Retrato do autor

Catherine McGrew Jaime

Autor(a) de Leonardo the Florentine

27 Works 40 Membros 5 Críticas

About the Author

Séries

Obras por Catherine McGrew Jaime

Leonardo the Florentine (2010) 6 exemplares
Timeline Journal (2011) 2 exemplares
Organized Ramblings (2013) 2 exemplares

Etiquetado

Conhecimento Comum

Sexo
female

Membros

Críticas

What little I knew of Leonardo da Vinci before listening to this book was about his later years. Leonardo the Florentine does a great job of showing us who Leonardo was as a boy, teen, and young man. At an age we would today consider far to young to be off on your own, Leonardo apprenticed at Master Verrochio’s art workshop in Florence. The story excels at describing not only the work done at the workshop but the various architecture, pageantry, and statues around Florence. Leonardo was exposed to quite the variety of art forms and media during his formative years. Even though he was much older that the typical novice, he possessed a deep interest and no little amount of natural skill. Verrochio noted that and encouraged Leonardo to take on greater and greater challenges.

There’s a bit of intrigue tossed into the tale. Leonardo was alive during the time of the Medicis and the politics of the time often involved battles and small wars up and down the length of Italy. Leonardo isn’t interested in politics and hopes to never get caught up in a war, but there is this mystery concerning the Pitti Palace that threatens to suck Leonardo and his friends into intrigue. While I would have enjoyed the book a little more if this aspect of the story had more of a presence, I still enjoyed Leonardo uncovering information one clue at a time.

This is a family-friendly version of Leonardo’s younger years. There’s no gore or love story or even harsh words. All the characters are polite to each other, even the gruff ones. While I can appreciate that the focus of the story is giving us a good outline of young Leonardo’s life, it did come off as a little to tidied up. The 1470s were definitely harsher than our modern era with flush toilets, antibiotics, and the UN. A little grit would have given a more believable flavor to the story. Leonardo comes off as naive throughout the entire tale; as a kid and even teen, this would have probably worked but as he enters his young adult years, having lived without family and earning his keep from a young age, the naivety didn’t work so well.

While there are a handful of women mentioned, there are no female characters. There were obviously women in the 1470s in Florence and most likely there were some women in Leonardo’s life even if they were relegated to the roles of someone’s wife or housekeeper or cook or such. I would have appreciated even a token try at gender balancing this tale.
Leonardo the Florentine is a good source of information about Leonardo’s young years, if not detailed. I learned that Leonardo had no formal schooling (even by standards of the day) and had to learn Latin mostly on his own. This single skill opened a world of knowledge to Leonardo. His status as a student and worker at Verrochio’s workshop opened doors for him that would have remained closed otherwise due to his birth status. Prior to listening to this book, I did not know that Leonardo had such a strained relationship with his parents. Nuggets of info like these are revealed throughout the story in interesting ways. By the end, I felt I knew young Leonardo as a possible friend instead of some wise old man high up on a pedestal. 4/5 stars
The Narration: David Winograd did a pretty good job with this story. His Italian and Latin pronunciations of names and certain words sounded accurate to me. His voice as young, naive Leonardo was well done. There were a few places throughout the story where there were some odd pauses in the middle of sentences. All his character voices were distinct. 4.5/5 stars.
➜ This audiobook was received at no-cost from Audiobookworm Promotions. The gifting of this audiobook did not affect my opinion of it.
… (mais)
 
Assinalado
DabOfDarkness | 1 outra crítica | Jan 29, 2018 |
My original Understanding Presidential Elections audiobook review and many others can be found at Audiobook Reviewer.

Understanding Presidential Elections: The Constitution, Caucuses, Primaries, Electoral College, and More, Updated for the 2016 Election! is an overview of Catherine Jaime’s class or course on America’s political process. Teaching a class and students are mentioned so I came to my own conclusion.

I am not sure what was updated for the 2016 election as nothing was said as such. However, I did learn some things. Such as how the Unites States are a republic by design and not a true democracy as so many would have you think.

I enjoyed the brief history lesson on how our founding fathers had the foresight to structure the system in a way that was as fair as possible and still works to this day. I wish this book was longer and went into more detail about every aspect of Caucuses and Primaries. Because I still do not completely understand the need for them.

Sadly, there were some issues with the audio production, I always hate finding these things. There were several occurrences (some time stamps 3:05, 9:40, 16:43, 36:18, 36:25) of a page turning sound as if David Winograd was reading off of a paper manuscript or maybe it was a rustling, I am not really sure what it was. Then there were several chapter/section headings that began almost on top of the last word in the previous paragraph and was a little distracting. Especially when the section pauses reverted to what I would consider normal. When this happened I found myself checking to see if the book stopped playing.

David Winograd has a very pleasing almost relaxing voice. Personally, I would have preferred an authoritative voice to convey that this book has authority on this subject. Because I was already intune to listening deeply and closely from the aforementioned issues I found that there was a very obvious tonal and sound difference between takes.

Audiobook was provided for review by the author
… (mais)
 
Assinalado
audiobibliophile | Mar 1, 2017 |
We have successfully used this with groups of students.
They were not overly enthusiastic to begin with but had lots of fun.
 
Assinalado
ambrose_rex | Jan 26, 2015 |
The cover on this illustrates something which represents Leonardo extremely well. I really enjoyed reading this.

Leonardo the Florentine is a book of historical fiction, however most of it is based on facts with artistic license used. The storyline interweaves Leonardo's life and the politics of his time, along with a story showing Leonardo working alongside Master Verrocchio during his early years.

I felt I learnt a lot from this book, even though it's fiction, it still has elements of fact within the pages. It has a lot of info within the 150 odd pages. As a family we love books like this, and are big fans of The Magic Tree House series of books. Although there's no magic involved in this book, the intermingling of fiction and fact is fascinating and makes for an entertaining and educational read.

This is a fantastic family friendly book, with enough information in here for most people. It would be a brilliant starter as a unit study for home educators, as a story to read alongside learning about Leonardo and his early years, or just for fun, as I think there's something in it for most people....an assassination plot, family, friendship and history.

Book Synopsis:
Who are the Medici brothers? And who is trying to assassinate them? Why was the Pitti Palace never completed? And what part does Leonardo play in all of this?

Leonardo da Vinci is remembered as an artist and inventor. But who was he before anyone knew his name? This family-friendly novel explores the history and legends of his early years in Florence. It also weaves a mystery of politics and power.
… (mais)
 
Assinalado
CloverHillReviews | 1 outra crítica | Jan 29, 2011 |

Estatísticas

Obras
27
Membros
40
Popularidade
#370,100
Avaliação
4.2
Críticas
5
ISBN
25