Petrosino, Tamara

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Petrosino, Tamara

Personal

Female. Education: Rhode Island School of Design, B.F.A. (illustration), 1998.

Addresses

Agent—Herman Agency, 350 Central Park W., New York, NY 10025. E-mail—[email protected].

Career

Illustrator and graphic designer. Formerly worked for an illustrator's design studio and a publishing company.

Illustrator

Donna Kosow, Rabbit Stew, Grosset & Dunlap (New York, NY), 1999.

Arthur Bloch, Murphy's Law: What Else Can Go Wrong in the 21st Century! (for adults), Price Stern Sloan, 1999.

Margo Linn, The Worst Haircut Ever!, Scholastic (New York, NY), 2002.

Donna Jo Napoli and Marie Kane, Rocky: The Cat Who Barks, Dutton (New York, NY), 2002.

Jayne Harvey, Cat Show, Grosset & Dunlap (New York, NY), 2003.

Gail Herman, Sam's First Library Card, Grosset & Dunlap (New York, NY), 2003.

Stephen Krensky, There Once Was a Very Odd School, and Other Lunch-Box Limericks, Dutton (New York, NY), 2004.

Coleen Murtagh Paratore, How Prudence Proovit Proved the Truth about Fairy Tales, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2004.

Mark Shulman, AA Is for Aardvark, Sterling Publishing (New York, NY), 2005.

Wendy Wax, Class Picture Day, Grosset & Dunlap (New York, NY), 2005.

David Crawley, Cat Poems, Wordsong (Honesdale, PA), 2005.

Harriet Ziefert, No Plain Hair!, Sterling Publishing (New York, NY), 2006.

Mark Shulman, A Is for Zebra, Sterling Publishing (New York, NY), 2006.

Jacqueline Horsfall, Kid's Kookiest Knock-Knocks, Sterling Publishing (New York, NY), 2006.

Siobhan Ciminera, The Spookiest Jack O'Lantern Ever!, Grosset & Dunlap (New York, NY), 2007.

Siobhan Ciminera, The Funniest Bunny Ever!, Grosset & Dunlap (New York, NY), 2007.

Siobhan Ciminera, The Coolest Snowman Ever!, Grosset & Dunlap (New York, NY), 2007.

David Crawley, Dog Poems, Wordsong (Honesdale, PA), 2007.

Siobhan Ciminera, The Silliest Valentine Ever!, Grosset & Dunlap (New York, NY), 2007.

Sidelights

Quirky animal characters take center stage in the colorful cartoon art of Tamara Petrosino. Since earning her degree at the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design, Petrosino has created illustrations that highlight a number of children's books. In addition to collaborating with author Dave Crawley on Dog Poems and Cat Poems, her work also brings to life texts by Donna Jo Napoli, Harriet Ziefert, Stephen Krensky, Mark Shulman, and Siobhan Ciminera. Reviewing her work for Krensky's There Once Was a Very Odd School, Kay Weisman noted in Booklist that "Petrosino's colorful, cartoon-like illustrations extend the humor of the rhymes, sometimes in surprising ways." "Exaggerated facial expressions and body language are used to great effect" in her work for Napoli's Rocky: The Cat Who Barked, concluded Lauren Peterson in a Booklist review.

An illustrated collection of humorous poems about cats, Crawley's simply titled Cat Poems "addresses feline types and idiosyncrasies with unapologetic adoration," according to a Publishers Weekly reviewer. Petrosino's cartoon illustrations track Crawley's twenty-four-poem tour of cat breeds, from Devon rex and Persian to Siamese, and range "from full-spread compositions to … very clever vignettes" rendered in comic-book style, wrote the Publishers Weekly critic. In School Library Journal, Shawn Brommer concluded of Cat Poems that "Petrosino's watercolor illustrations match the mood of the light verse," and a Kirkus Reviews contributor concluded that Crawley's "rollicking rhymed tributes" to the feline species team well with the illustrator's "simple, vivacious cartoon portraits."

Author and illustrator team up again for Dog Poems, in which Petrosino's "comic ink-and-watercolor illustra- tions perfectly reflect the lighthearted mood" of Crawley's verse. Here the focus is exclusively canine and strays from poodles to sheepdogs to pups of a fiercer nature. In Kirkus Reviews a reviewer praised the "additional comic touches" Petrosino gives to Crawley's "casual, humorous" poems and remarked that the illustrator includes "dog owners of varying ethnicities." Writing that "there's lots of humor packed in the poems," Booklist contributor Ilene Cooper added that Petrosino's illustrations for Dog Poems "has a bounce all its own."

Praised by a Publishers Weekly contributor for its "silly, often inventive pages," AA Is for Aardvark pairs Petrosino with the equally whimsical Schulman. As its title suggests, the book focuses on words containing repeated letters, from "Boo" to "Yummy." In School Library Journal Steven Engelfried commented on the collaborators' "inventive approach" and added that the artist's "playful" images "depict a large cast of characters interacting in … humorous settings." While Schulman's wordplay is designed to engage beginning readers, "the farce of [Petrosino's] … pictures will appeal to young children," predicted Booklist critic Hazel Rochman in a review of the author and illustrator's equally unconventionally titled companion volume A Is for Zebra.

Biographical and Critical Sources

PERIODICALS

Booklist, March 1, 2002, Lauren Peterson, review of Rocky: The Cat Who Barks, p. 1143; June 1, 2004, GraceAnne A. DeCandido, review of How Prudence Proovit Proved the Truth about Fairy Tales, p. 1744; September 1, 2004, Kay Weisman, review of There Once Was a Very Odd School, and Other Lunch-Box Limericks p. 117; March 15, 2006, Hazel Rochman, review of A Is for Zebra, p. 51; September 1, 2007, Ilene Cooper, review of Dog Poems, p. 121.

Kirkus Reviews, December 15, 2001, review of Rocky, p. 1761; June 1, 2004, review of How Prudence Proovit Proved the Truth about Fairy Tales, p. 540; March 15, 2005, review of Cat Poems, p. 349; July 15, 2007, review of Dog Poems.

Publishers Weekly, December 10, 2001, review of Rocky, p. 69; July 5, 2004, review of How Prudence Proovit Proved the Truth about Fairy Tales, p. 55; March 14, 2005, review of Cat Poems, p. 67; November 14, 2005, review of AA Is for Ardvark, p. 68.

School Library Journal, March, 2002, Cathie E. Bashaw, review of Rocky, p. 198; December, 2003, Lisa Smith, review of Cat Show, p. 114; July, 2004, Grace Oliff, review of How Prudence Proovit Proved the Truth about Fairy Tales, p. 84; August, 2004, Doris Losey, review of There Once Was a Very Odd School, and Other Lunch-Box Limericks, p. 110; June, 2005, Shawn Brommer, review of Cat Poems, p. 136; February, 2006, Steven Engelfried, review of AA Is for Aardvark, p. 109; August, 2007, Donna Cardon, review of Dog Poems, p. 97.