Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JULES!!!

(Note how I make wild, flagrant use of colorful fonts and the marquee tag in your honor.)

Jules, last year for my birthday you wrote me an original poem. I have no such skill, so instead I’m throwing you a virtual party. I’m including all your favorite things. Here’s your mug of coffee:

And I’ve got cupcakes – from MagPies, of course:

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Hello, all. We’ve decided to do a little bit of a reshuffle here at 7-Imp. Here’s why.

When we started this blog almost two years ago, we mentioned that we both like to read all kinds of books, from picture books on up to adult novels, and that we intended to talk about all of them, regardless of age level.

Well. A couple of things have changed since then. 1.) We now accept review copies from publishers, something we were hesitant about at first because we didn’t want to be burdened with any actual or perceived obligations to review particular books. And 2.) we’ve expanded our focus to include interviews, illustrator profiles, and a bunch of other features that aren’t necessarily book reviews. So, what difference does that make? It makes us very busy, a lot busier than we ever imagined we’d be, and we’re getting kind of overwhelmed by the stacks and stacks of books that generous review-seekers have sent us. In order to deal with this more efficiently, we’ve decided to amend our blog’s mission statement a little bit.

From now on, when it comes to reviewing books, GENERALLY SPEAKING, Jules will be focusing on picture books and middle grade lit, and Eisha will be concentrating on young adult and adult lit. We still reserve the right to read and review whatever we please, and OF COURSE we’ll still collaborate on the occasional co-review, ’cause that’s really why we started this blog in the first place — to talk with each other about books, and bring other interested parties in on the conversation. But in general, if you’re someone who wants to offer us a review copy, that’s the way we’ll break it down.

To recap, here are the responsibilities and major areas of focus:

Jules — Reviewing picture books and middle grade lit; finding illustrators to profile; creative use of multi-colored and multi-sized fonts; organizing giant philanthropic multi-blog movements; and doing all the actual work that makes this blog readable.

Eisha — Reviewing young adult and adult books; contributing the occasional Poetry Friday post; and slacking off.

Hopefully narrowing our focus this way will help us get organized, and cut down on the volume of unsolicited review copies we get that fall outside our scope of interest, and therefore cut down on the guilt factor too.

Thank you for your attention. We now resume our regularly scheduled programming, already in progress.

* * * Jules edits to add:

Eisha wrote this and doesn’t give herself enough credit. And playing with font sizes and colors? Who? Me? Nah.

Late-Thursday addendum (because several people have asked): Here’s how our three guest-posts are organized over at Practically Paradise: Intro post about what 7-Imp does and why; Jules interviews Eisha (in which Eisha may or may not tell you about her robotic past); and Eisha interviews Jules (in which Jules may or may not reveal the secret to karate).

*click*

“Hello, you have reached Jules and Eisha at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast. We can’t come to the blog right now because we’re guest blogging for Diane Chen at SLJ’s Practically Paradise. Our guest posts should go up sometime Wednesday and Thursday, April 9th and 10th. Please visit us there – we’ll be interviewing each other on stuff like the current kidlit scene, the joys and (literal) pains of blogging, and favorite moments from the last one-and-a half years of 7-Imp. Our regular blog will resume on Friday. Please leave a comment…”

eisha: Bleeaaarrrghhh!! Dude, I hate these. Did I sound okay? I think I went southern on “pains,” did you hear it? “Pay-eens…”

jules: Nah, it was… fine. Really.

eisha: What?… No, what?

jules: No, really, it was okay. Kind of… squeaky, maybe.

eisha: SQUEAKY??? Like in rubber ducky? Or like in Frohm? Do you mea–

jules: Hey, did you hit the button to make it stop recording?

eisha: CRAP! No! Which one?

jules: I think it’s thi–

BEEEEEEEEEP.

Well, the review I planned to have up today didn’t make it. Eisha and I will be guest-blogging over at School Library Journal’s Practically Paradise this week, and we spent most of last night getting our posts ready.

But we do have a short announcement for fans of The Edge of the Forest: The March/April 2008 issue is up! This post over at Big A little a will tell you all about the features in this double issue. It looks like a particularly great one. Enjoy!

On Saturday, we (Eisha and Adrienne of What Adrienne Thinks About That) attended the Third Annual Teen Book Festival in Rochester, NY. We had a fabulous time, and thought we’d co-blog about it and share the highlights with you. This will be cross-posted on both 7-Imp and WATAT, for your viewing pleasure.

The event started with a red-carpet arrival for the authors, which we totally missed ’cause, um, it was Saturday morning and, you know. We had to get coffee at Adrienne’s favorite place, the Leaf and Bean. Which totally exceeded all expectations.

Anyway.

Then there was a general assembly, with the organizer Stephanie introducing all the authors on a stage that was flanked by members of the Garrison Excelsior 501st Legions, in full Star Wars regalia. It was particularly fitting that Timothy Zahn was almost totally obscured by the faux-Queen Amidala’s headdress (seen here). There was a “lightning round” of questions, led by two teen volunteers, where they asked a question and the authors passed the mike down the row giving short answers.

Then each author was put in his/her own room for three “breakout sessions,” and you could choose any three to attend. In between sessions one and two, there was pizza for lunch in the cafeteria (delivered – not actual cafeteria food). And at the end, there were books and merch for sale in the gym, with all the authors available for autographs.

It was extremely well-attended, with teens bussed in from all over, and tons of local librarians, teachers, and teens volunteering to keep the whole thing running smoothly.

For a full description of the event and complete list of the authors in attendance, see the website for TBF LIVE! 2008.

eisha: Well, first, I just want to say thanks, Adrienne, for inviting me to this totally excellent event. I’m sort of in awe at the assemblage of talent they had going there.

adrienne: Yes, thanks for driving up! This is my third year at TBF, and it’s so much fun. I always have a hard time deciding which authors to go see.

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Oh no! You can’t get that wretched mid-’80s song by Deniece Williams out of your head now? I’m sorry. (Mwahahahahahaha).

And I’ve never even seen “Footloose.” I’m a pop culture embarrassment.

Anyway, just a quick note to say that this summer will be the introduction of a new collaborative blog, designed specifically for teen males, and it’ll be called “Guys Lit Wire.” Kelly Fineman did a short and sweet post on this a few days ago, so why mess with perfection. Here’s what she wrote:

The mission of Guys Lit Wire is to recommend books to teenage boys. The goal? At least one post every Monday through Friday by different contributors, for which a stable of at least 21 bloggers will be required . . . I will be contributing monthly columns on poetry collections for guys (and yes, they do exist and many of them are great!) Others have signed on for other sorts of columns in other categories, but additional monthly contributors are needed in order for the blog to go forward. Categories as of now include book reviews, interviews, literary commentary, and more. If you have an interest in signing on as a regular columnist, please contact colleen @ chasingray dot com.

I have committed to once-a-month postings on picture books for guys. And oh no, snap snap, you better not be laughing. Okay, so I know it’ll be difficult, but I’ll do my best to appeal to the art-lovin’ teen males, using the more sophisticated picture books. Think Christopher Myers’ illustrations for Jabberwocky or the tale of contemporary urban violence in Smoky Night.

Anyway, that’s my story, and I’m stickin’ to it. Contact Colleen if you’re interested in contributing. Here’s her informative post from yesterday, updating you on the entire venture.

P.S. I could be terribly wrong about this / my memory could be failing me miserably, but didn’t this all start here or here with Sara? Even if it didn’t, don’t miss those thought-provoking posts.

… but there’s a little thing called the Cybils (The Children’s & YA Bloggers’ Literary Awards) and it’s kind of a big deal. Thursday the award winners were announced, and it’s a fine-looking crop of books if you ask us: Read the rest of this entry �

If you are a big reader of the kidlitosphere, you have likely seen posts like this passionate one from Robin Brande or this post from Elizabeth Burns at A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy about the fate of the New York Public Library’s Donnell Branch. This November ’07 article from The New York Times explains, in case you’ve not heard about this, that the library signed an agreement to sell the property and the building housing its Donnell branch to a hotel (thanks to Liz at Tea Cozy for that link). The Donnell branch will close in May, leaving people to wonder if the resources in the Central Children’s Room (home of the original Winnie-the-Pooh, for one thing) and Teen Central will still be available.

For the latest, you can read this “Talkback” piece at School Library Journal, posted yesterday. Here’s an excerpt: Read the rest of this entry �

New year. New titles. Pretty exciting. In no way does this mean I’m going to ignore my ’07 review or library or personal copies of titles that I have yet to read. I’m still working on those, believe it or not.

But if you head over to Chasing Ray today, you’ll see that Colleen is talkin’ titles that she can’t wait to see this year, and she’ll be rounding up other bloggers doing the same (yes, only one day after the big awards were announced — YES, HUGO! — but we Book Nerds are like that, revelling in last year’s great titles and looking ahead to the new ones). Here’s my stab at a list, though invariably I’m going to overlook some thrilling title I will have forgotten about (not to mention some publishers still haven’t announced new releases for the year yet). I’m also a little bit nervous, to be honest, as this list will reveal in a most glaring fashion my fiction bias (sorry, non-fiction) and my near-obsession with picture books. But just humor me. I’ll do my best.

(Note: If I were really organized, I would have started noting release dates before I started feverishly listing titles. But I linked to the publisher on each title if you’re really dying to get a release date yourself. For Henry Holt and Farrar, Straus and Giroux links, you’ll be taken to the search page or a main page of new titles, and you’ll have to either type the title in yourself or just browse and search. Oh, one more note: I’m leaving off some brand new titles that have been recently acquired and added to my to-review stack. New reviews to come then, as my schedule allows).

All Things Illustrated

* Any new Elephant & Piggie titles Mo decides to share with the world (Fuse has the titles in her own most-anticipated-titles list from today);

* Any new Mo picture book (is this a sneak peek into a new title perhaps?);

* The forthcoming titles LeUyen Pham shared with us in October;

* Before John Was a Jazz Giant: A Song of John Coltrane by Carole Boston Weatherford and illustrated by Sean Qualls (I already have an ARC from Henry Holt, and it’s good stuff. Review to come);

* Big Bad Bunny by Franny Billingsley and illustrated by G. Brian Karas (a Richard Jackson book for Atheneum Books);

* Buster Goes to Cowboy Camp by Denise Fleming (Henry Holt);

* A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever by Marla Frazee (Harcourt);

* The Dangerous Alphabet by Neil Gaiman and illustrated by Gris Grimly (HarperCollins);

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Jules here. I wanted, even though I mentioned this yesterday, to remind everyone that the shortlist titles in some — but not all — of the Cybils ’07 categories will be announced on January 1st. And that includes the category I organized and on which I served as a panelist, Fiction Picture Books.

I think our shortlisters for Fiction Picture Books are wonderful titles; I’m happy with the list and anxious to share it with everyone. There were three titles I had in my mind as Ones That Would Make Me Moan and Wail and Kick and Scream and Pout Like a Two-Year-Old If They Did Not Land Squarely on the Shortlist (including an illustrator whom I wanted to appear on the list in one way or another), and only one of them made it*. For a moment, I considered standing on my rooftop and yelling, in the words of Chief Wiggum, “you know what I blame this on the breakdown of? Society.” My own barbaric yawp across the rooftops of a small town in middle Tennesee. But, nah, I love the rest of the shortlist; it’s an impressive collection of picture book titles; I’m proud of it; and I particularly loved creating and molding it into shape with my Cybils ’08 peeps: Marcie at World of Words; MotherReader; Annie at Crazy for Kids’ Books; and Cheryl Rainfield. I was telling Cheryl yesterday if we channeled her passion for good books, we could power the globe. But if you channel the passion of all four of those panelists put together, you could power . . . uh, the . . . uh, solar system. Or the universe AND its screened-in back porch. Ahem, it’s hard to take that metaphor any further.

But you get the idea.

So, be looking for our shortlist at the Cybils blog tomorrow! This post over there will remind you which shortlists will be revealed tomorrow — and which on January 7th (Eisha’s category, Non-fiction Picture Books, falls into the latter category, though she is a nominating panelist for Young Adult Fiction, whose shortlist also will be revealed at that later date).

Oh and also, HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ONE AND ALL! Wahoo! My self-imposed blog break (well, minus this post and yesterday’s — Ooh! Ooh! R. Gregory Christie stopped by! Go see) might extend a bit further into the week, as it’s almost 2008, which so completely needs to be celebrated; my husband still has off work; and I’m still just kicking back a bit. But you know I’ll be back soon and running my mouth about books.

Happy ’08! In the words of Mark Twain, “now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.”

* Actually, there were a couple other titles that I’d put in the screaming and pouting category, but I didn’t have to argue for them, as it was immediately clear that we all loved them and they’d ez-ily made the shortlist.