps easier to say what Hellboy’s World is not. It is not an extensive critical study of Hellboy or a close, detailed textual analysis. Similarly, it is not a treatise on comics form and functionalism. It is not an aca-fan’s account of a beloved fan object (critical and/or celebratory), or even an auteur study. But it does contain elements of all, and much like Hellboy himself, Bukatman’s analysis—when we do see it—certainly packs a punch. What we are offered here is a lovingly written insight not only into the makings of Mike Mignola’s Hellboy but also into the adventure of reading it, of entering into Hellboy’s world. As Bukatman himself states, “Beyond celebrating Hellboy . . . the real purpose of Hellboy’s World is to open up new ways of understanding the experience of reading comics, using the work of Mike Mignola as its primary case study.”3 Bukatman opens his discussion with an evocation of an act of reading—Walter Benjamin’s “One-Way Street”—returning to its images and ideas time and again.4 Bukatman adeptly uses this account to draw out the themes he wishes to pursue: the power of books as material objects; the affective pleasure of reading, and the reciprocal relations between reader and text; the play—or as he imagines it, the “adventure”—of reading, and in this case, of reading Hellboy comic books. Bukatman draws from an extensive, yet perhaps not surprising, range of sources and media approaches. Alongside interspersed details from a clearly relished meeting with Mignola, we are exposed to theories and ideas from the worlds of painting and sculpture, film, children’s books, graphic design, and medieval manuscripts. For all this, however, this is not an overly theoretical book, and Bukatman manages throughout to balance fannish lightness and theoretical shade. Hellboy’s World is divided into five chapters: the first two are concerned with Mignola’s characterization and world building, with...

Adventures of the black square: abstract art and society, 1915-2015

Exploring how the universal visual language of geometric abstraction was influenced by different societies, this volume also demonstrates how the movement's revolutionary aesthetic continues to impact culture around the globe. It traces a century of abstract art from 1915 to the present day, celebrating the accomplishments of both men and women and includes sculpture, film, photography and painting. Organised around four distinct themes - communication, architectonics, utopia and everyday life - the book presents a chronological survey from Russia to Europe, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Central America, Africa, South America, and the US. Each of the 100 works is featured in double-page spreads with brief artist biographies. Essays by Tanya Barson, Briony Fer, Tom McDonough, and Joshua Jiang, contextualize the various geographic and aesthetic stages of the development of geometric abstraction. Published in association with Whitechapel Gallery, London

An Allegory of Divine Love: The Netherlandish Blockbook Canticum Canticorum by Marilyn Aronberg Lavin (review)

An Allegory of Divine Love: The Netherlandish Blockbook Canticum Canticorum. By Marilyn Aronberg Lavin. [Early Modern Catholicism and the Visual Arts, Vol. 10.] (Philadelphia: Saint Joseph's University Press. 2014. Pp. viii, 238. $85.00. ISBN 978-0-916-10179-4.)The Canticum canticorum, a blockbook produced in the Netherlands around 1465-70, is a series (or Suite, as the author calls it) of eight double-page woodcuts comprising four individual pictures each, arranged in two registers per page. The woodcuts depict Christ; a crowned and haloed young woman (Mary); and various bystanders, mostly a group of three virgins (the daughters of Sion). The pictures contain banderoles with (xylographie) texts, taken from the Latin text of the Canticles but arranged in different from the Vulgate. By being inserted in banderoles, the texts are turned into a dialogue between the persons depicted, with the pictures serving as a aid to understand and to meditate on the text. Although the sequence of the pages varies in some of the approximately thirty surviving copies, they are here reproduced in the order accepted by the author as original (p. 222). Each of the eight double-page spreads is presented first in a reproduction from the (uncolored) copy held by the Pierpont Morgan Librar)' in New York; subsequently, each of the four pictures is analyzed individually in minute detail, beginning with a reproduction from a 1949 facsimile, a description, an iconographie study of visual parallels (p. 16), transcriptions and translations of the Latin inscriptions, interpretations of the verses by modern and medieval authors (Marvin Pope, Giles of Rome, Nicholas of Lyra, Denys the Carthusian), and a brief summary (analysis). The book thus allows the reader to immerse her- or himself deeply into the fifteenth-century blockbook. It is very attractively designed, with more than 200 color reproductions of works of art that can in some way be compared with the (highly unusual) iconography of the blockbook. Rather than putting the blockbook solely in the context of medieval illustrated manuscripts of the Canticles, Marilyn Aronberg Lavin draws on copious material from other forms of art-mainly Italian paintings and frescoes. This method, of course, raises questions as to whether direct influences between such different works of art, which originated in different regions, are possible; but instead of studying antecedents, Lavin intends to make the reader familiar with a widespread iconographie repertoire that allowed fifteenth-century users to understand and contextualize the blockbook. …

The Heartless Troll by Øyvind Torseter

Reviewed by: The Heartless Troll by Øyvind Torseter April Spisak Torseter, Øyvind The Heartless Troll; written and illus. by Øyvind Torseter; tr. by Kari Dickson. Enchanted Lion, 2016 114p ISBN 978-1-59270-193-3 $19.95 R* Gr. 5-8 This Norwegian import builds on the bones of a traditional folktale called “The Troll with No Heart in His Body” to make a thoughtful, poetic look at an underdog who sets off on a quest, defeats the bad guy, and saves (and gets) the girl. Prince Fred convinces his bereft father to let him go into the world to seek his six lost older brothers. He’s determined and he’s got a sardonic talking horse, which is a promising start, but Fred’s up against a lot of obstacles, especially the troll who can only be defeated by finding his hidden heart (spoiler alert: if you are going to hide your heart in a jar near an octopus, remember the cephalopods’ remarkable jar-opening abilities). Aside from a few prose passages, this story is told through the illustrations and in speech-bubble dialogue. Panels are used on occasion, but most of the illustrations are full page or even double-page spreads, immersing readers fully into this restricted palette world (red touches contrast with the largely black and white art) that is both sparse and lush, foreboding and welcoming. The troll is stunning—squashed into the borders of pages, with blurred gray and black eyes and body contortions that speak to both cruelty and a terror of being alone. It is clear that the troll is following the nature of trolls, and Prince Fred, a good guy through and through, is reluctant to harm it. Readers who appreciate the darker side of most old folk or fairy tales will warm to this one immediately, and graphic novel buffs who think they’ve long outgrown these sorts of stories will see how they can be made sophisticated, disturbing, and memorable in the hands of the right artist. Copyright © 2016 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Sea Rex by Molly Idle (review)

Reviewed by: Sea Rex by Molly Idle Amy Atkinson Idle, Molly Sea Rex; written and illus. by Molly Idle. Viking, 2015 [40p] ISBN 978-0-670-78574-2 $16.99 Reviewed from galleys R 4-7 yrs Cordelia and her beloved T. rex, Rex, take to the beach in this latest installment of Idle’s unfailingly charming Rex series (Camp Rex, BCCB 5/14, etc.). Continuing the ironic relationship between gently guiding prose and whimsical images that subvert textual advice, Idle provides plenty of humor, with, for instance, a giggle-inducing view of Rex sporting a pool float around his waist and a tiny sailor’s hat on his head amidst the hijinks caused by seagulls, cannonball jumps, and little brothers. The dynamic illustrations, rendered in color pencil on vellum, make the most of a sunny, retro-toned palette, with pinks, corals, and shades of blue sweeping the page in both snapshot-like panels and immersive double-page spreads. With the addition of dino buddies—a sunbathing, salmon-colored triceratops, a lifeguarding, tangelo-toned pterodactyl, and a snorkeling, cerulean stegosaurus—Idle raises the endearing level. A perfect primer for summer fun, this is a sweet and silly readaloud. Copyright © 2015 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois

Whale Trails: Before and Now by Lesa Cline-Ransome (review)

Reviewed by: Whale Trails: Before and Now by Lesa Cline-Ransome Elizabeth Bush Cline-Ransome, Lesa Whale Trails: Before and Now; illus. by G. Brian Karas. Ottaviano/Holt, 2015 34p ISBN 978-0-8050-9642-2 $17.99 R 5-8 yrs A little girl joins her father aboard his boat, the Cuffee, which takes tourists out for a day of whale-watching. She explains the family business, comparing it to the early days of commercial whaling, with full-color pictures on the verso of each spread and sepia illustrations on the recto (“The pier where our boat is docked is lined with booths that sell souvenirs, sunglasses, binoculars, and sunscreen”; “Before now, this pier was lined with the shops of shipbuilders, candle makers, blacksmiths, and sail makers”). The tourists’ excitement upon first seeing a whale breach contrasts vividly with the moment in times past when the whalers shared the same sight and began their chase; double-page spreads for these scenes mark the climax of parallel adventures. The narrator clearly loves the family business, which allows respectful whale viewing from a safe distance, but she isn’t sternly judgmental about whale hunting in the past; in fact, she takes pride in the fact that she is a descendant of generations of African-American whalers. Karas’ pictures are not only engaging but packed with visual information that effortlessly supplements the text. Endnotes, complete with a glossary and a half dozen resources for further investigation, expand on the whaling industry (with a nod to critique of well-meaning eco-tourism, which may be interrupting whales’ behavior) and remark on black abolitionist and whaler Paul Cuffee, for whom the fictional tour boat is named. Copyright © 2015 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois