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The Mighty Asparagus |
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| Author: |
Vladimir Radunsky |
 Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0152167439 |
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| Availability: |
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From School Library Journal
Grade 1-6–For those who love Radunsky's flamboyantly ribald sense of humor, are comfortable with chaos, and accepting of Italian Renaissance art delivered out of context and edited mischievously, this variant of the classic tale "The Turnip" is great fun. It is set in Italy in 1602, the year an enormous stalk of asparagus grew in the king's yard. A combined effort by the monarch, the queen, a rhinoceros, the bravest knight, the princess, and Tiny Little Bird succeeds in dislodging it. "And the humongous, stupendous, splendid, catastrophic vegetable collapsed!" Not much in the text or illustrations makes sense but both scream for attention. The old masters might not be pleased with Radunsky's schoolboy tendency to exaggerate their subjects' noses or white out their eye sockets to fill them in with... |
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"Fire! Fire!" Said Mrs. McGuire |
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| Author: |
Bill Martin |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0152057250 |
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Book Review
A modern adaptation of an old nursery rhyme, Fire! Fire! Said Mrs. McGuire combines the whimsical illustrations of Caldecott Award-winning illustrator Richard Egielski with the playful one-liners of Bill Martin. When Mrs. McGuire, a television news anchor, hears about a fire from a reporter flying over the city in a helicopter, a hilarious transfer of information begins. "'Where? Where?'" said Mrs. Bear. 'Downtown!' said Mrs. Brown." The story climaxes as the fire department arrives in a flurry to extinguish a blaze that turns out to be the candles on elderly Mrs. Wear's birthday cake.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
From Publishers Weekly
The slapstick humor and fast-paced action of this version of an old rhyme begin immediately on the... |
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What Does Peace Feel Like |
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| Author: |
Vladimir Radunsky |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0689866763 |
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| Availability: |
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From School Library Journal
Kindergarten-Grade 2 - Radunsky strings together descriptive similes and metaphors to describe the essence of the word "peace." "What does Peace smell like? Like a bouquet of flowers in a happy family's living room…like fresh and new furniture…like pizza with onions and sausage.…" To the side of each question, the author indicates the names of children from the Ambrit International School in Rome who contributed their sentiments to the text. Other spreads attempt to explain how peace looks, sounds, tastes, and feels. Colorful gouache illustrations, primitive in design, supplement the concept. The only unique feature is the extensive list of words for peace in over 150 languages that appears at the end. While the book might be useful for a unit on peacekeeping, there is nothing original... |
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The Maestro Plays |
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| Author: |
Bill Martin Jr. |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Paperback |
| ISBN: |
0152050639 |
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| Availability: |
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From Publishers Weekly
Radunsky's (The Pup Grew Up!; Hail to the Mail) stylized, hand-colored, cut-paper art triumphantly illustrates Martin's (Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?) playful paean to adverbs. At center stage is a clown-like creature, "The Maestro," who plays a progression of instruments. And how does he play? In an intriguing variety of ways, including some that are easy enough to understand ("flowingly, glowingly, knowingly, showingly, goingly") and some that will require youngsters to use their imaginations ("nippingly, drippingly, zippingly, clippingly, pippingly"). The book's mischievous type (it changes size and position from one spread to another), rompish rhyme and dazzling colors will keep youngsters turning the pages... quickly, contentedly, repeatedly. Ages 2-6. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information,... |
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One |
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| Author: |
Vladimir Radunsky |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0670035645 |
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| Availability: |
Ships within 2-3 days. |
From School Library Journal
PreSchool-Grade 2-Another energetic gouache-and-collage romp with the charming, irrepressible, and fashion-forward family from Ten (Viking, 2002). All of his relations refer to the sixth-born armadillo sibling (the only pink one) as "Six." "But he says he is #1." This is a colorful and quirky kid's-eye accounting of the attributes and accomplishments that Six believes entitle him to be #1: "I'm the tallest!-I'm the smartest!-I'm the #1 inventor!" His affectionate and indulgent family, decked out in their polka-dotted dresses; elegant suits; clean, bright ear socks; and oh-so-essential tail stockings, hear him out before affirming his assertions, but with a gentle, loving twist: "You are the #1 clown, show-off, chatterbox, storyteller, dreamer! You are our #1." Beginning with a brief reintroduction to the... |
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Square Triangle Round Skinny: Boxed Set |
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| Author: |
Vladimir Radunsky |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Board Book |
| ISBN: |
0763615323 |
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| Availability: |
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From Publishers Weekly
What a ConceptFour boldly colored, shaped board books packaged in a clear carrying case teach the concepts of Square Triangle Round Skinny by Vladimir Radunsky. A photo-collage of a slice of pizza (labeled) on a green-checked tablecloth appears in the triangle-shaped book; a dachshund takes up an entire long rectangular spread in the skinny book, and a clock appears (where else?) in the round book.Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Book Description
Vladimir Radunsky explores the world of shapes with brilliant graphics in a boxed set of fun, funky board books.
What shape is a cracker? A slice of pizza? A button? A toothbrush? Fun and witty, educational and artistic, four concept books by celebrated artist Vladimir Radunsky invite toddlers to... |
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Manneken Pis |
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| Author: |
Vladimir Radunsky |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0689831935 |
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| Availability: |
Ships within 2-3 days. |
From Publishers Weekly
In the spirit of Catch-22 and The Butter Battle Book, Radunsky (Table Manners; Howdi Do) tactically plays the fool to address the ugly issue of war. His inspiration is Brussels, Belgium's famous statue of a peeing boy, which appears as a photo-collage element in this cheeky revision. He begins in fairy-tale style: "A long, long time ago, there was a small, beautiful town behind a tall stone wall." An anonymous boy, with peach-tone skin and orange-red curls, lives there happily with his parents. "But then something happened. The War. Enemies came to destroy the beautiful town." In the flamboyant spreads, dollops of sunny yellow, aqua and pale green paint give way to smears of smoldering black and red. The townsfolk, wearing breeches and ruffed collars, engage in swordplay with green-faced, black-helmeted men, who... |
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This Place I Know: Poems of Comfort |
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| Author: |
Selected by Georgia Heard |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0763628751 |
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| Availability: |
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From Publishers Weekly
Created especially for New York City schoolchildren, This Place I Know: Poems of Comfort edited by Georgia Heard includes 18 works, beginning with Eloise Greenfield's "This Place," and including poems by Karla Kuskin, Langston Hughes, Walt Whitman and Heard herself. Each is paired with illustrations by artists such as Kevin Hawkes, Chris Raschka, Petra Mathers and William Steig. A portion of the profits from the sale of the book benefit Save the Children. Ages 6-up.Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From School Library Journal
Grade 1 Up-In memory of the September 11th tragedy, this book was compiled initially to offer hope and comfort to children who witnessed the event firsthand,... |
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Bling Blang |
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| Author: |
Woody Guthrie |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
076360769X |
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| Availability: |
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From Publishers Weekly
As in Howdi Do, Radunsky provides guileless visual accompaniment to the late Guthrie's whimsical lyrics. Howdi's central figure, an enthusiastic yellow dog reappears (along with his striped cat sidekick), in the company of two children. To the words, "You bring a board and I'll bring a saw,/ And we'll build a house for the baby-o," the team assembles a structure out of colorful rectangular shapes. A memorable onomatopoetic refrain sets the workers' methodical but worry-free pace: "Bling blang,/ Hammer with my hammer,/ Zing-o zang-o,/ Cutting with my saw." Finally, the dog becomes the "baby-o" by sitting in a stroller (and receiving the song's promised kisses). Blocky panelsDcomposed of paper, cloth and photos of old walls with peeling paintDserve as bricks and wood. The characters themselves resemble hinged paper... |
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Discovery |
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| Author: |
Joseph Brodsky |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0374317933 |
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| Availability: |
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From Publishers Weekly
With chunks of chopped paper and expressionistic slashes of paint, Radunsky (Telephone; Hail to Mail) interprets a piece by the late U.S. poet laureate Brodsky about the "discovery" of America. Brodsky visits an uninhabited section of Earth where land, water and air are in chaos. In the illustrations, Radunsky represents trees as rust-orange stalks capped by roughly circular green and blue bulbs, the land as a slab of fibrous brown paper, and the sky and sea are flat blue with a few white-dot stars or the crude curve of an ocean wave. The first explorers of this nameless terrain have gills or feathers: "petrels" arrive sooner than "settlers," Brodsky observes. The poet questions humans' claim to an ancient and indifferent land; "Nature sat down and picked up her pen/ to make what fish and seagull/ saw a reality:... |
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Table Manners |
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| Author: |
Chris Raschka |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
076361453X |
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| Availability: |
Ships within 3-4 days. |
Book Review
"Dudunya, if I may say so, you look like a pig." Dudunya replies, with what looks like a piece of prosciutto and a wet string bean atop his forehead, "Chester, dear, please excuse me." And so begins one of the most strangely informative dialogues you'll likely ever hear on the topic of table manners, subtitled "The edifying story of two friends whose discovery of good manners promises them a glorious future." Chester and Dudunya's alter egos, Chris Raschka (Yo? Yes!) and Vladimir Radunsky (Yucka Drucka Droni), are--almost certainly--insane. But it's that really good sort of insane, the kind that sees through to life's deeper secrets, like the "16-Bite Potato-Eating Method" and the proper way to fold a napkin for the queen ("Only the Queen may wear her napkin as a crown!"). As Chester guides Dudunya through... |
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Girl Meets Boy/Boy Meets Girl |
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| Author: |
C. Raschka |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
2020676087 |
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| Availability: |
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From School Library Journal
PreSchool-Grade 1–Two avant-garde children's book creators team up for an enigmatic offering, originally published in France, which they suggest reading forward, backward, and upside down ("keep reading even if you have to stand on your head!"). On each spread the text (22 words in all) appears twice, at top right side up in black type, and on the bottom, upside down and transposed in blue. In between, boldly colored, richly textured childlike paintings sprawl across the pages and illustrate the words. At the halfway point in either story, the sparse linear narrative seems to demand a change in direction, but in which direction? Moving forward, the narratives sort of make sense (though the pictures are upside down) when the words are read right to left, that is until the last pages when "Boy meets" or... |
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I Love You Dude |
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| Author: |
Vladimir Radunsky |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0152051767 |
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| Availability: |
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From Publishers Weekly
In this surreal escapade, Radunsky (What Does Peace Feel Like?) speaks from the point of view of "a brave young doodle named Dude." The enigmatic piece of graffiti—an improbably long-legged blue elephant wearing clunky brown shoes, with the words "I Love You Dude" lettered above it—is painted by a child on a whitewashed wall. "Nobody was happy with me," Dude says as passersby grumble about vandalism. "I was alone, ashamed, and miserable." He leaps clumsily off the wall and seeks a surface he can call home. At first he enjoys being a decal on a mug, but he gallops away when a garish woman uses the cup for scalding coffee. He contemplates becoming a tattoo on a sunbather's ponderous belly, but decides "it was not the life for me—always hiding under shirts, rarely seeing human faces... no." After... |
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The Maestro Plays |
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| Author: |
Bill Martin, Jr. |
Book Review
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| Format: |
Hardcover |
| ISBN: |
0805017461 |
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| Availability: |
Ships within 2-3 days. |
From Publishers Weekly
Radunsky's (The Pup Grew Up!; Hail to the Mail) stylized, hand-colored, cut-paper art triumphantly illustrates Martin's (Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?) playful paean to adverbs. At center stage is a clown-like creature, "The Maestro," who plays a progression of instruments. And how does he play? In an intriguing variety of ways, including some that are easy enough to understand ("flowingly, glowingly, knowingly, showingly, goingly") and some that will require youngsters to use their imaginations ("nippingly, drippingly, zippingly, clippingly, pippingly"). The book's mischievous type (it changes size and position from one spread to another), rompish rhyme and dazzling colors will keep youngsters turning the pages... quickly, contentedly, repeatedly. Ages 2-6. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information,... |
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