A Day in the Life of Georgia O'KeeffeIllustrated by Ora Eitan
Melanie Kroupa Books, FSG, 2009
$16.95
Rating: 3.5
32 pages
Endpapers: 11 squares of illustrations of Georgia O'Keeffe in various daily activities - mainly outdoors.
This book is, indeed, about a ficticious day in the life of Georgia O'Keeffe when she was in her 70"s, living alone at her home in the New Mexican desert. She lived simply, waiting for the light to change, enjoying the joy of natural color and flowers and the shine of light on the bones she picked up in the desert.
Kathryn Lasky researched this (she calls it historical fiction) by reading many of O'Keeffe's letters and visiting Abiqui, O'Keeffe's home in the New Mexican desert. Her writing is eloquent and tells the story of O'Keeffe's life, her activities, her thinking, quite perfectly. I can so see it.
I wasn't enamored of the illustrations, although the cover was eye-catching and they do grow on me more and more as I look at them. The cream colored pages give the book a soft desert-y glow, but either the font type or color made it very difficult for me to read. And the page of gray font in the lavender sky seems almost invisible. Granted, I'm blind as a bat - but I'm reading this sitting in a sharply-lit library.....
This is a very nice addition to my collection of Georgia O'Keeffee picture books.
An interesting author's note and list of resources is included.
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