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Ms. Rubinstein's Beauty Hardcover – September 28, 2006

by Pep Montserrat (Author)

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Its a message we learn in childhood, but all too quickly forget: ?Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. ?Beauty is only skin deep. With its incandescent paintings and imaginative text, Ms. Rubinsteins Beauty shows us just how true these timeless sayings can be. Children will be enchanted?and surprised at every turn.
?Ms. Rubenstein is a beautiful woman. But nobody knows it. No?they dont notice her wonderful eyes, delicate hands, graceful feet, and kind heart. Something a little strange, a little distracting about her captures their attention instead. But one man?himself a bit out of the ordinary?thinks shes the vision of loveliness.
Pep Montserrat has created a gorgeous tribute to love that looks beyond the obvious?and a picture book as special as its two main characters.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Kindergarten-Grade 2—This book begins, "Ms. Rubinstein is a beautiful woman. But nobody knows it," and the elegantly dressed woman is shown with her back to readers. On the opposite page, she is depicted in close-up, with a fan covering the lower half of her face: "Ms. Rubinstein has very beautiful eyes. But nobody sees them." As the story progresses, readers are shown more of Ms. Rubinstein's lovely attributes, until finally the fan is removed to reveal that she is the Bearded Lady of a visiting circus. On her day off, she goes to the park. No one seems to notice her kindness in feeding the birds, except for the pigeons and Mr. Pavlov, who sits next to her. In this scene, the lower part of his face is obscured by a scarf, while Ms. Rubinstein's face is completely unadorned. The two steal admiring glances at one another, then gaze directly into one another's eyes, and walk away hand in hand. Onlookers do not see the pair's smiles or growing love. They can only gawk at Ms. Rubinstein's beard, and Mr. Pavlov's trunk-he is the Elephant Man of another circus visiting the town. The stylized illustrations in bold and muted hues of red, black, and beige complement the text. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and readers will find much beauty in these characters, and in their story.—DeAnn Okamura, San Mateo County Library, CA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

They are two freaks on display in different circuses. Ms. Rubinstein is a bearded lady; Mr. Pavlov is the Elephant Man with a long proboscis. But when they meet on a bench in the park, they find the beauty and grace in each other, and they fall in love. The double-page spreads, colored with lots of red and black, begin with people gaping in the park, seeing only ugliness. Then the art moves close up to show what Mr. Pavlov sees in Ms. Rubinstein--huge, gorgeous eyes and a lovely nose--and what she sees in him, including his thick, wavy red hair. Everyone feels like a monster sometimes, whether it is because of a zit on the nose or the extra pound on the waistline, and even children who begin by laughing at the strangeness of the characters will eventually grasp the operatic romance of two outcasts who find each other. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Union Square Kids; First Edition (September 28, 2006)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 32 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1402730632
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1402730634
Reading age ‏ : ‎ 5 - 6 years
Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ AD880L
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 14.4 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 9.25 x 0.25 x 9 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #5,154,171 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #8,742 in Children's Performing Arts Books (Books)
- #16,772 in Children's Self-Esteem Books

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Stef

Fantastic Book!

Reviewed in the United States on March 2, 2011

Verified Purchase

This book is an incredable story about excepting yourself the way you are and loving others for their good qualities. The main characters have some major flaws that seems to distract others from seeing their true beauty, but when they meet, they both look beyond those things and fall in love. The pictures are fantastic!

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Betsy Bird

The way you wear your hat. The way you sip your tea. The way you changed my life. No no, they can't take that away from me.

Reviewed in the United States on February 8, 2007

The beautiful children's book is usually an ugly beast. Formats that adults find appealing tend to bore young tots to a stupor. If a picture book looks good, nine times out of ten you can count on its writing being sub par or (far worse) "tasteful". Ugh. Still, I won't deny that I'm a sucker for a beauty. Toss me a pretty book and observe as my resolve turns to a kind of viscous goo. On a first glance, I found "Ms. Rubinstein's Beauty" a visual joy. The kind of thing you could page through time after time again and never grow tired of. Still, it wasn't until I discovered that the text accompanying the book was not only good but downright poetic that my respect for one Mr. Pep Montserrat took a definite climb upwards in estimation. This kind of rarity makes it all the sweeter. Montserrat is a first time author/illustrator and let it not be on my head that he is not appreciated as fully as he deserves. So I'm singing to the hilltops that "Ms. Rubinstein's Beauty" is a remarkable, touching, deeply attractive tale for young `uns. It is that rare meeting of what kids like with what adults like, together at long last.

Ms. Rubinstein has a bit of a problem getting people to notice her finer aspects. You won't find anyone with prettier eyes or a sweeter nose. No one even comes close when making comparisons to her pretty hands that "move harmoniously and delicately" with her tiny little feet. For you see, Ms. Rubinstein is the bearded lady of the Balius Circus and it's a lonely life indeed. One day, she takes herself to the park where she feeds the pigeons, gathering many a stare from the passerby in the process. No one notices anything besides her beard, except for one Mr. Pavlov who sits down next to her. He admires her hands and feet and she, in turn, likes the way he holds his walking stick and crosses his legs. It is love at first sight. And though "nobody sees the love growing between them," the bearded lady and Mr. Pavlov, who as we are soon to learn is the trunk-nosed Elephant Man of the rival Guston Circus, have finally found one another at last.

The book is dedicated, "To all the bearded ladies, including those who are neither ladies nor bearded." Insofar as I could tell, clever wordplay such as this is not the work of a translator. Mr. Montserrat was born in Spain, but his ear for an English turn of phrase rivals that of most native English speakers. Here you'll find phrases like, "But their eyes don't see their eyes anymore, just their hearts. And their hearts say that they had been waiting for each other." Right from the start it is clear that every little sentence in this book has been carefully crafted and weighed against its alternatives. Language should never be ignored in favor of pretty pictures. The best a person can hope for is a seamless convergence of the two, and "Ms. Rubinstein's Beauty", has that in spades.

I was also particularly keen on the gentle morality of the tale. We've all the heard the standard don't-judge-a-book-by-its-cover folderol. It's been done. What this book does from the very first word onward is to make it clear that Ms. Rubinstein has some stellar qualities that no one ever sees. No one, that is, save Mr. Pavlov. By the way, I've been working and reworking some kind of justification in my head for naming this character Pavlov and I've come up dry. Suggestions are more than welcome in this manner. Anyway, the point is that this book doesn't cram a moral down your throat. What you take away from this tale is whatever it is you wish to take away. The fact that it's funny to boot hurts not a jot.

And then there's the art. Ah, the art. Montserrat's style works entirely in the colors you see on the cover. Orange reds, browns, blacks, and tans appear here like old-timey posters left out in the sun and exposed to the elements. There is a mix here of a wear and tear feel alongside crisp, clear, pristine, and flawless prints. Working in this way, you'd forgive the artist for failing to put in any shadows or intricate details, but time and again Montserrat does nothing but surprise. Best of all, he isn't afraid of a little foreshadowing. The vision of Ms. Rubinstein, when she first reveals her bearded state, pulls back to show her sitting in her circus tent. Not too far away is another tent. One the reader might miss on a first pass. And standing nearby in a jolly fashion is an elephant with a trunk that will soon prove familiar. I loved too that when Ms. Rubinstein went out to feed the pigeons in the park, she becomes the most colorful character in the otherwise brown and gloomy scene. Montserrat has an eye for fabulous fashions. Sporting a sleek little woolen coat, hat to match, and boots to die for, Ms. Rubinstein is a burnt umber vision. Little wonder that Mr. Pavlov, his scarf/nose equally eye-catching in its hues, ends up her mate.

So basically, my points are as follows:

1. Gorgeous kid-friendly art that fans of design will love just as much as their tiny offspring.

2. A story that reads off the page perfectly, considering the format.

3. A morality tale without a forced moral. A lesson without didacticism.

Great stuff. Please make sure that this isn't a picture book you end up missing.