I must admit that when I first saw Gertrude is Gertrude is Gertrude is Gertrude in the S&S catalog last fall I thought someone had quite simply lost their marbles. A picture book on Gertrude Stein seemed to be so utterly and completely an adult's idea of what a child should be reading - and thus a pretty much dumb idea - that I partly wanted to read and review it just so I could say how wrong it was. (I'm sure I'm not the only one whose jaw drops over occasional catalog offerings.) But then I noticed that the author was Jonah Winter whose Steel Town impressed the heck out of me last fall and the illustrator was the charming and playful Calef Brown and I thought well, maybe.

Maybe this might work.

So last night I read it to my son and he loved it. He can tell you that Gertrude Stein lived in Paris with Alice and she wrote at night and Alice typed her work during the day. And they had parties all the time with people like Pablo Picasso and Ernest Hemingway and they had a dog and went for long walks and Gertrude wrote crazy things like "Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose". He has no idea what all of this collectively means in the grand scheme of things but he has an image of Gertrude now that makes sense to him and that he finds quite appealing. As I had never heard of Stein until I read a Hemingway biography as an adult, I was quite impressed to see that he had a slight grasp on her life. In other words the book works wonderfully - so much for deriding the appropriateness of certain subjects for kids.

I think the best thing that Winter does here is not try to explain too much. He uses Gertrude's style to tell the story (something he does explain in a brief note at the end) and he runs with the nonsensical nature of some of her writing. She sits and stares from a chair. Picasso is angry, sometimes Hemingway shaves and Gertrude writes. "You can write whatever you want to too, if you want to. If you don't, fine. Suit yourself. Don't blame me. And don't blame Gertrude."

As i was reading this I realized that I know nothing about Gertrude Stein. Hemingway was fascinated by her and she and Alice Toklas pretty much had the definitive 20th century salon in Paris. She appreciated art and people; she appreciated Alice. But I don't know why she wrote the way she did or what she hoped to achieve with it. She is mostly a mystery to me; a minor character in the lives of others which is certainly not anywhere near the truth of her life. Oddly enough, it is Jonah Winter who has made me most curious to learn more about Gertrude and Alice - something Hemingway never accomplished. (He did however lead me to a lifetime love for Martha Gellhorn.) So now my son and I both think Gertrude Stein is a very interesting lady. Chalk one up for Winter & Brown and choosing unorthodox subjects for picture books.

Now excuse me while I go find some adult reading on this very worthy subject.

[Post pic of Gertrude and Alice.]