ALA Booklist (Tue Jun 01 00:00:00 CDT 2021)

The male members of the Wyeth family were not the only great artists. Kephart uses spare, lyrical text to describe a day in the life of Henriette Wyeth as she accompanies her father, N.C. Wyeth, to paint a pastoral setting on their family farm. Loaded with easels, canvases, and other art supplies, the pair passes some of Henriette's younger siblings, and she notes the blooms, sky, earth, and other bits of nature that offer inspiration. After her father heads home, Henriette continues her observations and painting until night arrives. While the details are scant to make this a true biography, this imagined snapshot in time works well as a quiet story of a budding artist and father-daughter togetherness. Bates' earth-toned paintings evoke the style of several Wyeth family artists and enhance the tenderness of Henriette's outing. Additional loose drawings in the margins simulate an artist's sketchbook and highlight imagery from the text. A concluding section offers a little more information on the real Henriette, including a photograph and one of her still lifes.

Horn Book (Thu Apr 01 00:00:00 CDT 2021)

A young Henriette Wyeth and her father, N. C. Wyeth, set off across the fields of their rural Pennsylvania home to paint together. They leave behind the busyness of life with Henriette's four younger siblings for the experience of "sensing deeply." On their walk, her father models "looking. Seeing. Smelling the air, and the earth, and the turpentine, and also that flower." This biographical narrative slice of Henriette Wyeth's life is a portrait of the childhood of an important American artist, a connection between her and the Brandywine school of artists (including her father), and a glimpse at the perceptions of an artistic child. The prose is full of sensory description that captures Wyeth's observations of her world. In wide double-page spreads, Bates re-creates the lush hillsides of Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, crisscrossed with split rail fences and dotted with wildflowers. Layers of blue and gray clouds bleed off the pages. Back matter provides more information about Wyeth and the ways she inspired both author and illustrator. The book will likely encourage young readers to look closely at the world around them for their own inspiration.

Kirkus Reviews

An artist awakens into her dreams.The oldest girl in the Wyeth family, Henriette, daughter of illustrator N.C. and sister of painters Andrew and Carolyn, was a recognized and talented artist (landscapes and portraiture) in her own right. This lyrical selection offers a vivid portrayal of an imagined day in which the young girl and her father drift across the land around their home in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, painting, thinking, and musing on some technical and more ethereal aspects of art as they go. Warm, glowing images depict the painters at work as well as the rolling landscapes and sky that some may recognize from N.C.'s and Andrew's paintings while the poetic text delves deep into Henriette's imagination and includes ideas and descriptions from the writings of Henriette and her father. The fact that her experiences and successes were unusual for a woman of her time goes unmentioned. Nevertheless, this quiet yet joyful selection is both inviting and inspiring, and it will resonate with budding artists. Dreamlike and sparkling stream-of-consciousness writing brings to mind Virginia Woolf-and for Henriette, the outdoors clearly provided a room of her own. There is a lone photo of Henriette and a reproduction of a still life in the endnotes along with notes from both author and illustrator. (This book was reviewed digitally with 10-by-23-inch double-page spreads viewed at 58.6% of actual size.)Evocative description intertwines with joyful illustration in an imagined day in the life of a young artist. (Picture book. 5-9)

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

A girl and her father, artists both, head out on a summer day to paint. Her poetic narration pulls the reader along, rendering in words what she experiences (-His big hand is red-and-blue-and-purple freckled,/ his old coat smells like apple cores and packing moss and turpentine-) as well as her father-s lessons in -sensing deeply- (---Love the object for its own sake, Henriette,- Pa says,/ only to me,/ pointing to the flower,/ fine and lucky on its stem-). Kephart-s afterword explains that the child protagonist is Henriette Wyeth (1907-1997), a noted artist and the daughter of illustrator N.C. Wyeth (1882-1945). Kephart-s evocative text pairs dreamily with Bates-s illustrations of fully realized, painterly images of Henriette and her father at work, collected artist notebook-style alongside small, finely rendered pencil sketches of items such as a scratching hen and a blackberry vine. A lovely foray into a painter-s world. Ages 5-7. (May)