Rachel Captures the Moon

About Richard Ungar

Richard Ungar balances the worlds of law, art, and writing. A practicing lawyer by profession, he devotes his leisure hours to painting and writing. He has studied painting at the Ontario College of Art and Design. He also took a five-month sabbatical to paint in France and Jerusalem. His work can be found in private collections in Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Washington, and Denver. Even Higher is Richard’s fourth picture book. He lives with his wife, two sons, and pussycat in Toronto.

Praise

“With dense, jewel-toned watercolors and colored-pencil illustrations, and characterizations and perspectives reminiscent of Chagall and other Jewish visual folklorists, Ungar swiftly and affectionately transports readers to a mythical, long-ago world.”
–Publishers Weekly

“Ungar’s small black and white pictures give appealingly realistic vignettes of characters, while the brilliantly coloured main pictures are exuberant celebrations of village life with a nod to Chagall. His text conveys the relish of the storyteller.”
–Quill & Quire

“Richard Ungar has written a book about Chelm that you will really enjoy...Ungar not only wrote the story, but drew the pictures, too. And they are wonderful: full of rich blues, greens, oranges, hot pinks, purples and reds. This is a very funny book, and it is well worth reading.”
–Canadian Jewish News

“…[a] marvelous adaptation…it is Unger’s illustrations – watercolour and coloured pencil on paper – that make this book as lustrous and heart-warming as the fullest, brightest moon…They empower every setting and embrace the lead characters, including the moon, in all their eccentric splendour…Rachel Captures the Moon is a not-to-be-missed outstanding contribution to Jewish-content children’s literature by a Canadian author-illustrator and publisher. Rush out and buy it today.”
–Ottawa Jewish Bulletin

“The plot of the story celebrates common sense, but the illustrations invoke a nighttime world of imagination, and the combination works beautifully.”
–CCL