Olivier Dunrea Reviews

Olivier Dunrea Gossie; illus. by the author
     32 pp. Houghton
     Reviewed 1/03
Olivier Dunrea Gossie and Gertie; illus. by the author
     32 pp. Houghton
     Reviewed 1/03
In two small, square, adventurous books, goslings Gossie and Gertie begin a friendship based on a shared love of brightly colored boots and go on to do everything together— though it’s not always Gossie who leads and Gertie who follows. Succinct texts use repetition and predictability with great skill and will therefore work equally well with early independent readers and preschoolers; Dunrea is never dull, though, and so both books eventually throw over their linear progression for pleasingly unpredictable endings. The illustrations, focused against restful white space, are spare and expressive, models of composition and clarity. Yet as simple as they are, and as tightly focused as they are on the goslings and on the red-and-blue-boot-centered action, they include a multitude of details. A quick inventory shows moles, bees, butterflies, frogs, hummingbirds, snails, spiders, ladybugs, caterpillars — the books teem with life, benignly. Gossie and Gertie’s boots are made for walking; the books they so delightfully traverse are made for treasuring.

Ollie and Ollie the Stomper
   32 pp. Houghton
   Reviewed 4/04
These follow-ups to Gossie and Gossie and Gertie introduce a third intrepid gosling. In Ollie, Gossie and Gertie use reverse psychology to get headstrong Ollie to hatch; in Stomper, Ollie decides that he has to have rain boots like theirs. Art and text are spare but expressive, and Dunrea's understanding of toddler life (the shouting, the stomping, the shouting again) is remarkably keen.

BooBoo and Peedie
   32 pp. Houghton
   Reviewed 4/05
Like Dunrea's previous gosling books (Gossie and Gertie, etc.), each of these small, square offerings follows a baby goose on a small, amusing adventure. BooBoo eats everything, until she eats a soap bubble; Peedie forgets everything, except where his lucky red baseball cap is. The brief, rhythmic texts and spare but detail-filled illustrations humorously convey the lovable foibles of these toddlerlike goslings.

List of all reviews on this site