“Behind the Canvas” by Alexander Vance

I forgot where I first heard of this book. It must have been on a booktube channel or while perusing Book Outlet for books to buy. It’s weird, but a few of the books on my Goodreads TBR were added because I saw them on Book Outlet but didn’t want to purchase them at the time. Basically, I was drawn to them because of the cover or, in this case, the title.

I love art and enjoy visiting art museums. I’ve often thought it would be cool to read a fantasy novel where the protagonist has to enter paintings and pictures; so when I saw the title of this book and read the synopsis, I got excited. It’s the type of story I’ve daydreamed about.

Genre:

Middle-grade fantasy

Pubbed:

2016

Quick overview:

Behind the Canvas is a stand-alone middle-grade fantasy novel about a girl named Claudia Miravista who loves art but has no close friends. While on a fieldtrip to a local art museum in her hometown in Illinois, she notices a boy with bright blue eyes in a painting. But when she points him out to two of her classmates, she realizes he has disappeared.

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some insight on the “near win” from Sarah Lewis

“We thrive not when we’ve done it all, but when we still have more to do.”

“We build out of the unfinished idea, even if that idea is our former self.”

“Completion is a goal but we hope it is never the end.”

—Sarah Lewis, from her TED Talk, “Embrace the near win.” Lewis is a writer, art historian, and curator. Her debut book The Rise: Creativity, the Gift of Failure, and the Search for Mastery analyzes the idea of failure focusing on case studies that reveal how setbacks can become a tool enabling us to master our destinies (TED Talks). 

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