Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

 
Hey there, dear 7-Imp readers. It’s been an immensely rewarding 16 years of blogging here at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast (that makes the site downright elderly in blog years), but I’m here today to say I’m clearing the coffee mugs, wiping the table, and closing up the breakfast nook.

Blogging here at 7-Imp has always been a labor of love, my hobby on the side. But I find that I have simply run out of the bandwidth to post (and just keeping up with blog-related email became a lot like a full-time job). It has truly been a struggle lately to find the time. But honestly, I’m also interested in reclaiming some of that time, the hours that go into keeping up (what I hope have been) high-quality posts. There are other things I’d like to get back to doing, new things I want to try, and people I want to spend more time with. (Also, there are more books I want to read. Ironically, blogging about reading takes time away from reading.)

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I’m taking off this week — I have a daughter to take to college — but will return on Sunday. I leave you with this excellent piece at The Hechinger Report, written by teachers Christie Nold and Ursula Wolfe-Rocca:

The wave of state legislation and school board policies restricting what educators can and can’t teach shows no signs of slowing. These efforts rely on a narrative that learning about the history of racism and white supremacy harms students — particularly white students, leaving them feeling guilty and ashamed. We emphatically reject this narrative; it in no way matches our combined 30-plus years of experience as public school teachers. It is not teaching about racism that endangers our students, but the curricular gag-rules that seek to perpetuate their miseducation.

Again, here’s the full piece. Happy reading.

Until Sunday …

 

I promise I’ll be back with art on Thursday, but for now I direct you to the Horn Book’s website if, by chance, you missed their wonderful ALA coverage. If you go here, you can read things like 2022 Caldecott, Newbery, and Coretta Scott King speeches (including a profile of the late Floyd Cooper). And you can head here to read all about “The Year in Words and Pictures — and Stories,” which takes a look back at last year in the world of children’s literature.

(No one at the Horn Book asks me or pays me or bribes me to share this here. I just reeeeeally appreciate their coverage.)

More later this week!

Look at that beautiful seal above!

The Robin Smith Picture Book Prize was created in honor of my late friend Robin Smith. Her husband, Dean, annually chooses a picture book for this award, a picture book that he thinks Robin would have loved reading aloud to her second-grade students. And he chooses a book that he thinks exemplifies what she looked for in picture books (excellent writing and outstanding illustrations) as the incredible teacher, reviewer, parent and picture book expert she was.

Over at the Horn Book today, Dean announces this year’s winner (!) and shows off this beautiful sticker, created by his daughter, Julie Schneider, and her friend Cristina Gomez. The award is five years old now, but the seal is new!

You can read more here.

 

Author-illustrator Carson Ellis created this lovely image, and I secured her permission to share it here.

Happy holidays from 7-Imp (which is to say: me)!

What has your year looked like in terms of picture book-reading? This is the question we’re asking over at the Horn Book’s Calling Caldecott today. Given the pandemic, which has meant more picture books as PDFs (for reviewers anyway) and delays in shipping, have you had trouble getting your hands on the picture books you want to see? Or have you been able to hold picture books in your hands and appreciate them in all their physical glory (as pictured above)?

Come join the conversation here!

 
Happy Halloween, dear Imps!

I don’t have a picture book for you all today, because I want to take a moment to share a bit of news I just learned. (I’m slow, and you all may already know this!) It wasn’t till I was goofing around on Instagram yesterday that I learned that illustrator Matthew Forsythe designed the upcoming new short film from Aardman (coming to Netflix in November). Robin Robin is what Forsythe describes as a holiday musical (directed by Dan Ojari and Michael Please). If you head to Forsythe’s page at Instagram, you can see some of his design work (in a few of his more recent posts). One of those images is pictured above.

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If you missed it last week, please be sure to take a look at the new documentary about diversity in children’s literature from the Ezra Jack Keats Foundation, “Tell Me Another Story.” It’s 30 minutes, and it’s free.

Here is more information about it at their site.

Over at the Horn Book’s Calling Caldecott, we pay tribute to the one, the only Jerry Pinkney, who died yesterday at the age of 81.

Head here for more, and please come share your own memories.

Photo taken in 2015 at the National Museum of Wildlife Art.