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Radunsky, V.
8 Reviews
(3)
K-3
A little girl and a stray dog, unaware of each other, find themselves simultaneously thinking forlorn thoughts as they witness various dog-owner combos at a park. Their loneliness is so palpable that readers will be rooting for them to find each other (they do). Gouache illustrations in Radunsky's recognizable style set against tan handmade-paper backdrops are emotive.
Reviewer: Nell Beram
(3)
K-3
This winningly tongue-in-cheek takeoff on the Russian folktale "The Turnip" changes the vegetable to a giant stalk of asparagus and the setting to Renaissance Italy, where a king enlists help to yank the green "monster" out of his yard. Radunsky's confiding omniscient narrator ("Oh. I almost forgot. How silly of me") and whimsical art draw readers into the nonsensical story.
Reviewer: Christine M. Heppermann
(4)
K-3
Children from the Ambrit International School in Rome describe what peace smells, looks, sounds, tastes, and feels like (e.g., it feels "like the fur of a baby mouse"). The concept is inspired and timely, and Radunsky's vivacious color art manages to be moving without being maudlin, but, with their myriad and occasionally domineering typefaces, the spreads can be more anxiety-provoking than pacific.
Reviewer: Nell Beram
(3)
K-3
A young armadillo named Six, from the litter born in Radunsky's whimsical book Ten, repeatedly proclaims himself number one--"I'm the tallest!" "I'm the smartest!" etc.--in this engaging, boisterous sequel. Colorfully drawn relations, with their blue painted schnozzes and patterned "ear socks," find a clever way to acknowledge Six's braggadocio without crushing his spirit.
Reviewer: Christine M. Heppermann
(3)
K-3
In a breezy, make-it-up-as-he-goes-along tone, Radunsky introduces readers to a happy armadillo couple whose joy is compounded by the birth of their ten children, named One, Two, Three, etc. The free-spirited page design, featuring blocky collage art in electric colors, enhances the whimsical nature of the text.
Reviewer: Christine M. Heppermann
(2)
K-3
Radunsky constructs an allegory around Brussels's Manneken Pis, the bronze statue of a little boy merrily piddling a fountain. In this version, the town is being consumed by war. The boy pees off the top of a building onto the combatants below; they all begin "laughing, laughing, laughing" and put down their arms. The battle scenes in the boldly theatrical paintings are only mock-ferocious, the "enemies" depicted with cute little green faces.
Reviewer: Roger Sutton
| Horn Book Magazine Issue:
September, 2002
(4)
K-3
The authors/artists serve up an irreverent and humorous guide that would surely displease Martha Stewart. Proper Chester instructs a manners-impaired Dudunya in the basics as well as some more obscure skills (napkin folding for the Queen). The mixed-media art and variety of type sizes contribute to a frantic design, but this determindly offbeat effort will appeal to those with a loose approach to etiquette.
Reviewer: Kitty Flynn
(4)
K-3
Glossy expanses of intense color provide the backdrop on which collage illustrations enact a tongue twister about three nonsensically named brothers who marry three equally outlandish sisters. The graphics are dramatic and unusual, in part because they show the merging of two interracial families, but the tongue twister proves too slight to sustain an entire book.
Reviewer: The Horn Book, Inc.
8 reviews
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