Matisse on the Loose

I really enjoyed Matisse on the Loose! Georgia Bragg captures the thoughts and feelings of the young characters in this book accurately. How many kids are totally embarrassed by their parents at that age? And how many kids have had a crush on someone that has gone totally wrong? I really like how Ms Bragg incorporated art and art history into this story. So you are reading about this boy who has this crazy family and you actually get a subtle lesson in Henri Matisse. Very unique and enjoyable.

Matisse on the Loose starts out with a hilarious scene that captures both the flavor of his unconventional family and the trauma of wanting to be a "normal" 11 year old boy despite them. Luckily, Matisse is not really normal--he's a talented artist, so talented in fact that he can paint art masterpieces so well they can pass for the real thing. When that happens, Matisse has to scramble, struggle and sweat to make things right again. The story is clever and very funny and the characters are both real and lovable. Georgia Bragg's writing style paints a lively and enchanting portrait of a boy trying to find his place, both in his family and the world at large.

Matisse is an average 11-year-old boy with an embarrassingly UN-average family. "My family is like the sun. It's dangerous to look right at them. You have to look at them through a little hole in a box. "For starters, Dad has his barbecue. It was specially made out of two oil drums welded together. Then Dad added the wheels with shock absorbers. It can hold a sixty-pound pig... He wheels it to pool parties, soccer games, and funerals--whatever--if someone's paying him, he'll be there." Matisse likes to kill time by forging the paintings hung in the museum where his mother works as head of security. His paintings look like the real thing, too real, so when he impulsively switches his painting with an original by Henri Matisse, he sets off a chain of problems that will take a genius--or a barbecue?--to resolve. MATISSE ON THE LOOSE is humorously and energetically told by Matisse, who is named after French painter Henri Matisse. You'll laugh at the predicaments he gets himself into and smile as he "thinks" his way out of them.

As Mary Poppins said, "A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down!" Maybe that's a stupid way to put it but I know plenty of kids who when they hear "Art History," relate to it like medicine. What a fabulous way to have art introduced through a lively, engaging, beautifully written story about a boy named Matisse, Brava, Ms. Bragg! Hopefully, this is the first of many from you. I will stock up on ":Matisse on the Loose" for gifts for those young people in my life who I want to turn onto good literature and art.