Product Description

When Lily Brown paints, her world starts to change . . .

trees wear hats and drink tea, people walk upside down, and apples sing all the way home from the store.

It's Lily Brown's world, and it's wondrous.

A little paint and a lot of love bring imagination to life in this captivating picture book. Angela Johnson's lyrical writing compliments E. B. Lewis' delightful watercolors. This book marks a different approach for E. B. Lewis' artwork as his images imitate the great artists, such as Van Gogh and Matisse.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #87339 in Books
• Published on: 2007-01-01
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 32 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Not all artists lead tortured lives. At least, not this heroine, an African-American girl who "loves her mamma, daddy and baby brother and the world they live in." Johnson (Toning the Sweep) portrays a painter filled with a joie de vivre ("Sometimes she spins around her room thinking about their world. And it's wondrous") that takes flight in her paintings. Lily fills her whimsical, vibrant pictures with bright colors, and smiling faces, such as the one in which "the trees that she walks past on her way to school wear hats and drink tea on cool days with other trees and shrubbery." Lewis's (The Other Side) watercolors are equally rapturous, whether he's working in a sumptuous realistic style (for Lily's everyday life) or in the cheery naïf manner of Lily herself. He also makes the beret-wearing Lily truly charismatic; by turns vivacious and utterly intent on her work, she's the very picture of a budding artist (in fact, when she's not in a spread, the energy of even the cheeriest picture flags slightly). But unfortunately this tribute to the power of imagination ends up feeling rather flat; with no arc or narrative tension, the book feels more like a pat on the head than a clarion call. Ages 4-8. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From School Library Journal
Kindergarten-Grade 2—Lily loves the real world in which she lives with her parents and baby brother. But when she paints, her world is transformed into a magical place indeed. Stars come to Earth and relax in cafés. Trees wear hats and drink tea. Fruit sings on its journey to people's homes. Lewis's watercolor spreads become delightfully childlike when depicting the girl's creations and pay tribute to the artists who inspired him as a youngster. Lily's bedroom and her painting of a star-studded café bring to mind Van Gogh's work. Her conversion of a path to the park into a "wild-animal living room" is a nod to Gauguin. The text comes full circle as Lily, her paints tucked away for the day, reenters the world of her loving family. Pair this story with Peter H. Reynolds's The Dot (2003) and Ish (2004, both Candlewick) to inspire readers to don their painting smocks and create new worlds of their own.—Marianne Saccardi, formerly at Norwalk Community College, CT
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Young Lily Brown loves spending time with her family, and she also loves spending time in the imagined worlds that she paints: the swirling solar system, a sidewalk cafe filled with dancing stars. Even her walk to school becomes an opportunity for pictures. When it's time to stop painting, Lily remembers the things that she loves about her family--her mother's smile, her father's eyes--to help pull her back to the real world. Picture books depicting a child entering an imagined game are certainly nothing new. Examples, from Crockett Johnson's classic Harold and the Purple Crayon (1955) to Peter Sis' Madlenka (2000), leap immediately to mind. But Johnson's warm, poetic text and Lewis' exuberant, childlike watercolors stand out here, delivering a clear sense of the love Lily shares with her African American family and the transporting power of art. Children who find it hard to shift gears from private playtime to interactive family time will take heart from Lily's smooth, openhearted acceptance of worlds on both sides of the looking glass. Gillian Engberg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

This story was inspired by the author's own appreciation for art.
Angela Johnson and E.B. Lewis' LILY BROWN'S PAINTINGS tells of Lilly Brown, who paints her world and by doing so, changes it with her fantasy images. From singing apples to trees wearing hats, this story was inspired by the author's own appreciation for art.

Lily Creates
Lily Brown is a happy child living in her small world with her parents and baby brother. Her world expands enormously when she paints pictures, however. She paints stars that come down to earth, trees that drink tea , phone-using alligators, and anything she can conjure from her vivid imagination. While she is painting, she is the true artist for whom reality disappears, but she always delights in returning to the warm embrace of her family.


The author successfully speaks to young readers about the feelings of all artists when they are in the thrall of creative experience - not an easy theme. The watercolor double-page spreads by the illustrator not only capture the essence of the child's paintings, he playfully pays tribute to the paintings of a number of great artists who have influenced him. Large themes in a beautiful, accessible , different picture book.