Masterpiece

With contagious pleasure, Jeremy Davidson introduces young listeners to the artist Durer. Davidson takes Broach's tale of art theft at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and does much to support the story. He fills out the characters' personalities and makes them lively. Davidson seems to have special powers of empathy and observation as he constructs the unique friendship between James the boy and Marvin the beetle. There is thought and acknowledgment of the majesty of great art behind the narrator's voice and words. He conveys the story's full wonder to the reader. Better sound editing would have improved Davidson's clarity, but the recording's merit makes this a small concern. Listeners will soak up this engaging mystery replete with art trivia. C.A. (c) AudioFile 2009, Portland, Maine

Starred review from August 25, 2008
With overtones of Chasing Vermeer
and The Borrowers
, this inventive mystery involves two families that inhabit the same Manhattan apartment: the Pompadays—a slick, materialistic couple, their infant son and thoughtful James, from the wife’s previous marriage—and a family of beetles, who live behind the kitchen sink and watch sympathetically as James’s charms go unappreciated. Careful though the beetles are to stay hidden, boy beetle Marvin crosses the line, tempted by a pen-and-ink set James receives for his 11th birthday. Marvin draws an intricate picture and then identifies himself to a delighted James as the artist. Before James can hide Marvin’s picture, Mrs. Pompaday loudly proclaims her son’s talent and even James’s laid-back artist dad compares the work with the drawings of Albrecht Dürer. A trip to a Dürer exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art follows, James stowing Marvin in a pocket; before long a curator is asking James to forge a Dürer miniature of Fortitude as part of an elaborate plan to catch an art thief (can a tiny virtue defeat big lies?).
Broach (Shakespeare’s Secret
) packs this fast-moving story with perennially seductive themes: hidden lives and secret friendships, miniature worlds lost to disbelievers. Philosophy pokes through, as does art appreciation (one curator loves Dürer for “his faith that beauty reveals itself, layer upon layer, in the smallest moments”), but never at the expense of plot. In her remarkable ability to join detail with action, Broach is joined by Murphy (Hush, Little Dragon
), who animates the writing with an abundance of b&w drawings. Loosely implying rather than imitating the Old Masters they reference, the finely hatched drawings depict the settings realistically and the characters, especially the beetles, with joyful comic license. This smart marriage of style and content bridges the gap between the contemporary beat of the illustrations and Renaissance art. Broach and Kelly show readers something new, and, as Marvin says, “When you different parts of the world, you different parts of yourself.” Ages 8–13.

Starred review from February 1, 2009
Gr 5-8-Elise Broach's novel (Holt, 2008) is the story of a beetle named Marvin who lives under the kitchen sink in a New York City apartment, and his friendship with James Pompaday, a human boy. Marvin feels sorry for James, whose mother never seems to have anything nice to say about him. After an unpleasant 11th birthday party, Marvin decides to do something nice for James. He uses the ink from a pen-and-ink set that the boy received for his birthday to draw a miniature of the scene outside of the boy's bedroom window. Mrs. Pompaday sees the drawing and thinks her son is the artist. Soon James finds himself being compared to Albrecht Durer, the famous Renaissance artist, and becomes involved in a plot to help the Metropolitan Museum of Art recover several Durer masterpieces that have been stolen. Jeremy Davidson skillfully portrays the various characters, easily transitioning between their voices. This marvelous story is sure to be a hit with middle school students."Kathy Miller, Baldwin Junior High School, Baldwin City, KS "

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