Ukraine: Sasha Kotyenko's Painting "Embroidery Time"

Young Artists of the World

by Jacquiline Touba, Barbara Glasser

This unique series celebrates the artistic achievements of young artists from around the world who have painted a scene from their own lives in their own country. Published in collaboration with the IACA World Awareness Children's Museum, these books teach your students about other cultures while encouraging them to pursue their own imaginative and creative dreams. Details of the paintings are juxtaposed against color photos of the country, people, and crafts.

Genres: Ukraine

32 pages, Library Binding

First published August 1, 1999

Reviews

[Manybooks · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ukraine: Sasha Kotyenko's Painting "Embroidery Time" (1999) is an educational and for what is being offered nicely engaging picture book, ghost written by Jacquiline Touba and Barbara Glasser for teenaged Ukrainian artist Sasha Kotyenko and whose visually delightful and aesthetically expressive picture "Embroidery Time" (painted when she was twelve years old) along with child-friendly general information about the Ukraine and about Ukrainian culture and traditions (such as embroidery, pysanky eggs for Easter, that Ukrainian families grow many of their vegetables and also build their houses, a few sentences about the Ukrainian language, but just to point out that how the Ukraine suffered under Joseph Stalin, under Adolf Hitler and also often during the Soviet era, this is unfortunately not even once being mentioned) are the main subjects of Ukraine: Sasha Kotyenko's Painting "Embroidery Time".

And yes, the book cover image for Ukraine: Sasha Kotyenko's Painting "Embroidery Time" is the "Embroidery Time" painting, but no, googling Sasha Koyenko's name has not provided me with any further information whatsoever about her and her family. Therefore, I do not know how the Koteynkos (mother, father and three daughters) have fared during and since Vladimir Putin's invasion of the Ukraine in 2022 and if they have managed to survive the constant bombing by Russian soldiers of their home city of Kharkiv (which has been one of the most targeted Ukrainian metropolises during Putin's invasion and that therefore many of the positive and optimistic details about the Ukraine and about Karkhiv encountered in Ukraine: Sasha Kotyenko's Painting "Embroidery Time" should more than likely both be taken with a proverbial grain of salt and should also be considered not current, not up-to-date).

Now I absolutely do adore Sasha Kotyenko's painting (which in my opinion is simply amazingly, wonderfully detailed and gloriously colourfully expressive for a twelve year old artist) and also appreciate what Ukraine: Sasha Kotyenko's Painting "Embroidery Time" visually and textually offers, especially about embroidery and how many Ukrainian women and girls actually make their own linen thread for their embroidery and which is shown in the painting (so that while Sasha, Tatyana and Darya are depicted as embroidering, sister Halyna is spinning, is making thread). However, that (and as already mentioned above) none of the historical tragedies suffered by the Ukraine are mentioned in Ukraine: Sasha Kotyenko's Painting "Embroidery Time" (and that the Chernobyl nuclear disaster is also totally ignored), combined with there also not being any information provided about Ukrainian food and no bibliography with suggestions for further reading, while I have enjoyed Ukraine: Sasha Kotyenko's Painting "Embroidery Time" (and am glad to have come across the book on Open Library), my star rating can and will not be more than three stars.