Leonardo da Vinci

by Diane Stanley, Diane Stanley (Illustrator)

Overview

In this magnificent addition to a distinguished series that includes Cleopatra, Joan of Arc, and Bard of Avon: The Story of William Shakespeare, award-winning author-artist Diane Stanley blends wonderful storytelling with gorgeous illustrations to convey the stunning scope of Leonardo da Vinci's genius in a book that has won many awards and earned two starred reviews. This nonfiction picture book is an excellent choice to share during homeschooling, in particular for children ages 6 to 8. It’s a fun way to learn to read and as a supplement for activity books for children.

A 1996 ALA Notable Book
A 1997 Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Book for Nonfiction
A 1997 Orbis Pictus Award
A 1996 Publishers Weekly Best Books Award

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780688161552
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	08/22/2000
Edition description:	Reprint Edition
Pages:	48
Sales rank:	635,883
Product dimensions:	9.25(w) x 11.00(h) x 0.00(d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Diane Stanely is the author and illustrator of beloved books for young readers, including The Silver Bowl, named a best book of the year by Kirkus Reviews and an ALA Booklist Editors’ Choice; The Cup and the Crown; The Princess of Cortova; Saving Sky, winner of the Arab American Book Award; Bella at Midnight, a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year and an ALA Booklist Editors’ Choice; The Mysterious Case of the Allbright Academy; The Mysterious Matter of I. M. Fine; The Chosen Prince; and Joplin, Wishing.

Ms. Stanley has written and illustrated numerous picture books, including three creatively reimagined fairy tales, The Giant and the Beanstalk, Goldie and the Three Bears, and Rumpelstiltskin’s Daughter, and an award-winning series of picture book biographies. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. You can visit her online at www.dianestanley.com.

Diane Stanely is the author and illustrator of beloved books for young readers, including The Silver Bowl, named a best book of the year by Kirkus Reviews and an ALA Booklist Editors’ Choice; The Cup and the Crown; The Princess of Cortova; Saving Sky, winner of the Arab American Book Award; Bella at Midnight, a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year and an ALA Booklist Editors’ Choice; The Mysterious Case of the Allbright Academy; The Mysterious Matter of I. M. Fine; The Chosen Prince; and Joplin, Wishing.

Ms. Stanley has written and illustrated numerous picture books, including three creatively reimagined fairy tales, The Giant and the Beanstalk, Goldie and the Three Bears, and Rumpelstiltskin’s Daughter, and an award-winning series of picture book biographies. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. You can visit her online at www.dianestanley.com.

Editorial Reviews

"A virtuosic work." — "Publishers Weekly"This is the best of the many children's books on Leonardo." — "ALA Booklist"A stunning account. A first class production in every way."— "The New York Times Book Review"

From the Publisher

A stunning account. A first class production in every way.

New York Times Book Review

Adding this Renaissance genius to the illustrious lineup of individuals whose lives she and Peter Vennema have chronicled, among them Cleopatra, Charles Dickens and William Shakespeare, Stanley produces her most stunning pictorial biography to date. Drawing from a range of sources, including her subject's extensive notebooks, Stanley's conversational narrative describes Leonardo da Vinci's astoundingly far-reaching and varied achievements. Young readers will come to appreciate both da Vinci's universally renowned accomplishments as a painter and the breadth of his scientific experimentation and research. While her text is thoroughly intriguing, even more impressive is the artistic challenge Stanley takes on and triumphantly meets: her paintings not only portray the period particulars and likenesses of da Vinci, his patrons and colleagues, but successfully incorporate, in seamless collages, miniature reproductions of such celebrated masterpieces as The Last Supper and the Mona Lisa. These exquisite reproductions, as well as sepia-toned spot art taken from da Vinci's notebooks, sit uncommonly well within Stanley's own paintings, educating the reader about da Vinci's masterpieces as a natural part of the visual storytelling. A virtuosic work. Ages 7-up. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Gr 4-7Using the format found in her biographies of Cleopatra, Dickens, Shakespeare, and Shaka, Stanley gives readers a fascinating portrait of the Italian genius. The text is readable and interesting; the author is careful to distinguish between facts and surmises, and uses quotes from Leonardo's own writings to demonstrate his attitudes. His possible homosexuality is not discussed. The book's design is exemplary, with text pages bordered by an adaptation of a Leonardo drawing and decorated with images from his notebooks. Full-page paintings in watercolor, gouache, colored pencil, and photo collage face each page of text, many of them showing the artist-inventor testing his creations. A postscript describes the unhappy fate of Leonardo's remains and of his paintings and lost notebooks. A pronunciation guide is included. Richard McLanathan's Leonardo da Vinci (Abrams, 1990) covers the same ground in more detail and for somewhat older readers; Richard Muhlberger's What Makes a Leonardo a Leonardo? (Viking, 1994) is concerned primarily with his paintings, while Rosabianca Skira-Venturi's A Weekend with Leonardo da Vinci (Rizzoli, 1993) is written as though in the artist's own words.Pam Gosner, Maplewood Memorial Library, NJ

School Library Journal

He might be called an eccentric and a dreamer. Stanley (Eléna, p. 142, etc.) goes to great lengths to portray Leonardo da Vinci as a real person, explaining how his genius often went unrecognized by the generations that followed his. His out-of-wedlock birth prevented him from entering upper-class professions (law, medicine, or banking), so Leonardo became an artist by trade. He had difficulty completing the arduous task of painting: His restlessness comes across through the hundreds of inventions and ideas recorded in his notebooks, at least a third of which, readers may be surprised to learn, have been lost. In fact, much of what Leonardo is known for is incomplete or lost: A giant bronze statue of Francesco Sforza on horseback was never made, and the experimental paint Leonardo used for The Last Supper began peeling not long after the painting's completion.

Stanley's large, accessible art mirrors the mood of the Renaissance. Insets help readers see what the text describes, and a thorough bibliography provides sources for more information. More than Leonardo's genius, this book captures the caprice time and fate plays on even the gifted, so that what readers finally admire in Leonardo are not his creations, but his ideas.

Kirkus Reviews