Rembrandt Takes a Walk

On a visit to his rich eccentric uncle, who owns many wonderful paintings, Tom is amazed when Rembrandt leaves his self-portrait and takes a walk with Tom.

Grade 2-4 This book somewhat resembles a Pinkwater fling and has some of his humor, but Strand doesn't develop any of his characters or situations. It seems like the first draft of an interesting idea that is not fully developed. A young boy goes to visit his tightwad uncle, whose sole passion is collecting art. He gives poor Tom only half of a hamburger for supper. The following morning, a hungry Tom discovers that he can pluck the fruit from the Cezanne and Zurbaran paintings and eat it. Unable to remember which fruit goes where, and afraid that his uncle will notice, Tom is delighted when Rembrandt steps out of a self-portrait and offers to help. But Rembrandt wants to look around this modern world. He and Tom take a turn around town before Rembrandt steps back into his painting. The ideas are beyond the grasp of preschool and primary grade audiences, and the story isn't developed enough for the third and fourth graders who might enjoy it. Red Grooms' vividly-colored artwork, reflecting the personal vision of the world that his fine art exhibits, has a wild, slapdash feeling of immediacy, but the layout has a thrown-together quality. Text is inserted willy nilly around the picture, sometimes in white type on a dark background, sometimes in black type over color washes where it is hard to read; on other pages white swatches are patched in to accomodate the text. Tacking the bibliographic data at the bottom of the last page also detracts from the presentation of the book.Judith Gloyer, Milwaukee Public Library
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This elegantly illustrated book is a marvelous place through which to take a leisurely visual walk. Of lesser interest is Strand's story of Tommy, a boy who visits his art collector uncle and discovers a magical ability to make Old Masters come to life. Tommy eats some apples from a Cezanne and a juicy Zurbaran orange or two. Then he frees Rembrandt from a late self-portrait and the two stroll through town, the artist sketching away with zeal. Unfortunately, the text is a bit precious and at times goes beyond the sophistication of young children. An example is an episode in which Rembrandt exclaims, "What flesh!" as he excitedly draws a portrait of a housewife in her yard, and is mistaken for a dirty old man. Thankfully, Grooms's strikingly original pictures, the artist's first for children, minimize the intrusion of the text.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.