Mary Blair's Unique Flair: The Girl Who Became One of the Disney Legends

by Amy Novesky, Brittney Lee (Illustrator)

Overview

Mary Blair's favorite color was white - the color of possibility!


Even as a child, Mary Blair loved color, and all she wanted to do was to make art. But becoming an artist wasn't easy. Her parents worked hard to provide her paper and paints, and Mary worked hard to enter contests and earn a spot at a school for the arts. She even had to work hard to find her place at the Walt Disney Studios. But Walt was easily impressed by Mary. When she joined his trip to South America, Mary had never seen such color. She collected that color and used it in her concept art for Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, and Peter Pan, and even the It's a Small World attraction at Disneyland. This beautifully illustrated picture book shares Mary's story, in all its inspiring flair. 


Includes an artist's note, a note from Mary's niece Maggie Richardson, and a list of books by and about Mary.


Searching for that perfect gift for the Disney kid in your life? Explore more behind-the-scenes stories:

• A Kiss Goodnight (By Disney Legends Richard M. Sherman and Floyd Norman)
  
• Pencils, Pens & Brushes: A Great Girls' Guide to Disney Animation
  
• Walt Disney: Drawn from Imagination biography
  

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781484757208
Publisher:	Disney Publishing Group
Publication date:	08/13/2019
Pages:	40
Sales rank:	210,509
Product dimensions:	10.30(w) x 12.20(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	6 - 8 Years

About the Author

Amy Novesky has written a variety of books for children, including Finding Dory's Three Little Words, illustrated by Grace Lee; Georgia in Hawaii, illustrated by Yuyi Morales; and Me, Frida, illustrated by David Diaz. She lives in Sausalito, California, with her family.


At Walt Disney Animation Studios, Brittney Lee is the visual development artist on films such as Frozen, Zootopia, and Wreck-It-Ralph, and she's now working on Frozen 2.

Editorial Reviews

08/05/2019

Art imitates art-driven life in this uneven tribute to an iconic illustrator who climbed to admirable creative heights at Walt Disney Studios. Following a childhood in which her family had little money for paint supplies, Mary Blair trains as an artist and is hired by Disney to paint “a dog named Lady... and a little elephant named Dumbo.” A work trip to South America inspires her to create paint color variations and applications as she works on classic animated films and helps design the It’s a Small World attraction at Disneyland. Though an airy narrative by Novesky echoes the whimsy of Blair’s art, captured in Disney animation artist Lee’s stylized cut-paper and gouache pictures, the book problematically distills South America to a place of “bright and happy colors” (of which Blair’s favorite is, inexplicably, “blanco—the color... of possibility”) and fails to contextualize, or even address, myriad criticisms of It’s a Small World. Ages 6–8. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

2019-05-26
A girl grows up to be an instrumental Disney artist.

Mary Blair, nee Mary Browne Robinson, enjoys colors and painting in childhood. She dreams of being an artist and earns a spot at an art school. Later, she accepts a job at Walt Disney Studios. Over the course of her career, she paints Dumbo, creates concept art for iconic animated films (Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, and Peter Pan), and helps create and design the world-famous Disney park attraction "It's a small world." Novesky's plotline and prose about Blair's massively influential achievements are oddly lackluster, reporting facts without spirit. Likewise, Lee's cut-paper and gouache media have a flatness—neither cut paper nor gouache is recognizable on most spreads—and a lack of vitality. Blair's a generic, tiny-waisted blonde white lady; characters smile almost unceasingly, even when the subject is poverty. This art is styled similarly to Disney art, but it lacks pizzazz. "It's a small world" is glorified, with no examination of how it stereotypes and exoticizes race, nationality, and ethnicity; Lee's illustrations reinscribe that very problem while Novesky romantically calls "small world" a celebration of "unity, goodwill, and global peace" leading to "colorful happily ever afters" (for whom?). Amy Guglielmo, Jacqueline Tourville, and Brigette Barrager's Pocket Full of Colors (2017) is a far livelier Blair biography, although it also ignores racism concerns.

Watch a Disney film instead. (illustrator's note, note from Mary Blair's niece, further reading) (Picture book/biography. 5-8)

Kirkus Reviews