Blue Rider - Hardcover

Valério, Geraldo

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1554989817 ISBN 13: 9781554989812

Publisher: Groundwood Books, 2018

Synopsis

“[A] dazzling vision of the way art transcends the everyday.” ― Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW

On a gray and crowded city sidewalk, a child discovers a book. That evening, the child begins to read and is immediately carried beyond the repetitive sameness of an urban skyscape into an untamed natural landscape. The child experiences a moment of true joy, and as if in response to that single blissful moment, people seem to come alive in all the other rooms of the apartment block. Thanks to the power of one book, an entire society is transformed.

In creating this book, Geraldo Valério was inspired by the German Expressionist group known as Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), which formed in Munich in 1911 and included painters Franz Marc and Wassily Kandinsky. These artists sought to find the spiritual significance in art, with an emphasis on form and color. In turn, Valério has created a wordless book that speaks volumes about how art can transform us beyond the sometimes-dreary world of the everyday.

Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.1.1
Ask and answer questions about key details in a text.

About this title

About the Author

GERALDO VALÉRIO was born in Brazil, where he received a Bachelor of Arts in Drawing, followed by a Master of Arts at New York University. His books, which frequently receive starred reviews, include My Book of Butterflies and My Book of Birds, Two Green Birds, At the Pond (Elizabeth Mrazik-Cleaver Award honor book), Blue Rider, Turn On the Night and Night Runners. His work has been published in Canada, the US, Brazil, Portugal, France, the UK and China. Geraldo lives in Toronto, Ontario.

Reviews

K-Gr 2—Colors and shapes dominate the imaginative romp of a city girl. The wordless story opens with a child peering out of her high-rise apartment. She ventures outdoors into mobs of busy people of all ages, and comes upon an abandoned blue book featuring a jumping horse on its cover. She embraces it, takes it home, and reads it in her stark bedroom. Valério gives viewers a close-up of the steed with rainbow mane and tail. The heroine imagines the horse flying over the city, dropping brightly colored shapes across the sky like confetti. As the horse speeds up on following spreads, the shapes grow larger and more varied until they finally block out the horse entirely. Several pages follow, each overflowing with abstract blocks that finally release the horse, with the child on its back. At last, she is shown asleep in her room, which is now transformed with the shapes and colors she's dreamed up. The contrast of the city's earth tones and repetitive shapes deftly contrasts with the bliss of brightness that comes later. VERDICT Art teachers should employ this for student inspiration. —Gay Lynn Van Vleck, Henrico County Library, Glen Allen, VA

Edition details

• Publisher: Groundwood Books
• Publication date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1554989817
• ISBN 13: 9781554989812
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 44