Can You Imagine? The Art and Life of Yoko Ono

The creators of this artful biography of activist and artist Yoko Ono (b. 1933) underline the life of a person who never loses her sense of self. Growing up in a wealthy, artistic family, Ono felt lonely and misunderstood, but her prodigious imagination brought solace amid displacement, neglect, prejudice, and war. She became a pioneer in performance art, breaking boundaries between artist and audience, described in these pages in frank but approachable terms. Marriage to John Lennon unleashes public vitriol: “People say Yoko’s art is strange and her music is not very good,” Tolin writes; “Worse, they say she is breaking up the Beatles. They don’t even like the way she looks.” But Ono “knows how to pick herself up,” and keeps making her dreams into art following Lennon’s death. Mural-like gouache and watercolor images by Imamura match the text’s blend of reportorial and poetic, forming a fitting tribute to an artist who is both unrepentantly idealistic and unmistakably tough-minded. More about Ono and an author’s note conclude. Ages 4–8. (Feb.)