The Girls in the Chartreuse Jackets combines Maria Mazziotti Gillan's unique gifts as a visual artist with her already internationally known and prize winning poetry. Gillan's imagination, whimsical sense of line and vibrant use of colors shine forth through this beautiful picture book in a manner that both compliments and contrasts with the wonderful poems. While the poetry offers moving narratives of people and events taken directly from Gillan's life, the paintings are the flip side of that record--deeply joyous, even gleeful depictions of the artist's rich, sometimes dream like inner world. Readers of her poetry have long known Gillan as a fearless witness to the challenges of class, gender and ethnicity. Her eyes have always been wide open to the sometimes difficult truths of her world. But in The Girl with The Chartreuse Jackets Maria Mazziotti Gillan has shown that her eyes are equally open to whimsy and to the dance of the imagination. This is a mature poet who has come full circle to meet a brilliant child/artist. The Girls in The Chartreuse Jackets is an essential book for anyone who wants to know the full range of Maria Mazziotti Gillan's--both as poet and as artist.