Valério, Geraldo 1970-

views updated

Valério, Geraldo 1970-

Personal

Born 1970, in Brazil. Education: New York University, M.A., 2000.

Addresses

Home—Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Career

Illustrator.

Illustrator

Eileen Spinelli, Do You Have a Hat?, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2004.

James Heneghan and Bruce McBay, Nannycatch Chronicles, Tradewinds Books, 2005.

Eileen Spinelli, When You Are Happy, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 2006.

Margaret Read MacDonald, Conejito: A Folktale from Panama, August House LittleFolk (Little Rock, AK), 2006.

Margaret Read MacDonald, Go to Sleep, Gecko!: A Balinese Folktale, August House LittleFolk (Little Rock, AK), 2007.

Illustrations also featured in books published in Brazil and Portugal.

Sidelights

The work of Brazilian-born illustrator Geraldo Valério has been praised for bringing to life picture-book texts by authors Eileen Spinelli and Margaret Read MacDonald. To complement Spinelli's rhyming text for Do You Have a Hat?, Valério uses stylized painted figures and bright colors in creating a visual history of headgear, prompting Roxanne Burg to deem the work a "great marriage of text and artwork" in her School Library Journal review. Appraising his illustrations for Spinelli's When You Are Happy, a Kirkus Reviews writer noted that the artist's "luminous" images, featuring "glowing, jeweled tones, … establish a dreamy quality" that enhances Spinelli's story about the joys and fears of childhood. Dubbing the picture book "an enchanting story of familial love," Wanda Meyers-Hines cited in particular Valério's acrylic paintings for When You Are Happy, maintaining that they "sparkle with … color, expression, and engaging design."

Valério's artwork has also been paired with several stories by well-known folklorist Margaret Read MacDonald. One of these works, Go to Sleep, Gecko!: A Balinese Folktale, retells a traditional story about a gecko who decides that some things in life serve no practical purpose whatsoever, at least certainly not to him. When he goes to a village elder with the request that the fireflies be relocated so he can sleep soundly at night, Gecko receives a reply that ultimately convinces him of the interrelatedness of all nature. Praising the "richly colored" art in Go to Sleep, Gecko!, Wendy Woodfill wrote in School Library Journal that Valério's "night scenes are luminescent with glowing fireflies and a midnight blue, starry sky." A Kirkus Reviews writer also noted the book's characters who, with their "goofy grins and exaggerated noses," enhance the strong dose of fun present in MacDonald's "bouncy ecological fable." Another story by MacDonald, the bilingual Conejito: A Folktale from Panama, receives what a Kirkus Reviews critic described as "a sense of exuberant motion" through Valério's warm-toned art. A story about a bunny who, with the help of his wise aunt, manages to outsmart several hungry predators, Conejito is given "movement and energy" from double-page images in which, as Lee Bock noted in School Library Journal, the artist's "folk-art motif … perfectly complements" Read's tale. Valério's use of "splashy tropical colors" and his "elongated, rubbery characters … capture the tale's bouncing energy," concluded Booklist contributor GraceAnne A. DeCandido.

Biographical and Critical Sources

PERIODICALS

Booklist, November 1, 2004, Diane Foote, review of Do You Have a Hat?, p. 494; March 1, 2006, GraceAnne A. DeCandido, review of Conejito: A Folktale from Panama, p. 51, and Julie Cummins, review of When You Are Happy, p. 101.

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, July-August, 2006, Maggie Hommel, review of Conejito, p. 508.

Kirkus Reviews, September 15, 2004, review of Do You Have a Hat?, p. 920; March 1, 2006, review of Conejito, p. 236; October 1, 2006, review of Go to Sleep, Gecko!, p. 1019.

Publishers Weekly, May 15, 2006, review of Conejito, p. 71.

School Library Journal, November, 2004, Roxanne Burg, review of Do You Have a Hat?, p. 118; March, 2006, Wanda Meyers-Hines, review of When You Are Happy, p. 202; April, 2006, Lee Bock, review of Conejito, p. 129; June, 2006, Elizabeth Bird, review of Nannycatch Chronicles, p. 158; October, 2006, Wendy Woodfill, review of Go to Sleep, Gecko!, p. 138.