Georgia Rises: A Day in the Life of Georgia O'Keeffe

Collaborators Lasky (One Beetle Too Many ) and Eitan (Scuba Bunnies ) offer a quietly stirring tribute to the artist Georgia O'Keeffe. The illustrations, which cast the desert landscapes and O'Keeffe's adobe residence in boldly colored block-print-style paintings, don't so much resemble O'Keeffe's own work as they imaginatively capture the unfolding creative process. Waking before dawn, O'Keeffe steps through the desert as the sky slowly lightens and she discovers a possible image for a painting: “A bone gleaming white sits as pretty as angel wings just ahead.... The shapes are so simple—the wings of this bone reach up for the moon.” As the sky turns lavender, she paints the bone. Later, she climbs to the roof of her orange house to “watch the sky,” finding solace in the moment: “She has forgotten about the crick in her back and her sore feet. She is painting the whiteness of the bone.” At night, she goes to sleep in an indigo-blue room where “she will dream of green skies and white bones and the raven's wings.” Endnotes provide contextual information on O'Keeffe's life and art. Ages 3–up. (June)