FEARLESS WORLD TRAVELER: ADVENTURES OF MARIANNE NORTH, BOTANICAL ARTIST, by Laurie Lawlor and Becca Stadtlander, Holiday House, May 11, 2021, Hardcover, $18.99 (ages 6-9)
Fearless World Traveler: Adventures of Marianne North, Botanical Artist tells the story of a woman who overcame obstacles of the time to follow her dreams.
In 1882, Marianne North showed the gray city of London paintings of jaw-dropping greenery like they’d never seen before.
Images of flowers, birds and insects from around the world delighted viewers. As a self-taught artist and scientist, Marianne North subverted Victorian gender roles and advanced the field of botanical illustration. Her technique of painting specimens in their natural environment was groundbreaking. The legendary Charles Darwin was among her many supporters.
This book follows North’s life, from her restrictive childhood to her wild world travels to the opening of the Marianne North Gallery at Kew Gardens to her death in 1890. The North gallery at Kew Gardens remains open to the public today. —Synopsis provided by Holiday House
Marianne North’s story is better known to those in the UK, where her paintings are on display. Fearless World Traveler: Adventures of Marianne North, Botanical Artist brings her story to a much larger audience.
Author Laurie Lawlor and illustrator Becca Stadtlander bring Marianne’s story to life through engaging text and intricate images.
Lawlor expertly balances facts with fun, adding just the right amount of content to draw in readers. The one down side is the actual font size, which is a tad on the small side for a picture book.
Stadtlander’s ink, watercolor and colored pencil images truly bring the book to life. Her use of color and movement help this book stand out among contemporaries.
The book also includes a section on Mariann North’s legacy — some of her paintings contain the only known images of extinct plants — a list of published writings, sources, a list of important people who lived at the same time as Marianne, and, most importantly, picture credits for the reproductions of Marianne’s actual paintings that appear on the endpapers.
