2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Bluebell Sings the Blues, September 2, 2006
This review is from: When Bluebell Sang (Paperback)
If you look at Lisa Ernst Campbell's oeuvre on Amazon.com, you'll notice, 1) how prolific she is, 2) that she has worked with some of the best children's book authors, and, 3) that reviewers give her books 5* and 4* out of 5. She's a remarkably talented illustrator (some of her work has appeared in The New Yorker, quite an achievement even with that magazine recent decline), who delivers whimsically plausible story lines, and astonishingly beautiful illustrations.
As in "Walter's Tail," the protagonist is a beloved animal, this time a cow. "Bluebell" enjoys the bucolic setting she shares with farmers Swenson and Hazel. When Swenson discovers that Bluebell can sing ("Ya," Hazel said, hearing Bluebell. "It is the most beautiful singing I have ever heard." Apparently the farmers have a Scandinavian background), he takes her to town to sing, and then to the local music hall. The audience cheers. Bluebell gets rave front page headlines. And the mayor writes his brother in Deluth, an agent named "Big Eddie."
That's when the trouble begins. "Big Eddie" is a portly man with a tiny moustaches, downward pointing eyebrows, , and an enormous appetite for money. He's drawn like a villain from some silent movie, and this conceit works: After all, Ernst's border illustrations (a great touch!) show beautiful vintage trains and playbills, and a note dated June 1, 1916. It soon develops that Big Eddie has no scruples; he promises Swenson that Bluebell will only tour for a month, but, with Bluebell's continued success he keeps adding more months--and more ridiculous costumes for Bluebell to wear onstage.
Bluebell and Swenson tire of the road; they want to back to their simple, less demanding farm routine. They escape back to the farm, and Bluebell hides among scores of other black and white cows. Eddie can't find her and leaves, and Bluebell teaches the other cows how to sing, warning them, "When you sing, go out to the field, in the shade of a large tree. No one will suspect a thing." This answers Ernst's opening attention-grabbing opening--the real reason that cows often gather under shade trees. I think children will acept the plausibilty of Ernst's playful explanation.
Whether depicting broad rural expanses or the interior of a grand theatre, Ernst's compositions, palette, and combination of full-page illustrations with smaller "side" pictures are uniformly outstanding. In some, she conveys a luminescent quality found in "Walter's Tail." In that book, and perhaps here as well, she achieves this look by building layers of colors (with pastels), then adding lines with a quill pen. The result is a mixture of shine and that adds vibrant lighting effects. In the flyleaf, Lisa Ernst states, "...it's magical when all the right elements of story, illustration, design, pacing, and concept come together in a book. Fortunately for her readers, Ernst's talent is up to these requirements, for this is such a book.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Tale of a Cow, March 11, 2003
When Bluebell Sang is a touching story about an ugly cow named Bluebell who has a stunning voice. She is an excellent musician and can sing with the best of them. However her odd appearance is what catches the attention of Big Eddy. Bid Eddy is a talent agent who thinks that Bluebell is just what everybody's looking for...and he end up being right. Before long, Bluebell is a huge star. However, she grows homesick and yearns to return to her farm of old. So she plans to escape...
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