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  • The Fantastic Jungles of Henri Rousseau
  • Elizabeth Bush
Markel, Michelle . The Fantastic Jungles of Henri Rousseau; illus. by Amanda Hall. Eerdmans, 2012. 34p. ISBN 978-0-8028-5364-6 $17.00 R 6-10 yrs.

"Henri Rousseau wants to be an artist. Not a single person has ever told him he is talented." No matter; he launched his new career at the age of forty. He couldn't afford lessons. No matter; he taught himself. He couldn't afford to travel. No matter; he pulled exotic landscapes from his imagination. He couldn't win over the critics. No matter: "His paintings now hang in museums all over the world." In this charming picture-book biography Markel portrays the famous late-blooming artist as an eccentric amalgam of dreamy naïveté and raw determination, whose eventual success had less to do with winning over naysayers than allowing the art world to catch up with his progressive vision. Illustrator Hall quotes rather than slavishly imitates Rousseau's visual style, adding strong surrealistic touches of her own. A panel of stern critics, several of whom are rendered as jungle beasts, glower down at a tiny figure of Rousseau hauling a cart full of canvases; the elderly, white-smocked artist rides a tiger over the jungle treetops, trailing a rainbow of paints from his brush tips. A brief author's note extends the historical content, and a pair of appended diagrams identifies the avant-garde notables included in party scenes. Pair this with Anderson's Strange Mr. Satie (BCCB 9/03) or Winter's Gertrude Is Gertrude Is Gertrude Is Gertrude (BCCB 1/09) for a tour of the wild side of the belle époque.

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