Petrone, Valeria

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Petrone, Valeria

Personal

Female. Education: Attended St. Martin School of Art (London, England).

Addresses

Home and office—Italy. E-mail—[email protected].

Career

Illustrator.

Member

Italian Association of Illustrators (vice president), Society of Illustrators of NY.

Illustrator

Carol Watson, If You Were a Puppy, Dinosaur (London, England), 1989.

Wes Magee, Morning Break, and Other Poems, Cambridge University (New York, NY), 1990.

Dennis Bond, The Granny Who Wasn't like Other Grannies, 1993, new edition, Coach House (London, England), 2003.

Incy Wincy Spider, and Other Nursery Rhymes, Ladybird (London, England), 1994.

Linda Jennings, This Little Piggy, Levinson Books (London, England), 1997.

Kate Burns, Round and Round the Garden, Levinson Books (London, England), 1997.

Denis Bond, The Shark Who Bit Things He Shouldn't, Little Hippo (London, England), 1998.

Lori Haskins, Ducks in Muck, Random House (New York, NY), 2000.

Nancy Smiler Levinson, Say Cheese!, Golden Books (New York, NY), 2000.

Mary Serfozo, Plumply, Dumply Pumpkin, Margaret K. McElderry Books (New York, NY), 2001.

Marion Dane Bauer, Uh-oh!: A Lift-the-Flap Story, Little Simon (New York, NY), 2002.

Leslie Parrott, God Made You Nose to Toes, Zonderkidz (Grand Rapids, MI), 2002.

Teresa Imperato, Colors All Around, Piggy Toes Press (Los Angeles, CA), 2003.

Joan N. Keener God Thought of It First, Standard Publishing, 2003.

Anna Jane Hays, The Pup Speaks Up: A Phonics Reader, Random House (New York, NY), 2003.

Teresa Imperato, How Many Ducks in a Row?, Piggy Toes Press (Los Angeles, CA), 2003.

Stuart J. Murphy, Double the Ducks, HarperCollins (New York, NY), 2003.

Jan Peck, Way Down Deep in the Deep Blue Sea, Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers (New York, NY), 2004.

[Image not available for copyright reasons]

Helen Bannerman, The Boy and the Tigers, Golden Books (New York, NY), 2004.

Cari Meister, Luther's Halloween, Viking (New York, NY), 2004.

Jan Peck, Way up High in a Tall Green Tree, Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers (New York, NY), 2005.

Patricia Ryan, My Blankie: A Book to Touch and Feel, Little Simon (New York, NY), 2005.

Michelle Knudsen, Fish and Frog, Candlewick Press (Cambridge, MA), 2005.

Jan Peck, Way Far away on a Wild Safari, Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers (New York, NY), 2006.

Shari Becker, Horris Grows Down, G.P. Putnam's Sons (New York, NY), 2007.

Kersten Hamilton, Red Truck, Viking Children's Books (New York, NY), 2008.

Sidelights

Artist Valeria Petrone is internationally known as a children's book illustrator. Although her images appear primarily in stories by English-language authors, books featuring Petrone's art have also reached young readers in Japan, France, and her native Italy through translation. Petrone's work is inspired by English book illustration—she trained at London's St. Martin School of Art—and it has been paired with texts by such well-known children's authors as Jan Peck, Stuart J. Murphy, Cari Meister, and Marion Dane Bauer. In her School Library Journal appraisal of Peck's picture book Way up High in a Tall Green Tree, Suzanne Meyers-Harold cited Petrone for contributing "bold, colorful, digitally rendered" images that are distinguished by a "creative use of perspective," and a Kirkus Reviews writer cited the illustrator's "bold touch."

Petrone uses her signature bold colors and digital images in her illustrations for Shari Becker's Horris Grows Down. In the 2007 picture book, Horris is an overgrown four year old who towers over his parents. Told by his parents to find a job, the oversized preschooler is hampered by the fact that he can neither read nor count. In creating art for Becker's quirky tale, Petrone uses vivd colors, creating "smooth digital illustrations, which mimic acrylic painting in retro oranges and turquoise," as noted by a Publishers Weekly reviewer. Julie Cummins, in her review of Horris Grows Down for Booklist, compared Petrone's unique images to those of other eccentric artists and wrote that her "wacky illustrations … call up the work of J. Otto Seibold and Dan Yaccarino."

Biographical and Critical Sources

PERIODICALS

Booklist, April 15, 2000, Hazel Rochman, review of Ducks in Muck, p. 1555; September 1, 2001, Shelle Rosenfeld, review of Plumply, Dumply Pumpkin, p. 122; March 15, 2003, Hazel Rochman, review of Double the Ducks, p. 1328; July, 2003, Ilene Cooper, review of The Pup Speaks Up: A Phonics Reader, p. 1899; February 15, 2007, Julie Cummins, review of Horris Grows Down, p. 82.

Books, February 11, 2007, Mary Harris Russell, review of Horris Grows Down, p. 7.

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, September, 2004, Gay Lynn Van Vleck, review of Luther's Halloween, p. 174; September, 2005, Hope Morrison, review of Way up High in a Tall Green Tree, p. 34; February, 2007, Deborah Stevenson, review of Horris Grows Down, p. 244.

Kirkus Reviews, July 1, 2001, review of Plumply, Dumply Pumpkin, p. 947; December 1, 2002, review of Double the Ducks, p. 1770; April 1, 2004, review of Way Down Deep in the Deep Blue Sea, p. 335; July 1, 2004, review of Luther's Halloween, p. 633; June 15, 2005, review of Way up High in a Tall Green Tree, p. 688; May 1, 2006, review of Way Far Away on a Wild Safari, p. 465; December 15, 2006, review of Horris Grows Down, p. 1264.

Publishers Weekly, January 4, 1999, review of Round and Round the Garden, p. 92; May 29, 2000, review of Round and Round the Garden, p. 84; September 24, 2001, review of Plumply, Dumply Pumpkin, p. 42; May 10, 2004, review of Way Down Deep in the Deep Blue Sea, p. 57; August 9, 2004, review of Luther's Halloween, p. 31; January 22, 2007, review of Horris Grows Down, p. 184.

School Librarian, November, 1989, review of If You Were a Puppy, p. 146; August, 1993, review of The Granny Who Wasn't like Other Grannies, p. 101.

School Library Journal, August, 2000, Susan Hepler, review of Give a Little Love: Stories of Love and Friendship, p. 164; February, 2001, Barb Lawler, review of Ducks in Muck, p. 100; September, 2001, Piper L. Myman, review of Plumply, Dumply Pumpkin, p. 206; July, 2004, Julie Roach, review of Way Down Deep in the Deep Blue Sea, p. 84; August, 2005, Melinda Piehler, review of Fish and Frog, p. 98; September, 2005, Suzanne Myers Harold, review of Way up High in a Tall Green Tree, p. 184; June, 2006, Marge Loch-Wouters, review of Way Far Away on a Wild Safari, p. 124; February, 2007, Maryann H. Owen, review of Horris Grows Down, p. 84.