A delightful true tale, with a lot of timeline liberties. Throughout the book, Rosa Bonheur is portrayed as a young girl, under the age of 10, but the majority of what occurs in this book happened when Rosa was well into her 20s. However, this choice was obviously made so younger readers would identify more with the artist.

When you do a picture book about an artist, you've got a really big challenge on your hands. How do you draw in your own style AND portray the style of the subject artist? But Anna Bron did a wonderful job, here. We don't see a lot of Bonheur's work through Bron's lens, but there's particular focus on "The Horse Fair," and we can see how each figure and post of the original work is filtered through a more cartoonish style. Quite delightful!

A good, quick biography. I only wish there had been a few more of Bonheur's original works reprinted at the end of the book. There's one, but it's TINY, and it's not even "The Horse Fair!"

Advanced reader copy provided by the publisher.

Thanks to Netgalley and Orca Books for the ARC of this!

I am always interested in sharing biographies of famous or influential women with my children, especially if I’ve never heard of them. I loved the art in this and the prose was just right. A good length for reading aloud, we all enjoyed reading it.

Any picture book biography of an artist needs to have brilliant illustrations and No Horses in the House delivers with Anna Bron at the artistic helm. A sweet story of a spunky artist.

This book highlights the true story of Rosa Bonheur's life as an artist at a time in history that girls/woman were not accepted as artists. Rosa's determination to follow her dreams and pursue the art practice she loved so dearly, regardless of what anyone told her, is quite inspiring. The illustrations in this book are charming and go very well with this story. This is quite a beautiful little book!

The publisher of this book was very kind to send me an advance reader's copy of it (via NetGalley), for which I am very grateful, and these are my honest thoughts.

This is one of the cutest nonfiction children’s books I’ve read in a long time. It does a great job of contextualizing history while also applying modern thought to the story. The illustrations are beautiful and I’m in love with the story.

This is a beautifully illustrated, inspirational book. I love that it combines the artist’s biography with such a fun and relatable story while also showing the unfairness of the gender rules at the time— and showed how she overcame them. I’ll be publicly reviewing this on one of my web sites close to publication, as well as on sites like Goodreads (where it strangely doesn’t seem to have an entry yet, wasting all the glowing reviews here on NetGalley). I’ll definitely be recommending it.

Thank you so much to net galley and the publisher for sending me a copy of this book. I would definitely recommend this to all parents with small children

No Horses in the House! is a wonderful picture book about Rosa Bonheur, a talented female artist in the 19th century France. Because of her gender, she was highly discouraged from being an artist, but she showed great persistence and creativity to pursue it. I really enjoyed this story about a young woman who fought against norms to pursue her dreams. The illustrations are gorgeous and have a great vintage feel.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for providing this ARC. All thoughts are my own.

This beautiful picture book biography tells the story of Rosa Bonheur's life growing up to become an artist who was not appreciated within her time. Today, her realist paintings are found in art galleries everywhere. The illustrations are so intricate and detailed with such interesting background images. I could definitely see this book sparking interest of young readers. The text is a bit small making it slightly more challenging to read for younger readers, but I think that keeping it small and allowing readers to fully take in the illustrations was a worthwhile decision. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me the chance to read and review this book!

The most stunningly beautiful book. The illustrations are beautiful and I loved the way the story presented Rosa Bonheur's path to painting. I only recently learned about Bonheur and I love her life story and works, and I think having a children's book about her is just wonderful and her story is in such gifted hands.

Come for the empowering and inspiring story, stay for the gorgeous illustrations.

I love the art and how it highlights a strong (and gender-nonconforming) woman who went after her goals. I wish the story had made the chronology more clear. Many of the incidents in her life in the book actually happened when she was in her 20s or 30s, and the book makes it look like it's all when she's maybe, at a stretch, age 8-14, if not all in one or two years. There is a great timeline in the back of the book. It labels the incidents by year. Adding her age for each one would help, as well as a note that the timeline was collapsed for the sake of the story. A great introduction, but not useful for a student doing a biography book report.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The pictures in this children's book are wonderful and the story is fantastic!

Thank you NetGalley and Orca Book Publishers for this ARC.
This book is filled with illustrations that remind me of art that used to hang in a restaurant my family frequented when I was a child. I had no idea of Rosa Bonheur or her life before this. Her story is similar to many women truing to make their way in this male-dominated world. The fact that she had to obtain permission to wear trousers is maddening. I enjoyed learning of her and her story and maybe one day when I finally make it to Paris, I will get to see her works in person!

Thanks to Netgalley and Orca for a free digital copy.

A fascinating picture book on the life of artist Rosa Bonheur and her stubborn determination to follow her passions. I loved how informative this book was while also being an engaging narrative.

This picture book is a sort of short memoir adapted for children about the childhood of French artist and painter Rosa Bonheur, how she loved to draw animals (mostly horses) but how her passion met ridicule and opposition from men and a society whose strict gender rules did not allow a girl to dress like a boy or do things that only boys could do.
Stubborn as only children can be, Rosa persisted and kept on drawing animals and went on to become a famous French artist as well as an independent liberal woman.

The illustrations are warm and colorful and beautiful and the message is as important as ever: don't let others dictate what you can ore cannot do, who you can or cannot be; no matter what is your gender, you can be whoever you want to be and do whatever brings you joy!

Ps. This picture book is shelved as LGBT+. That is because Rosa Bonheur's life companion was a woman but this isn't addressed in here; it is said in the life line at the end of the book, but the story is exclusively about stereotypical gender roles.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for letting me review this book. The illustrations were great and I liked how the paragraphs were in different spots;not just on top of each other. It was a shame she lived in a time she couldn’t just be herself and do what she wanted. I like the fact that Rosa didn’t give up and went after what she wanted. It was cool her parents didn’t force her to do anything and let her find her own way and accepted who she was. I liked that her parents let her keep so many animals so she could keep drawing.

Pub day: March 14, 2023

My six year old daughter and I loved this book! Learning about Rose was fascinating and her fortitude was inspirational!

My daughter loved reading about how she was determined to be an artist no matter what and has been drawing her own animals since finishing this book!

I loved the authors note and learning about this incredible woman!

Thank you Netgalley and Orca Book Publishers for the arc in exchange for an honest review!

Rosa Bonheur was a pioneering, feminist and gay artist. As a child, she loved to draw animals, but France in the 19th century wasn’t ready to accept female artists. Rosa challenged the rules to fight for her dreams of becoming an artist.

Read No Horses in the House! to promote discussions on determination, resilience, gender roles, self-expression, confidence, tolerance, and open-mindedness.

Such a well told story with beautiful illustrations! I absolutely love this one and will definitely recommend it for all of my young artist readers! So excellent.

5/5
thanks to orca book publishers and netgalley for the arc!

this was such a cute children's book with lovely illustrations about a historical artist, Rosa Bonheur, who i had never heard of before this. i thought that this was a good introduction to her life, as well as a fun way to discuss how gender roles affect people for kids at a young age.