Joni: The Lyrical Life of Joni Mitchell – and illustrated by Selina Alko
HarperCollins, 2020
When Roberta Joan Anderson, eventually known to the world as Joni Mitchell, was in school, she had an inspiring English teacher. Mr. Kratzman advised her to approach her writing as she did her visual artworks: “If you can paint with a brush, you can paint with words.” Selina Alko’s picture book biography of Mitchell embodies that principle in both its text and pictures, which are inextricably linked in this voyage through the singer and composer’s life and work. The author/illustrator and her subject are perfectly matched, making her book accurate, illuminating, and a stunning work of art in itself, as are her earlier books.
Combining acrylic paint and collage, including found objects, Alko creates a complete vision of Joni’s (as she refers to the singer), early life and subsequent development as an artist. The young Joni is identifiable as the mature woman, and the elements of both “heart and mind,” as one of her memorable lyrics, are intertwined. First we see Joni as a young girl on the prairie of western Canada, dancing to the sound of birds. Her parents stand in the background, and a train, composed of geometric shapes, collage elements and stamps, passes by. Every page frames Joni’s life in this inventive format, each object attracting the reader’s eye with a specific relevance to the narrative. A bird’s-eye view of Joni playing the piano shows both her hands and the top of her head, which is crowned with a helix of words, notes, and ink-like spots.
Joni recovers from the childhood scourge of polio. She listens to Pete Seeger and Elvis Presley, attends art school in Calgary, and performs in coffeehouses. Alko does not omit her failed marriage to folk singer Chuck Taylor, but she chooses not to discuss the painful decision Joni made to give up her daughter for adoption. Nevertheless, this trauma obliquely appears in a picture of Joni writing the lyrics to “Little Green” in dark, bold pencil. Alko could not have referred to every formative experience in her subject’s life, yet she is committed to acknowledge as many of them as possible.
The two pages that chronicle the genesis of Chelsea Morning are another example of this fidelity. Everything is there: the butterscotch curtains, the traffic, the bowl of oranges. You can practically smell the incense. When Joni performs in Greenwich Village, there are cameos of Leonard Cohen, Judy Collins, Bob Dylan, and other engrossed listeners. Here is your chance to explain to children who these great innovators are. It will not be difficult to convince kids that listening to Joni “helped people feel understood,” or that, when her fans demanded her older style rather than experiments in jazz, “Joni didn’t care.”
Alko includes a discography, bibliography, and a thoughtful author’s note explaining why she was drawn to write and illustrate Joni. The result is an explosion of color and poetry, along with a meticulous record of Joni Mitchell’s legacy. This book is for children, teens, and adults.
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