BOOKS

Animal faces captivate in One Gorilla

One Gorilla: A Counting Book by Anthony Browne. Candlewick. $16.99. Ages 3-7.

It is difficult - possibly impossible - to remember a recent counting book that has clambered up out of the slough of “useful” into the rarefied strata of “stunning” and “memorable.” Hats off to Anthony Browne for creating One Gorilla. Set against stark white backgrounds, the inhabitants of each page function exactly as objects in a counting book are required to do: one gorilla gives way to two orangutans, three chimpanzees and so on up to 10 lemurs. Stripped of their natural habitats and artfully grouped, they are extraordinarily easy to count. The numerals that appear on each left-hand page are big, bold and colorful, standard components that reinforce the book’s utilitarian status. The super-saturated color palette is vivid enough to attract even the most jaded young eyes dulled by Saturday morning cartoons. But it is the faces peering back at the observer that change everything: wise, cunning, playful, exuberant, crafty, sweet and sly.They are us, we are them. Just as Katherine Applegate’s Newbery Award-winning The One and Only Ivan allowed a gentle silverback to speak directly to older readers, this picture book invites the very youngest to gaze into the luminous eyes of their primate cousins and see a spirit as intense, as intricate and as important as their own. (Kristi Elle Jemtegaard)

Diego Rivera: An Artist for the People by Susan Goldman Rubin. Abrams. $21.95. Age 8 and up

“People I love most,” said Diego Rivera, “think I look like a frog.” A large frog, apparently, for at age 20 he was more than 6 feet tall and weighed more than 300 pounds. But Rivera’s outsize physique was more than matched by his prodigious talent and adventurous spirit, as Susan Goldman Rubin’s new biography makes clear.Enhanced by gorgeously reproduced photos and artwork, Rubin’s account follows the Mexican artist from his early drawings - as a small child, he was given free rein in a room “covered with black canvas as high as he could reach” - through his eventful, productive life. Rubin describes Rivera’s turbulent romantic history, but she focuses on his extraordinary paintings and murals, in which he exalted Mexico’s past as well as the world’s laborers. She particularly delves into the stories behind Rivera’s National Palace murals, his Detroit Industry series and his doomed Rockefeller Center mural. The book’s last full-color image is a detail from Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Park. And then there’s Rivera’s lookalike: a frog, emerging from his jacket pocket. (Abby McGanney Nolan)

Hattie Ever After by Kirby Larson. Delacorte. $16.99. Age 12 and up.

The early 20th century is suddenly chic, thanks to Downton Abbey, the BBC series that is entertaining teens as well as their older relatives. Those enthralled by the styles and shenanigans of the British household may be intrigued by Hattie Ever After, a young adult novel set in 1919 America. Our heroine, Hattie Inez Brooks, is no pampered earl’s daughter, though, but a plucky orphan first introduced in Kirby Larson’s Hattie Big Sky, winner of a Newbery Honor in 2007.This sequel opens with Hattie, 17, trying to figure out her next step, now that her Montana farm has failed. In the matter of a few chapters, she leaves the Treasure State to travel with a troupe of vaudevillians to San Francisco and a job as a charwoman for the Chronicle, one of the city’s pre-eminent newspapers. But Hattie is determined to exchange her feather duster for a reporter’s pad and search out the hard news, like her idol, the legendary journalist Nellie Bly. Larson brings this bustling city to vivid life through glimpses of Chinatown, Great Beach Highway and the Chronicle offices, with their “inky perfume” and clattering presses. Hattie befriends (and sometimes interviews) actresses, nurses, cleaning ladies, a hard-nosed female reporter and a beguiling con artist. Don’t let the publisher’s “12 and up” age range stop you from sharing this lively tale with younger newshounds and history buffs.With her can-do spirit, thirst for adventure and squeakyclean romance, Hattie, despite her advanced teen years, may appeal most to readers 9 to 13. (Mary Quattlebaum)

Family, Pages 39 on 03/13/2013

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