Product Description

Five famous Italian Renaissance paintings come alive for Katie when she steps into the picture frames. What makes the Mona Lisa smile? Katie wants to find out so she climbs into the Leonardo Da Vinci painting. But the Mona Lisa is not really feeling very happy, so Katie tries to cheer her up ...with disastrous results! Includes five masterpieces from five Italian Renaissance artists: Mona Lisa by Leonardo Da Vinci, An Angel in Red with a Lute by an associate of Leonardo, St George and the Dragon by Raphael, Primavera by Sandro Botticelli, The Lion of St Mark by Vittore Carpaccio

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #180706 in Books
• Published on: 1999-09-23
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 32 pages

From Library Journal
PreSchool-Grade 2-This is the fourth book in which Katie visits a museum with her grandmother. This time, while Grandma is resting, the little girl admires the Mona Lisa. She wonders aloud what it is that makes her smile. "Then come inside, bambina!" beckons the painted lady. When she does, Katie discovers that Mona Lisa is bored. Together they visit several other famous works from the Italian Renaissance, wreak havoc in the museum by letting characters out of their frames, and learn something about each painting. In the museum, Katie and her surroundings are sketched with plenty of white space around them, but each time she enters a painting, the entire two-page spread is completely colored in, adding depth and detail to the original piece of artwork. Raphael's St. George, Botticelli's dancers, Carpaccio's lion, and Leonardo's angel all spring to life. A page of brief information on the featured artists is appended. This fanciful tale is not particularly compelling but it may encourage children to use their imaginations when viewing fine art.
Kathleen Simonetta, Indian Trails Public Library District, Wheeling, IL
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
In Katie Meets the Impressionists , the incorrigible girl climbed in and out of several impressionist paintings. This time, while Grandma rests on a museum bench, Katie convinces a sad Mona Lisa to leave her portrait in order to regain her famous smile. Katie leads the lady to several other famous Italian Renaissance works. When they climb into Raphael's St. George and the Dragon, St. George abandons the princess to the dragon and devotes his attention solely to Mona Lisa. The two intruders next break up the dance in Botticelli's Primavera before being flown over Venice on the wings of Carpaccio's The Lion of St. Mark. Touching down in the museum gallery once again, they encounter the angry, displaced characters from the classic paintings; but an angel steps out of a painting by an unnamed student of Leonardo's to calm the scene and coax everyone back into their respective pictures. After such an exciting diversion, Mona Lisa once again can smile, and children will, too, at this entertaining, light-hearted introduction to serious works of art. Mayhew successfully mimics his subjects' style, creating another art appreciation adventure. Ellen Mandel

From Kirkus Reviews
Katie's back (Katie Meets the Impressionists, p. 148) this time to trip through the world of Renaissance paintings with her new friend, Mona Lisa. When Katie appears inside her painting, Mona Lisa admits she's lonely and starts to cry. Plucky Katie decides to give her a walking tour through the other paintings to cheer her friend up. The chivalrous hero of St. George and the Dragon is charmed by Mona Lisa's beauty, but a visit to Botticelli's Primavera angers the dancing muses, who chase the two new friends away. Eventually, the main character in The Lion of St. Mark and St. George's dragon lock claws in a fight on the museum floor, which involves the muses, St. George, an angel with a lute, and museum patrons. The fight tickles Mona Lisa's funny bone. Mayhew's drawings artfully combine classical reproductions with lively illustrations, in this more sobering trek through art than found in Bjorn Sortland's Anna's Art Adventure (p. 889) (Picture book. 4-7) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.