Out of This World: The Surreal Art of Leonora Carrington

A gorgeously illustrated picture book biography about the fascinating life of surrealist artist Leonora Carrington, from Michelle Markel and Amanda Hall, the acclaimed team behind The Fantastic Jungles of Henri Rousseau.

Ever since she was a little girl, Leonora Carrington loved to draw on walls, in books, on paper--and she loved the fantastic tales her grandmother told that took her to worlds that shimmered beyond this one, where legends became real.

Leonora's parents wanted her to become a proper English lady, but there was only one thing she wanted, even if it was unsuitable: to be an artist. In London, she discovered a group of artists called surrealists, who were stunning the world with their mysterious creations. This was the kind of art she had to make. This was the kind of person she had to be.

From life in Paris creating art alongside Max Ernst, to Mexico where she met Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, Leonora's life became intertwined with powerful events and people that shaped the twentieth century.

Out of This World is the powerful, stunningly told story of Leonora Carrington, a girl who made art out of her imagination and created some of the most enigmatic and startling works of the last eighty years.

Michelle Markel loves writing narrative nonfiction. She's the author of Brave Girl, which won the Bank Street Flora Stieglitz Straus Award and the Jane Addams Children's Book Award for Younger Children, and was also chosen as an NCTE Orbis Pictus Honor Book. Her recent titles are Hillary Rodham Clinton: Some Girls Are Born to Lead (on the Amelia Bloomer Project List of feminist literature) and Balderdash!: John Newbery and the Boisterous Birth of Children's Books. She lives in Woodland Hills, California. You can visit her online at www.michellemarkel.com.

Amanda Hall is an international-award-winning British illustrator, particularly renowned for her many wonderfully decorative and colorful children's picture book and educational illustrations. Out of This World is her second picture book about the life and work of a significant figure from art history. The first--also written by Michelle Markel--is The Fantastic Jungles of Henri Rousseau. Amanda exhibits her original illustrations at the Chris Beetles Gallery in St James's, London. She can be found online at www.amandahall-illustration.com.