Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

“… you are what I like the very, very most in the world.”
(Click spread to enlarge)

 
Today, I’ve some illustrations from Mary Murphy’s new picture book, What I Like Most (Candlewick, April 2020), illustrated by Zhu Cheng-Liang. This terrifically child-friendly story is told from the point of view of a young girl, who tells readers about her world and what she values in it.

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Kristin Roskifte’s Everybody Counts: A Counting Story from 0 to 7.5 Billion (Wide Eyed Editions, February 2020), a Norwegian import originally published in 2018, is an unusual counting book. Starting with zero (“no one”), pictured below, readers count up to 7.5 billion — with, needless to say, a few numbers skipped along the way. Readers do count 0 to 30 but then jump from there to 45, and from there things increment more arbitrarily. (And if you’re curious about the big number in the title, readers go from 1,000 to the titular 7,500,000,000, the latter number accompanied by an image of the Earth in space: “Seven and a half billion people on the same planet.”)

This book’s primary delight, though, lies not in the counting of humans, but in the stories hinted at and mysteries that lie within — and Roskifte’s reminder that all those stories count.

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This is a quick post to point you to some picture book reviews, if you’re so inclined to read them.

Over at Bookpage, I’ve a review here of Anica Mrose Rissi’s Love, Sophia on the Moon (Little, Brown, March 2020), illustrated by Mika Song.

Over at the Horn Book, I’ve a review here of Jessie Sima’s Jules vs. the Ocean (Simon & Schuster, June 2020). (This one desperately makes me wish I could wish myself away to the shore right about now.)

Also, Nashville Public Library has chosen Yuyi Morales’s Dreamers for their 2020 Nashville Reads selection, and I wrote about that at Tennessee’s wonderful Chapter 16. You can click the image below to read that at their site.

Until later …

 
It’s the first Sunday of the month, dear Imps, which means I welcome a student or otherwise relatively new-to-the-field illustrator here at 7-Imp. Today is a visit from Nan Coa, an illustrator living and working in New York City. Nan’s work has been recognized by American Illustration, the Society of Illustrators, Communication Arts, the AOI, 3×3 Magazine, and more. She tells us more about herself below and shares some artwork. I thank her for visiting. Let’s get right to it!

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“Each night the moon grows bigger and bigger, until …”

 
Today, I’ve got some illustrations from The Moon Keeper (HarperCollins, March 2020), written and illustrated by an artist named Zosienka. This is her debut as both author and illustrator. Born in South Africa to Polish and English parents, she studied graphic design in London and, in addition to illustration, does stop-motion animation and print design. The Moon Keeper is the story of a bear, named Emile, who is one of many night creatures chosen to perform a particular task. Emile discovers he is the new moon keeper, and he is honored.

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Today, author-illustrator Lisa Brown visits to share some process images from the creation of her newest book, a graphic novel called The Phanton Twin (First Second, March 2020). It’s the story of conjoined twins — the Peabody Sisters, Isabel and Jane — raised, since the age of three, in a carnival sideshow.

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“Hello Bird, I’m the first one up. I found a carpet of strawberries and vines
close to the hole where I dozed off. …”
(Click image to see spread — and read text — in its entirety)

 
I’m greeting this Sunday with a Belgian import, Gauthier David’s Letters from Bear (Eerdmans, March 2020), illustrated by Marie Caudry. This is the sweet epistolary tale of one bear’s strange and slightly surreal journey to find a beloved friend — and the adventures had along the way.

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“It was not long before kings and queens from all over the world came to visit my castle.
‘It’s one hundred percent sand,’ murmured a king with a curly mustache.
‘And you can hear the ocean!’ added a queen with a fancy pearl necklace.”
(Click spread to enlarge)

 
I wish, with this book, that I could show you every single richly colored, detailed spread inside, but since I have only a couple of spreads today, you’ll have to promise me that you’ll try to find a copy on your own. This is something I’d highly recommend. Einat Tsarfati’s Sandcastle — originally published two years ago and translated into English by Stephanie Barrouillet — is now on shelves here (Candlewick). Or will be, that is, in early May. And it is mighty fun. Also, if you step inside these pages, you can at least temporarily visit a beach. An actual crowded beach!

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It’s tricky to write about books like Clotilde Perrin’s The House of Madame M (Gecko, April 2020), because it’s a paper-engineered one. That is, it’s tricky to show art from such a book, because there are flaps; pop-up elements (in this case, a pop-up fireplace); interactive moving parts, such as pull tabs; and even strings. These aren’t exactly things that can be captured in the static images at a website, but I have some art from the book for you today — in the hopes that you can still get a sense of Perrin’s distinctive style. (If you saw this 2018 book, you’re already familiar with the picture book joy she brings.) This one was originally published in French in 2019 and has been translated by Daniel Hahn.

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Have you seen Henry Cole’s Nesting (Katherine Tegen Books, March 2020) yet? The story follows a robin, whom we meet on a spring morning when the ground is covered in frost. The robin sings, calling forth a female robin — and the two birds build a nest. Once they have finished creating the nest, the mother robins settles in and lays “smooth and blue” eggs. When they hatch, the parents feed their babies and protect them from storms and predators. (There is a satisfying and dramatic encounter with a snake.) Eventually, the baby birds take flight and “grow strong and can feed themselves. Their wings take them anywhere they want to go.” The close of the story, the nest now covered in snow, brings us to winter with the promise of spring arriving again, which is how we readers began this adventure.

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