★ 01/07/2019
Golio and Young create a lively and poetic homage to Charlie Chaplin. Despite living in poverty, Chaplin’s household fostered his love of acting, clowning, and musical theater. Golio’s rhythmic prose conjures the spirit of tragicomedy behind Chaplin’s performances: “Charlie began to understand/ How Funny and Sad went hand in hand.” Young’s ink and torn paper collage–work includes newsprint, colored paper, fabrics, and shadowy silhouettes; the sophisticated, abstract images communicate the exaggerated theatricality of silent film, as well as Chaplin’s iconic style and underlying complexity. Ages 8–12. (Mar.)
Golio and Young create a lively and poetic homage to Charlie Chaplin...Young’s ink and torn paper collage–work includes newsprint, colored paper, fabrics, and shadowy silhouettes; the sophisticated, abstract images communicate the exaggerated theatricality of silent film, as well as Chaplin’s iconic style and underlying complexity.
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Golio and Young's final product is one with undeniable appeal...Young’s collage-and-ink art, with its signature abstractness, is made especially accessible: its shadows, shapes, and outlines suggest and show the subject’s evolution up until the last page turn, when an instantly recognizable photograph of Chaplin’s iconic character cinematically snaps it all into place...a bottom-corner page flip animates the Tramp’s signature walk; and the entire package will indeed bring a smile.
—Booklist (starred review)
Children meet Chaplin in this intimate biography of the iconic silent-film comedian, whose movies, humor, and story grow ever more distant to each generation of readers...Observant readers might notice the black silhouette of a little tramp in the bottom-right corner of each spread. Those intuitive enough to flip the pages will delight in a primitive but undeniably magical experience. Readers who watch him waddle their way and extend a wave are certain to return his timeless greeting.
—Kirkus Reviews
The duo that illuminated musicians Bird and Diz present the backstory of an internationally acclaimed silent film star, director, and composer...Thoughtful design presents the blank verse rendered in white on black—or the reverse—paying homage to the subject’s filmmaking, as does the tramp silhouette on the base of each recto that animates when flipped. Adults will appreciate the informative and creative approach, as well as the afterword, bibliography, and textual nod to the titular lyrics. Children will cheer for the class clown’s success.
—School Library Journal
This biography of an icon of the silent film will charm its readers with the exquisite, colorful ink and torn-paper collage images and its lyrical text.
—New York Journal of Books
Smile pairs a wonderful tale that brings a lyrical quality to the story and beautiful illustrations that will capture any little and not so little one's attention.
—The Way We Watch (blog)
An outstanding tribute to a genuine icon of the entertainment industry, Smile: How Young Charlie Chaplin Taught the World to Laugh (and Cry) is fascinating and thoroughly inspirational in every way.
—Kendal A. Rautzhan's "Books to Borrow...Books to Buy"
Ed Young's illustrations...evoke Chaplin's black-and-white movies and his versatile physicality, adding the perfect (occasionally comical) touch to the story.
—Virginian-Pilot
03/01/2019
Gr 1–5—The duo that illuminated musicians Bird and Diz present the backstory of an internationally acclaimed silent film star, director, and composer. Golio has wisely selected moments from Chaplin's 19th-century London childhood that are laden with sensory components or emotional connections: "Laughing children with colored balloons / A flower seller with his jingly cart and horse…." Scaffolding the heights and depths of life with an absent actor father and a musical mother whose illness led to the poorhouse, the author traces experiences Charlie and his brother absorbed before becoming vaudevillians themselves (the book concludes before adult complexities arise). Throughout pratfalls with troupes in England and America, the siblings and their audiences discerned that "Laughter and Tears were brothers, too." Young's inventive, mixed-media collages play with this duality by balancing subdued scenes with bursts of joyous color. The penultimate spread depicts the tramp costume, freshly fashioned for cinema, stretching diagonally across the gutter—a brown shadow emerging from a patchwork canopy snipped from previous scenes. It echoes the burlap crowd from Chaplin's earliest street dances and prepares readers for the final iconic photograph. Thoughtful design presents the blank verse rendered in white on black—or the reverse—paying homage to the subject's filmmaking, as does the tramp silhouette on the base of each recto that animates when flipped. VERDICT Adults will appreciate the informative and creative approach, as well as the afterword, bibliography, and textual nod to the titular lyrics. Children will cheer for the class clown's success.—Wendy Lukehart, District of Columbia Public Library
2019-01-15
Children meet Chaplin in this intimate biography of the iconic silent-film comedian, whose movies, humor, and story grow ever more distant to each generation of readers.
Children unaware of Chaplin will immediately feel moved by young Charlie's bleak origins: an empty stomach, dancing for pennies, an absent father and sick mother, and frequent moves in and out of the poorhouse. They will pull for him hamming it up in a children's theater troupe and stand beside him watching "old Rummy Binks," a local eccentric, outside a pub holding horses for pennies. Charlie would later appropriate Binks' baggy clothes, bowler hat, crooked cane, and funny penguin walk to become his own Little Tramp, making the close association between laughter and tears. Young's collages harness muddy and murky colors, silhouettes, torn papers, threadbare burlap and floral fabrics, jaundiced newspapers, and ink linework to evoke both Victorian times and the silent-film era. A succinct afterword, facts, and resources section offers kid-friendly biographical highlights, films, and books to encourage further exploration of this extraordinary comedian, filmmaker, and composer. Observant readers might notice the black silhouette of a little tramp in the bottom-right corner of each spread. Those intuitive enough to flip the pages will delight in a primitive but undeniably magical experience.
Readers who watch him waddle their way and extend a wave are certain to return his timeless greeting. (Picture book/biography. 6-12)