Girls Standing on Lawns

by Daniel Handler, Maira Kalman (Illustrator), Sarah Hermanson Meister (Afterword)

Overview

Girls Standing on Lawns is a unique collaboration between renowned artist and bestselling children’s book author Maira Kalman and New York Times bestselling writer Daniel Handler, better known as Lemony Snicket. This clever book contains 40 vintage photographs from the collection of The Museum of Modern Art, New York, more than a dozen original paintings by Kalman inspired by the photographs, and brief, lyrical texts by Handler. Poetic and thought-provoking, Girls Standing on Lawns is a meditation on memories, childhood, nostalgia, home, family, and the act of seeing. The gorgeous visual material sets the stage for what Handler succinctly describes as “a photograph, a painting, a sentence, a pose.” Girls, women, families, and even pets from days gone by grace the pages, looking out at us, enticing readers to imagine these people, their lives—and where they have gone.

Praise for Girls Standing on Lawns
"Kalman supplements the mostly black-and-white, anonymous, amateur snapshots with colorful paintings inspired by the photographs. Handler adds alternately wry, pithy, poignant—and always succinct—commentary to most spreads, inviting readers to ponder the people and scenes as well as their own family photos."
—Booklist

"Handler provides free verse that is both spare and sparse throughout the collection, contextualizing the thematic groupings and offering imaginative insight into what might have motivated the preservation of such frozen moments. The project is interesting and the images thought provoking."
—The Bulletin of The Center for Children’s Books

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780870709081
Publisher:	The Museum of Modern Art
Publication date:	05/06/2014
Pages:	64
Sales rank:	929,063
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	10 - 14 Years

About the Author

Maira Kalman is a bestselling and award-winning artist, illustrator, and writer whose books include 13 Words (with Lemony Snicket), And the Pursuit of Happiness, and The Elements of Style. Her artwork has been the subject of 14 solo exhibitions and has also been featured in group exhibitions in major museums. Girls Standing on Lawns is the first title in a series of illustrated children’s books Kalman will be publishing with MoMA, inspired by MoMA’s photography collection.
Daniel Handler is the internationally renowned author of the A Series of Unfortunate Events series, whose books have sold over 60 million copies in 44 languages.

Editorial Reviews

02/24/2014
Handler and Kalman (Why We Broke Up) explore photographs held by the Museum of Modern Art, a selection of mostly b&w vintage snapshots of young women posing on lawns. The girls look decorative, awkward, sometimes grim (like the woman in the grass skirt in front of bare winter trees), sometimes hilarious (a pair of fashionably shod legs stick out of a hedge). Handler’s commentary wanders between the voices of the subjects (“My whole life I have not known where to put my hands”) and that of a wise, older-brotherish commentator (“You don’t have to be self-conscious. We’re all fools”). Kalman contributes her own inimitable paintings: a girl in a dance costume flanked by two terriers, a jaunty woman perched on a gate. Handler captures the essential paradox of the photograph as historical record: “None of this is there, not anymore. And yet we are still standing.” There’s a marked insider/outsider feel to the project, first in a planned collaborative series between Handler, Kalman, and the museum; those familiar with the Handler/Kalman sensibility will be delighted, while those not in the know may find it baffling. Ages 10–up. (May)

Publishers Weekly

04/01/2014
Gr 7 Up—Vernacular photography is, as this book describes, photographs taken without artistic ambition. That is what a traditional snapshot is, or in this age of Instagram and digital photography, what it was. Who snapped the photos is unknown. The people and places are long gone, but these photographs of girls standing on lawns remain. Found, anonymous, and removed from their original context, these snapshots have now been given a new life. With text by Handler and paintings by Kalman based on snapshots from collection of the Museum of Modern Art, this is a short, beautiful, and nostalgic book. The spare text ponders the matter-of-factness depicted in the snapshots and the occasional colorful paintings are as playful as the original black-and-white source material. A girl with her arms awkwardly crossed is accompanied by the statement "My whole life I have not known where to put my hands." Another photo of a girl standing on a sidewalk instead of the nearby lawn is accompanied by the answer to the obvious but unasked question, "Because I didn't want to ruin my shoes, is why." The minimal text has the rhythm and simplicity of a children's book, but there is a thought-provoking complexity present that will appeal to teens and adults. This title can also help to inspire creativity, as the idea of using found photographs as the basis for a narrative provides endless possibilities for young adults, teachers, and programming librarians.—Billy Parrott, Mid-Manhattan Library, NYPL

School Library Journal

2014-03-31
This trim, clothbound first in a series from Kalman and Handler for the Museum of Modern Art offers an intriguing painting-and-prose response to a selection of photographs of, as the title indicates, girls and young women standing on lawns. The 42 black-and-white photographs presented here are unremarkable at first glance. Gifts to the museum from a handful of donors, including Kalman, they represent the work of mostly amateur photographers from 1910 to 1955. Handler's droll, laconic prose poem complements the one-dimensional nature of these images; a few words accompanying each invite readers to consider that someone in particular is standing in each photograph: "Keep track of this. / You will not remember / every place you have stood." The combination of lawns, "girls" and posing for the camera seems to speak of a particular place, demographic and time. All are affecting, artless and sometimes poignant in their anonymity, but only two depict subjects who are not white: a young black girl standing with the only boy in these images, perhaps her younger brother; a young black woman in another. Kalman reinterprets 10 images in her energetic and inimitable fauve-esque palette; the unique charm of her paintings calls attention to the way the camera captures both what is intended and…something else. The MoMA's curator of photography offers a note on a brief history of home photography and provides a description ("vernacular photography") for the genre. Terrific appetizer for discussion. (Poetry. 8 & up)

Kirkus Reviews