Horn Book
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

From the Brooklyn hotel room in which she was born to the Maine coast where she spent many years, Barbara Cooney (1917-2000) sought color and light, which Kunkel adopts as her leitmotif. Cooney's merchant father's fondness for "numbers ticking steadily away in black and white" is contrasted with her artist mother's encouragement to create, and with the vibrancy and freedom of Maine, where the family summered. Working as an illustrator, Cooney was initially confined to black and white, dutifully plying the scratchboard "because there [were] houses to heat and children to feed." Taking her subject's simplicity of prose as a model, Kunkel does not name Cooney's oeuvre, instead matter-of-factly folding in references to it. In one spread Cooney is transfixed by the beauty of a rooster; in the next, she creates illustrations for what readers may recognize as the Caldecott-winning Chanticleer and the Fox. Liberated by its "huge success," Cooney traveled widely, Miss Rumphius-like, "soaking up sun, and color, and light" and eventually settling in Maine. Directly echoing Miss Rumphius, Kunkel tells readers that "there [was] still one thing [Cooney] must do": raise money to build a new library in her adopted hometown. Working in gouache, Stadtlander emulates the illustrator's flat, folk art esque style, her palette and compositions harmonizing with Cooney's. Her penultimate spread depicts an adult reading Miss Rumphius to a child, making the connection between author and creation in quiet affirmation of the titular "world more beautiful." Appended with an author's note, a brief bibliography, and an afterword by Cooney's daughter. (c) Copyright 2025. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

The life of a great children’s book author and illustrator is set in context. Born in Brooklyn, New York, in the Hotel Bossert, to a father who favored her brothers, Barbara Cooney (1917-2000) bonded with her mother over the art that would become her eventual career. Restricted for many years to black-and-white etchings after becoming a picture-book illustrator (an editor told her she lacked a sense of color), Cooney excelled when, after about 40 books, she let her colors flow upon the page. She was an inveterate traveler whose heart was most aligned with Maine, where she’d spent summers as a child. All this culminated in her work to restore a library there, shortly before her death. Kunkel’s text eschews the rote biographical format so common in other books, unafraid to muse that “a life is more than a timeline, dates set down in black and white.” Cooney’s own life is thus complemented with consistently inventive descriptions of her adventures (“Barbara drives a yellow Volkswagen across a brown landscape, soaking up sun, and color, and light”). The result is a celebration of the living of a good life rather than a focus on her successes in her chosen field. Meanwhile, the book’s gouache art evokes Cooney’s own without replicating it. The delicate lines and colors serve as a spectacular homage in and of themselves. A delight to eye and ear alike, this biography provides an abundant dignity and beauty worthy of its subject. (author’s note, bibliography) (Picture-book biography. 4-8) Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.