Quick Pick: Fine Arts

When Stravinsky Met Nijinsky: Two Artists, Their Ballet, and One Extraordinary Riot by Lauren Stringer

The Russian artists Igor Stravinsky and Vaslav Nijinsky were popular in their time: Stravinsky for music, Nijinsky for dance.  When their radically new ballet, The Rite of Spring, was first performed in Paris on May 29, 1913, the reaction was so polarized, there were fistfights and riots!  Brilliant or disastrous, the performance marked the birth of modern music and dance.  Stringer’s rhythmic text and gloriously inventive, color-rich paintings capture the wild and imaginative collaboration of composer and choreographer.

 

Lascaux!

lascaux_painting (Photo credit: williamcromar)

This summer’s theme is Have Book – Will Travel!  Why not travel back in time – way back – maybe 17,000 years back?  Currently and through September 8 you can do that at the Field Museum.  Visit the Mystery of the Lascaux Caverns!

In September 1940 four teenage boys and a dog named Robot were climbing Lascaux Hill near Montignac, France.  Robot fell into a hole.  The boys returned with lamps and a rope to look for the dog.  Not only did they find Robot, but their lamps also illuminated a hidden world – huge, colorful wall paintings of Pleistocene Age animals.  Bulls, bison, deer, and horses came into view.  The texture of the cave walls had enabled the prehistoric artists to show perspective and feelings of movement.

Scenes from the Stone Age:  The Cave Paintings of Lascaux

At the Field Museum, explore a recreation of parts of the Lascaux Caverns.  (The actual caves in France have been closed to the public since 1963 due to destructive moisture.)  A small, tube-like  reconstruction  of the caves winds through the exhibit space.  See models of a stone-age family made by the sculptor Elisabeth Daynès and wearing replicas of clothing of the time.  Look at objects of their everyday lives.  You can view videos of the modern artists talking about their work for the exhibit.  You can even draw your own animal on an electronic tablet!

Want to be in an online drawing for a Family Plus Membership to the Field Museum?  Fountaindale cardholders ages 0 through 11 (not entering 6th grade in fall) can join the Have Book — Will Travel! children’s summer reading program.  Registration is June 3-July 31 and logging begins June 10.  After you have read the basic 20 books or 20 hours in the program, you can try for two chances in the drawing by reading and logging 20 additional books or hours for each chance!

So visit the Field Museum this summer and step through a portal into the past!  -Mrs. Nancy S.

Sources:

Hoving, Thomas.  Art for Dummies.  Foster City, CA: IDG Books Worldwide, 1999, pp. 24-25.

In the Field: the Field Museum Member Magazine, January – April 2013, v. 84, no. 1, pp. 4-5, 14-15.

For further reading (available at Fountaindale Library):

Aczel, Amir D.  The Cave and the Cathedral:  How a Real-life Indiana Jones and a Renegade Scholar Decoded the Ancient Art of Man.  Hoboken, NJ:  John Wiley & Sons, 2009.
930.1 ACZ

Dubowski, Mark.  Discovery in the Cave.  New York: Random House, 2010.
ER 944.72 DUB

McCully, Emily Arnold.  The Secret Cave:  Discovering Lascaux.  New York:  Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2010.
J 936.4 MCC

Patent, Dorothy Hinshaw.  Mystery of the Lascaux Cave.  New York:  Benchmark Books, 1998.
J 936.4 PAT

Look at what we did at the library!

On April 27, 13 tweens attended a class taught by artist Christine Thornton.  Inspired by traditional mehndi, they created these colorful designs (filmed by Mr. Fisher of Studio 300)

Check out a children’s magazine!

Disney Fairies Magazine

Join Tinker Bell, Silvermist, Rosetta, and other Disney Fairies in this fun-filled magazine.  Each issue includes a Fairy story, Tinker Bell crafts, games and puzzles and nature fun.  Join in the fairy fun.  For ages 6-9

www.disneymagazines.com/fairies

Disney Princess

Disney Princess Magazine is an early learning magazine which brings together Disney favorites such as Ariel from The Little Mermaid, Belle from Beauty & the Beast, Aurora, Snow White, Cinderella, Mulan, Jasmine, and Pocahontas.  Each issue of Disney Princess Magazine is full of magical stories, a Princess project, and a workbook full of fun activities.  Great for any princess, aged 4 and up.

www.disneymagazines.com/princess

 Yum Food and Fun for Kids 

Yum Food & Fun for Kids is for kids who love to cook and the parents who cook for them.  In each, you’ll find recipes for moms and dads who want to feed their kids delicious, healthy, fun food, as well as ideas for families to cook together.  In each issue there is a week of family dinners, complete with shopping list plus, slow cooker recipes that aren’t gross.  Also, party ideas to help you celebrate the season with tasty treats, ideas for sneaky chefs who want their kids to eat more vegetables and nutrition tips that keep the entire family healthy — and happy!  All ages

www.yumfoodandfun.com

Ask: Arts & Sciences for Kids

ASK magazine is an innovative children’s publication that focuses on the arts and sciences.  It includes topics and themes that children have a natural curiosity about, such as the human body, Earth, animals, and nature.  Each issue of ASK magazine includes fun facts, stories, and illustrations designed to spark your child’s interest, educating while also entertaining.  ASK magazine explores fun and exciting topics such as why people love music, why animals sleep, and how the solar system was formed.  Each thirty-six-page issue contains The Clubhouse, Invention Studio, and book recommendation sections, which consist of advertising-free articles and activities such as Scoops and Ask Jimmy and the Bug.  The zany cast of cartoon characters from Marvin and Friends frolic in the margins of each article, sharing their comments on the Letters section of each issue.  Geared for ages 7 to 10.

www.askmagkids.com

AppleSeeds

Younger readers’ imaginations soar with APPLESEEDS as they explore the history and cultures of people and places both far away and near.  Each issue of APPLESEEDS magazine features puzzles, games, recipes, and the opportunity for kids to join the AppleCorps and submit their own stories.  Geared for ages 8 to 11.

www.cricketmag.com

Time Out Chicago Kids

Time Out Chicago Kids is a guide to entertainment, activities, and cultural events for families with children up to age 14.  Issues include detailed maps, reviews and recommendations, and a comprehensive resource listing.  Each issue features eating, shopping, art and museums, books, films, music, games, parties, sports and more.

www.timeoutchicagokids.com

 Plays: The Drama Magazine for Young People

Plays, The Drama Magazine for Young People offers a wide-range of scripts for children.  Plays has published exciting, compelling, and fun scripts for kids since 1941.  Each issue contains 8-10 children’s plays; all are intelligent and wholesome, respect the individual, and carry good messages and high morals, appropriate for use as school plays: elementary school plays, middle school plays, and high school plays.  Subscribers may use the kids’ plays royalty-free.  The one-act play scripts are for large-cast plays and small theater productions and include comedies, mysteries, dramas, folk tales, skits, spoofs, fairy tales, histories, biographies, and melodramas.  Other theater scripts cover adaptations of the classics, environment, diversity, health, friendships, relationships, history, and the holidays, including Thanksgiving plays, Christmas plays, Kwanza plays, and Hanukkah plays.  The school plays do not cover politics or religion. One act plays and skits for lower grades to high school.

www.playsmagazine.com

Muse

Kids, who can’t help wondering whether video games really kill their brain cells, or what a gentleman ladybug is called, will find the answers here, in articles written by award-winning authors and accompanied by high-quality illustration and photography.  Muse magazine has articles just about anything a child could want to know about the world.  If they want to learn about physics, math, or earth sciences, there are full-page articles about scientists, mathematicians, problem solving, and the way the planet works.  Geared for ages 9 to 14.

www.musemagkids.com/muses

Iguana

IGUANA is a Spanish language magazine for children who grew up learning and speaking Spanish.  Each issue engages children with short stories, biographies and interviews with prominent Latino personalities, puzzles, craft projects, kid-friendly recipes, science articles, humor, history, and geography.  IGUANA’s interesting content motivates children to read, reinforcing reading skills in Spanish and encouraging Latino cultural preservation.  Geared for ages 7 to 12.

www.IGUANArevista.com  or www.cricketmag.com  (for information in English)

Click

Click is a great way to introduce the “real world” to children ages 3 to 6. The writing is fresh and interesting to young minds.  Each story is well-illustrated.  A given issue will have a variety of types of writing — cartoons, photo essays, non-fiction articles, 4-5 page fiction stories, and ideas of things to do.  This mix is great for kids with variable attention spans — if he/she can sit for 30 minutes, you can read the whole magazine.  If 5 minutes, or 15 minutes, is today’s limit, you can find something to fit that span.  The magazine is written at several different comprehension levels, meaning that it spans the suggested age range quite well, with something for everyone, and that you can go back and read old issues with more mature eyes and get a new experience.  Click opens up a universe of wonder by introducing kids to the world that’s all around them.  It is about the sciences, nature, and the environment.  Geared for ages 3 to 6

www.clickmagkids.com/bworld

Kids Discover

Kids Discover magazine introduces children to new and unique ideas, animals, places, and things, so they can be informed about the world in which they live. With topics such as science and social studies, dramatic photography and illustrations, and kid-friendly text, Kids Discover magazine is ideal for children who learn visually.  The compelling content is ideal for classrooms and home studies, so you can teach your child about things that happen in the world at a level that makes sense.
The magazine is easy to read, so they can read on their own, making it an independent venture they can be proud of.  Geared for ages 6 to 12.

www.kidsdiscover.com

Faces

FACES is a fun-filled journey around the world, an exploration of people, places, and cultures.  Young readers learn how other kids across the globe live and about the important inventions and ideas from their cultures through articles, folk tales, recipes, and hands-on projects.  Be it games from Samoa, maps of the Kalahari, or Palestinian folk tales, FACES has it!  Geared for ages 9 to 14.

www.cricketmag.com

Henna Hand Art for Dia

On April 27, 2013, as part of the library’s El dia de los niños/El dia de los libros event, join artist Christine Thornton and learn about henna hand designs from India and other kinds of traditional body painting from around the world.  Then practice popular henna motifs and draw them on your own hands with (completely) washable water-color pencils!
Children in grades 2-5 can register now.

April is National Poetry Month!

April showers bring May flowers, but April is wonderful for more than rain.  National Poetry Month is a celebration of poets and poetry for the entire month of April.  So get out of the rain and come into the library as we celebrate long poems, short poems, funny poems, serious poems and even poems about the rain.  Make sure to join us Thursday, April 18, for Poem in Your Pocket Day!  It’s a simple idea; select a poem you love and carry it with you to share with family and friends all day long.  Come to the library, share a poem, and find new favorites.  We will have poems for you to read and pockets for you to make and fill with new poems.  Do not let April showers get you down.  Come to the library and find a sunny poem for your pocket on a rainy day.

-Miss Chris

Percussion around the World for Dia

Drums (Photo credit: toner)

I had the opportunity to see the Chicago Percussion Quintet perform live last year.  They were fantastic!  They used instruments from all over the world.  Some of them included marimba, vibraphone, xylophone, bells, steel drum, congas, bongos, shakers, drum set, and gongs.

On April 27, 2013, as part of the library’s El dia de los niños/El dia de los libros event, the Chicago Percussion Quintet will be bringing us a multicultural performance with over thirty instruments from Africa, Brazil, China, Germany, Jamaica, Mexico, Spain, and the United States.  Come from 2:00 PM – 2:45 PM for the show!  All ages are invited (preschoolers must be with an adult).

See you there!

-Mrs. Ashley