John James Audubon

Children's Literature - Beverly Kobrin

Did you know that John James Audubon was the first to band birds? He tied silver threads around phoebe nestlings' legs to learn if the birds returned to their birthplace the following year. (They did.) John Kastner tells of this and other incidents in his fine "First Impressions" biography of the 19th century naturalist/artist. How the man whose name is synonymous with birds studied them and sketched, painted and eventually published their portraits is a fascinating look at perseverance-and talent. Audubon's watercolors illustrate almost every page.

School Library Journal

Gr 5 Up-- Two high-quality biographies. The hallmarks of the series, well-spaced text and fine art reproduction, complement the smooth professionalism of the writing. Because Audubon kept diaries and journals of his travels in the American West and his frequent Atlantic crossings to England and France, Kastner has an easier task than Waldron in writing a lively account of his subject's adventurous life. He skillfully blends quotations and authentic commentary into a readable story of the young Frenchman who, obsessed with the world of nature and particularly devoted to observing the beauty of variety of birdlife, spent his life developing a natural talent for nature study into high documentary art. Waldron's task in describing Goya is to capture in 92 pages the intense, individualistic painting of a sometimes mad genius, as well the intrigues of the Spanish royal court and the impact of the revolutionary European political scene on the people of Spain. She succeeds admirably, balancing personal life and political events, handling with sensitivity the artist's periods of depression, his physical suffering, and the dark and tortured vision that produced his etchings of war and his sometimes sad and sardonic portraits. The most famous of his canvases are beautifully reproduced, many in full color, and the biography is a fine introduction to one of the greatest and most interesting painters of Europe. Both of these rigorously researched and admirably executed art history books should be welcomed in most collections. --Shirley Wilton, Ocean County College, Toms River, NJ