This is such a unique graphic book about women artists and old ways to paint. I learned a lot about technical skills but also really enjoyed the drawings themselves. A really cute and cool book if you’re interested in the topic!

Botticelli’s Apprentice is the art history lesson you didn’t know you needed! This is the story of Mella, a girl who works for the Botticelli studio by keeping their chickens. She dreams of being an artist and fills the walls of her house with beautiful drawings. She has to find a way to express her art while being female in the male-only profession.

I loved the story and the illustrations are beautiful. I highly recommend to any graphic novel lovers who also like learning stuff! Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.

Historical graphic novel with a focus on art history for middle graders! I loved it 😁 Botticelli's Apprentice has really cute illustrations in line with the current middle grade graphic novel style. This worked great for the text. I loved our main character and her new puppy, but most of all, I loved learning bits of art history and technique in this fun format.

Thanks to NetGalley, Ursula Murray Husted, and HarperCollins Children's for the chance to read and review. My opinions are my own!

One of my very favorite thing about having high schoolers is the way that when I take the time to dive into their passions, I find my own expanding. Case in point: graphic novels. I have always generally enjoyed graphic novels, but my oldest daughter’s deep dive into the world of comics and sequential art has led me to a much greater appreciation for this art form (and it has subsequently influenced my own writing). So I found myself a month ago, scrolling through possible books to review on Netgalley, suddenly shouting to my daughter in delight: “Hey, Lucy, guess what? Scott McCloud endorsed this new graphic novel! It must be pretty good, at least from an art standpoint.”

Scott McCloud (I will explain to those of you like the me of two years ago) is basically Yoda of the comics world. He has studied everything about the topic, analyzed it at every level, and stepped up to train all the young comics Jedis in his ways. His books Understanding Comics and Making Comics are the textbooks par excellence of the graphic novel world. Through studying them, my daughter has come to have—and share with me, at some level—a deep understanding of the art form: what makes it work, and what makes it great.

And Boticelli’s Apprentice is definitely one of the good ones—I mean, it already has an endorsement from Yoda, but I’ll throw in my two cents from the storytelling side of things as well.

One interesting thing about this story is that you’d think it would take some considerable suspension of disbelief to buy into a story about a girl who wants to be Botticelli’s apprentice... because most of us know how unlikely that would be—so unlikely that a girl probably wouldn’t even have such a dream in the first place. Ursula Murray Husted took a huge risk in telling such a story, and another huge risk in telling this story in modern dialect. There is no attempt to make her characters sound like Italians from hundreds of years ago; rather, you could imagine overhearing most of the conversations in a local 21st century restaurant or at least art school. The funny thing is, it totally works. And not only does it work, but that choice in dialect succeeded in making her choice of story seem more plausible as well. Or at least easy to suspend disbelief. I found myself saying, “Yeah, I know this isn’t a real historical story, and I don’t care. I want to go along for the ride anyway.”
That’s not to say she didn’t get the historical details right. In fact, her research into art and lifestyles of the Renaissance was thorough and well represented in both narration and art. Being a bit of a nerd about art details like pigments, I really enjoyed all the discussion of various ways artists made different colors, and the difference in quality, durability, etc. Clearly the aforementioned risks were intentional.

I’ll dip my toe into artistic critique just for a moment. The colors are gorgeous. The pictures are interesting to look at but so perfectly paced (if that’s the right word for pictures in sequential art) that I almost forgot they were there unless I stopped to pay attention. They just told the story and pulled me right along. Scott McCloud (or my daughter) could probably tell you exactly why they worked so well. I just know that I loved every minute of the story.

Thank you to NetGalley and HarperCollins Children's Books for the e-arc!

Botticelli's Apprentice follows Mella who is currently known as the chicken girl. Girls can't be an official apprentice to an artist in Florence. This doesn't stop Mella as she decides to teach herself how to paint. One of Botticelli's apprentices steals Mella's work and passes it off as their own. Mella, alongside some allies, decides to take a stand while proving her worth and demanding recognition. From the beginning, I was rooting for Mella and her journey to becoming an artist. These types of stories are important for young readers as it shows that regardless of gender anyone can achieve their dream. The art style in this was a bit distracting at times but overall, I still think the story still shines.

This was a really great historical graphic novel and I loved the illustrations they were great. This was a really fast read and I really liked the interaction between Mella and Datus the official apprentice to the apprentice of Botticelli and how they formed a mutually beneficial arrangement between them where Datus teachs Mella what he is learning as an apprentice and Mella teaches him how to draw since he is really bad at it and lets him use her drawings as inspiration. I really enjoyed the actual art facts in the end of the book that explain renaissance Italy and Botticelli and how Mella finally got the recognition she deserved for her drawing and while she can’t be an apprentice, she ends up painting without having to be an apprentice.

Thanks to Quill Tree Books and Netgalley for the complimentary copy of this book. All opinions in this review are my own.

3.5/5 stars

I like the glossary at the front of the book with the many art, painting, and Italian words, but I can also see it being a barrier for middle grade readers.

I have to start by saying that the artwork in this graphic novel was a challenge for me. Something did not feel right about it, and as a result, I almost set it aside as a DNR. In the end, though, I figured that I owed a review and should push through the artwork to get to the story. If it had been anything but a graphic novel, I probably would have never picked it up. And I realize that it was also the graphic part that had me hesitating.

I am glad that I persevered. The story starts out a bit slow and confused, but as the characters develop and the relationship between the two younger characters evolves into more of a mutually beneficial one, I felt like things gelled. The way that the author weaves in facts about the times as part of the apprenticeship lessons was well done, and I never found that there was too much information that it overwhelmed the story. There were a few elements that got a bit lost in description, but overall a good story about interesting historical times and the roles women played in art history.

I also appreciated that there was a good section of actual historical information at the end of the book, so there is something teachable in the story as well as in the appendices.

And the artwork did grow on me. Never to the point where I was in love with it, but the "not right" feeling diminished for sure.