About the Author

Jonah Winter has written many exciting picture book biographies for children, with subjects that include Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Barack Obama, and Dizzy Gillespie. He lives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Ana Juan illustrated Frida, Jonah Winter's picture book biography of Frida Kahlo, which was an ALA Notable Book and received an Am�ricas Honor Award. She also received the Ezra Jack Keats award for The Night Eater, her first book as author-illustrator. She lives in Madrid, Spain.

Reviews

Praise for DIEGO (1991): "An accessible picture book about the life and work of Diego Rivera sounds like an oxymoron, but Winter . . . succeed[s] beyond belief. . . . The last pictures show him as a young man, perched on his scaffolding, brushes in hand, beckoning viewers on with his ardent glance. Readers will wish they could follow." -- School Library Journal"An excellent beginning biography." -- Kirkus* One of The Ruminator Review's 100 Best Children's Books of the Twentieth Century * A Reading Rainbow Review book* A 1991 Parents' Choice Award Honor winnerPraise for FAIR BALL! (1997): Certain to be a hit with kids who take baseball history seriously, Winter's . . . handsome volume devotes a spread each to 14 stars of the Negro Leagues. Balancing stats with engaging trivia and anecdotes, the author will open readers' eyes to the injustices of segregated baseball. . . . This picture book [will help set some records straight. -- Publishers WeeklyA good, highly accessible introduction to a group of athletes who deserve to be as well known as their white counterparts. -- School Library Journal

Winter, who brought the Mexican muralist vividly to life in Diego, focuses on Diego Rivera's bride, Frida Kahlo an accomplished artist in her own right in this striking picture book-biography. With a spare narrative more akin to poetry than prose, the author touches on important events in his subject's childhood Frida's loneliness and the polio that kept her bedridden for months, as well as a bus accident, at age 18, that nearly killed her. He then shows how, each time, art helped her to transcend her injuries ("She turns her pain into something beautiful") and to unleash her magically surreal vision of the world in paintings ("In museums, people still look at them and weep and sigh and smile"). Juan, a Spanish fine artist and New Yorker cover artist making her children's book debut, creates artwork bursting with saturated color and infused with Mexican folk art motifs that also influenced Frida's own style. Floating figures, fantastical creatures and celestial bodies with human features cavort across the pages. Ana transforms Frida herself from a solemn, moon-faced child with uncompromising eyebrows (her well-known physical trait) to a woman whose gaunt features hint at both strength and inner struggle. One particularly breathtaking image shows the artist floating against a night sky, eyes closed and arms crossed on her chest in a death pose, held in the grip of a tree's thorny, gnarled branches ("Her body will hurt, always"). An outstanding introduction to an influential artist. Ages 4-10. (Feb.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Praise for DIEGO (1991): "An accessible picture book about the life and work of Diego Rivera sounds like an oxymoron, but Winter . . . succeed[s beyond belief. . . . The last pictures show him as a young man, perched on his scaffolding, brushes in hand, beckoning viewers on with his ardent glance. Readers will wish they could follow." -- School Library Journal"An excellent beginning biography." -- Kirkus* One of The Ruminator Review's 100 Best Children's Books of the Twentieth Century * A Reading Rainbow Review book* A 1991 Parents' Choice Award Honor winnerPraise for FAIR BALL! (1997): Certain to be a hit with kids who take baseball history seriously, Winter's . . . handsome volume devotes a spread each to 14 stars of the Negro Leagues. Balancing stats with engaging trivia and anecdotes, the author will open readers' eyes to the injustices of segregated baseball. . . . This picture book [will help set some records straight. -- Publishers WeeklyA good, highly accessible introduction to a group of athletes who deserve to be as well known as their white counterparts. -- School Library Journal