Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Appearing on shelves now, as of last month, from Candlewick Press is debut author Jessica Young’s My Blue Is Happy, illustrated by Cátia Chien. (Chien evidently was born in Brazil and now lives in California.) In this book, a young girl uses color to discuss emotions and, essentially, to ponder the notion that there’s not just one way to see or experience this world. Blue doesn’t have to mean sad “like a lonely song,” thanks very much, and who ever said red had to be angry and black had to be scary? (Shadows, schmadows. This young girl’s black is peaceful, as you can see above.)

Jessica’s writing is lyrical and perceptive, and young readers who feel slightly out of step with their peers will particularly welcome the protagonist’s delightfully left-of-center point of view. Or, as the School Library Journal review wrote, “This child knows her own mind and feelings and isn’t about to have someone else’s associations color her world.”

Hear, hear.

(I also love how Esmé Raji Codell describes this book as “oddly subversive … and surprisingly evocative.”)

Jessica (pictured left), who is originally from Canada and an art teacher by day, is visiting this morning to chat with me about this book, as well as colors, perceptions, Ira Glass, Picasso’s Blue Period, art therapy, and much more. If 7-Imp were a review blog, I’d be required to get all in-the-interest-of-full-disclosure on you here and tell you that Jessica is a dear friend. She is, in fact, one of my favorite friends on the planet. She lives here in middle Tennessee, and it’s actually thanks to this blog that we met. But 7-Imp isn’t a review blog, as I explain here at the site. It’s really a fan site, a place where I talk about picture books that I like and see if the creators want to come visit. And I really like Jessica’s writing in this book, and I would even if she weren’t my friend.

So, let’s get to it, and we’ve got some art from Chien to pepper the post. I thank Jessica for visiting. (I’m getting out some of my favorite coffee mugs right now.)

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This morning at Kirkus, I write about Cecil Castellucci’s and Sara Varon’s Odd Duck, because we should all celebrate our inner (and outer) super freak — as well as, for that matter, the introverts of the world. That link is here, and next week Cecil and Sara will visit to chat.

Last week at Kirkus, if you missed it and are so inclined to read it, I had this on my mind and wrote about it, partially prompted by a picture book from Japanese author/illustrator Yoko Shima, who goes by Yokococo, called Matilda and Hans: Selma G. Lanes once wrote, “If you would truly teach young children through the books they listen to or read themselves, give them a hero who is an unregenerately bad example, a rotter through and through.”

Matilda and Hans was originally published in 2012, but this is the first U.S. edition. Above is a spread from the book.

Till Sunday …

MATILDA AND HANS. Copyright © 2012 by Yokococo Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Candlewick Press, Somerville, MA.

Next week, Neal Porter/Roaring Brook will release the latest picture book from Julie Fogliano, if you want to see a whale, illustrated by Erin E. Stead. I’ve got a review over at BookPage, if you’re so inclined to read my thoughts. That is here. I hope to follow up here at 7-Imp in the near future with some art from the book.

Did you know Fogliano is the 2013 Ezra Jack Keats New Writer Award winner? Here is an interview with her over at their site.

Today at Kirkus, I’m chatting with author Robert Skead and illustrator Floyd Cooper about Something to Prove: The Great Satchel Paige vs. Rookie Joe DiMaggio, released by Carolrhoda Books in April. That conversation is here. Next week here in 7-Imp Land, I’ll have some spreads from the book.

Until tomorrow …