Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Here is Tuesday’s Radar-Books schedule. Don’t know what we’re talking about? Just getting caught up? Read here for an explanation.

• Big A, little a: Ingo by Helen Dunmore;
• Bildungsroman: The Girl in the Box by Ouida Sebestyen;
• Bookshelves of Doom: The Olivia Kidney series by Ellen Potter;
• A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy: A discussion of author Ellen Emerson White and why she is “under the radar”;
• Chicken Spaghetti: The Natural History of Uncas Metcalfe by Betsey Osborne;
• Finding Wonderland: A Door Near Here by Heather Quarles;
• A Fuse #8 Production: The Winged Girl of Knossos by Erick Berry;
• Jen Robinson’s Book Page: The Changeling and The Velvet Room, both by Zilpha Keatley Snyder;
• Miss Erin: Girl With a Pen and Princess of Orange, both by Elisabeth Kyle;
• Writing and Ruminating: Jazz ABC by Wynton Marsalis;
• The YA YA YAs: Massive by Julia Bell.

And remember how we announced yesterday that next week will be Picture Book Week here at 7-Imp? Well, I (Jules here) figured that each day this week, leading up to next week, I could highlight one new and noteworthy-for-one-reason-or-another picture book in order to get you geared up for 7-Imp’s Seven Impossible Posts About Picture Books (next week). So, Reason #1 to Love Picture Books Right Now is . . .

Mary and the Mouse, The Mouse and Mary by Beverly Donofrio and illustrated by Barbara McClintock (Schwartz & Wade Books; September ’07; review copy). This book is irresistible in so many ways, the kind of picture book you want to pick right back up and re-read a few times — and any young child anywhere in your vicinity with whom you share this book will be pretty much riveted, too. Read the rest of this entry �

Don’t forget that the multi-blog “Recommendations from Under the Radar” event — explained here at this post of ours from Saturday — starts today. Each day this week, we will be posting the Radar-Books schedule for you so that you can easily find others’ posts, and we’ll be contributing our own Radar posts this Thursday and Friday.

We know that’s not a radar image. It’s a hypno-spiral, urging you to be sure not to miss this week’s wonderful posts at over fifteen different blogs.

And, in the name of coming attractions and looking ahead, guess what next week is? 7-Imp has declared its own unofficial . . .

Picture Book Week (woo hoo!)
(Maybe later we’ll come up with an altogether more creative name for that) . . . We will be bringing you little picture book treats left, right, and center for an entire week — reviews and interviews, including cyber-visits from Mo Willems and Adam Rex, and more. So, if you love picture books, it’ll be the week for you. If you aren’t sure, get in line behind TadMack and let us convert you. Just say yes to picture books. Come on, all the cool kids are doin’ it.

{Sorry for the annoying marquee announcement there, but we couldn’t resist. Okay, uh, now this entire post — between that and the hypno-spiral — is giving us a headache} . . .

On to today’s Radar schedule then. Go, read, and enjoy!

Monday, August 26, 2007:

• Bildungsroman: Christopher Golden’s Body of Evidence series;
• Bookshelves of Doom: The God Beneath the Sea, Black Jack, and Jack Holborn — all by Leon Garfield;
• Chasing Ray: Dorothy of Oz from Illusive Arts Entertainment;
• Chicken Spaghetti: The Illustrator’s Notebook by Mohieddin Ellabbad;
• Finding Wonderland: The Curved Saber: The Adventure of Khlit the Cossack by Harold Lamb;
• interactive reader: Christopher Golden’s Body of Evidence series as well;
• lectitans: The Angel of the Opera: Sherlock Meets the Phantom of the Opera by Sam Siciliano;
• Not Your Mother’s Bookclub: An interview with Robert Sharenow, author of My Mother the Cheerleader;
• Writing and Ruminating: An interview with Tony Mitton and a review of his book, Plum;
• The YA YA YAs: I Rode a Horse of Milk White Jade by Diane Lee Wilson

Hi there. Just a quick note to tell you about yet another multi-blog event about books organized by Colleen Mondor, this one entitled “Recommendations from Under the Radar.” As Colleen explains in her post about the event next week and its origin:

“Next week the same group that brought the Summer Blog Blast Tour and recent One Shot World Tour of Australia to life will be posting about books we all individually feel have been overlooked. Some of them might have been award winners in the distant past, and some are even out of print, but all of them are books that each of us have enjoyed and want to tell more people about. We’re calling the event ‘Recommendations From Under the Radar’ (or Radar Books for short) and we really hope you guys will check us out and, more importantly, track down some of these great books as well.”

Colleen has posted a master schedule as well — a schedule for the entire week — at Chasing Ray. You can go here to see it, and we will post the schedule for each day next week here at our blog. And what will 7-Imp’s contribution be? you may wonder.

• On Thursday, August 30th, Jules will highlight Nancy Crocker’s recent YA title, Billie Standish Was Here (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers; June 2007; reviewed back here in May) and will be featuring an interview with her.
• On Friday, August 31st, Eisha will highlight Such a Pretty Face: Short Stories About Beauty (Amulet; May 2007), edited by Ann Angel.

This means that next week here at 7-Imp, we’ll be focusing on these Radar Recommendations. Each day we’ll type up the schedule of Radar Books for the day so that it will be a cinch for you to locate which blogs are talking about what books. And, of course, on Thursday and Friday we’ll also feature our Radar Books — as well as Jules’ interview with the very talented and delightful Ms. Crocker. The following week we’ll get back to our regular reviews and interviews and such (Jules, for one, has a huge stack of books yet to review).

And tomorrow, as usual, we’ll be here with our Kicks list, featuring the seven-kinds-of-awesome Michael Foreman.

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{image created by Little Willow}

It’s not only Poetry Friday, a definite cause for celebration in our book any ‘ol week, but today is Eisha’s birthday! Happy birthday to her!

This might be a real stretch, but here’s what I did for her birthday, which happens to fall on the day we celebrate poetry: I wrote a cento! Having been inspired to create one, thanks to a post over at The Miss Rumphius Effect, I decided for my cento (a poem made entirely of pieces from poems by other authors) to be created from lyrics from some of Eisha’s favorite songs. Yes, each line of the cento is from a different song. It was harder than I thought, but I hope she at least gets a kick out of it, recognizing the words from some of her favorite tunes. The songs from which each line comes (and the musicians) are listed below the cento.

Did I, ahem, mention it’s a stretch? And it was too difficult to make a cheery, happy birthday-esque one. But it was fun, and I hope it makes a modicum of sense.

Happy birthday, Eisha! Here’s your birthday cento, pieced together from some of your favorite songs . . . Read the rest of this entry �

We’ve been tagged! It’s Nancy’s (aka Journey Woman’s) birthday; she’s 39 and asked us to consider thirty-nine reasons to be happy today. Consider it an early
7-(plus some)-Kicks list, but fear not! We’ll still be here on Sunday with our featured illustrator of the week and will be looking forward, as always, to reading your kicks this week.

We’ll divide our 39 reasons amongst the two of us. Here goes:

Jules’ Reasons:

1). It’s Nancy’s birthday!

2). The Alice image that illustrator Frank Dormer did just for us, which we’ll add to our site soon.

3). Corresponding with author/illustrator G. Brian Karas all week and lining up an interview and 7-Kicks-featured illustration with him.

4). Ditto for Mo Willems! (And Eisha and I anxiously awaiting the arrival of Knuffle Bunny, Too at our respective doorsteps).

5). Having a huge stack of Karas books to pore over in preparation for the interview.

Read the rest of this entry �

See that kicked-back, sleepy girl (who happens to be my three-year-old when she was but wee)? She is reminding you that this week is Jules’ blogvation (which, apparently, is a word in cyber-land, meaning — of course — blog vacation). What am I going to do? Will I be at the beach or something? Ah, the ocean. I wish. But I will be taking it easy. My right wrist needs the typing break, and I’m going to use the time to try to catch up on some reading and catch up on my picture book reviews. Eisha committed to posting this week, but she and her husband just pulled off a major move to another state, and moving is rough — not to mention getting settled and trying to get internet connection, etcetera etcetera. And they had some unforeseen obstacles in the move, too (as a Southerner, I’m required to say, “bless their hearts”). So, if she can’t post this week, well, the world will still spin on its axis without 7Imp for four days. We’ll return on Sunday — with our 7 Kicks lists and a new featured illustrator. See you then!

p.s. For your reading pleasure during our hiatus and in honor of taking breaks, go here to read TadMack’s posting yesterday at Finding Wonderland of Naomi Shihab Nye’s “The Art of Disappearing” (from the anthology, Different Ways to Pray, 1980) a poem I’ve always loved (here’s the end of it):

. . . When someone recognizes you in a grocery store
nod briefly and become a cabbage.
When someone you haven’t seen in ten years
appears at the door,
don’t start singing him all your new songs.
You will never catch up.

Walk around feeling like a leaf.
Know you could tumble any second.
Then decide what to do with your time.

For my brother, Don Walker, Jr.:
October 9, 1970 to July 17, 1999

* * *

“Suddenly the River swept round a bend, and the banks rose upon either side, and the light of Lórien was hidden. To that fair land Frodo never came again.

The travelers now turned their faces to the journey; the sun was before them, and their eyes were dazzled, for all were filled with tears. Gimli wept openly.

‘I have looked the last upon that which was fairest,’ he said to Legolas his companion. ‘Henceforward I will call nothing fair, unless it be her gift.’ He put his hand to his breast.

‘Tell me, Legolas, why did I come on this Quest? Little did I know where the chief peril lay! Truly Elrond spoke, saying that we could not foresee what we might meet upon our road. Torment in the dark was the danger that I feared, and it did not hold me back. But I would not have come, had I known the danger of light and joy. Now I have taken my worst wound in this parting, even if I were to go this night straight to the Dark Lord. Alas for Gimli son of Glóin!’

‘Nay!’ said Legolas. ‘Alas for us all! And for all that walk the world in these after-days. For such is the way of it: to find and lose, as it seems to those whose boat is on the running stream. But I count you blessed, Gimli son of Glóin: for your loss you suffer of your own free will, and you might have chosen otherwise. But you have not forsaken your companions, and the least reward that you shall have is that the memory of Lothlórien shall remain ever clear and unstained in your heart, and shall neither fade nor grow stale.’

‘Maybe,’ said Gimli; ‘and I thank you for your words. True words doubtless, yet all such comfort is cold. Memory is not what the heart desires. That is only a mirror, be it clear as Kheled-zaram. Or so says the heart of Gimli the Dwarf.'”

— J.R.R. Tolkien; The Fellowship of the Ring

That pretty much says it all.

May he continue to rest in peace.

Jules here. Eisha’s blog vacation has officially begun, as she makes her Big Move to New York. Best of luck to her. I’m here this week, and next week when Eisha returns, I’ll take a bit of a break myself. I don’t have a Big Move planned, but boy howdy does my wrist need a break from too much typing, and my to-be-read piles are about to smother me (not a bad problem to have, though). So, I’ll enjoy having time to get caught up.

Now for today’s post: Emily at …whimsy… has taken the bull by its horns and created her very own important day, entitled Tell-An-Author-You-Care Day (go read that post, because it involves the interesting story behind what gave Emily this idea to begin with). Hmm, not a bad idea, huh? Here’s what Emily suggests we do (any or all of the following) on this day:

“1). Write a letter or email to a favorite author. I think JK Rowling and Stephenie Meyer receive plenty of fan letters. Think of an author you love that may need a little boost.

2). Write a positive review on Amazon and, if you want to, link to it in your blog.

3). Buy a book by a favorite author and give it to someone who will enjoy it.

4). Profile an author in your blog. I’m not talking just another review. Tell us a little about the author and mention at least one of his/her books that you love.”

I’m choosing an author/illustrator, the creator of my favorite picture book thus far this year, Jeremy Tankard, O Bringer To Us of Grumpy Bird. Yes, even though this year we’ve seen:

Read the rest of this entry �

We’re busy people. Eisha’s moving. Jules is a full-time mom to two very energetic girls. And we’re getting a little overwhelmed by our TBR piles. We’ve noticed a trend of people taking little blog-vacations this summer, and we think it’s an excellent idea.

So here’s what’s happening (verb!): Eisha is going on blog-break from this Sunday, July 15th, through Saturday July 21st. We’ll both tune in to do our weekly 7-Kicks post for Sunday, July 22nd, and then Jules will tap out until the following 7-Kicks post on Sunday, July 29th.

Note: We will both still do the 7 Kicks list tomorrow, and we’re excited (again) about our featured illustrator! . . .

We’re hoping that this tag-team approach will allow us to maintain the high-quality blog services that you, our valued readers, have come to expect from 7-Imp. We thank you for your patronage, and look forward to posting scintillating, thought-provoking book reviews, interviews and randomness for your continued reading pleasure.

In case you haven’t heard, I’m moving to Ithaca, NY really really soon. Next week, in fact. And I had sort of thought in the back of my mind for the past month that I’d throw a goodbye party for myself, but now my apartment is full of boxes and is a hostile party environment. So, I’m suggesting a loose sort of public gathering of all my friends and friendly co-workers and my husband’s friends and anyone who reads the blog and happens to be in the area this coming Saturday.

Yeah, this Saturday. I’m a little late-notice with this, I realize. I’ll totally understand if you already have plans.

Anyway, if you’re interested, here’s what you need to know:

WHEN: Saturday, July 14th, starting at 6:30ish
WHERE: Grendel’s Den in Harvard Square, Cambridge
WHO: You. Me. Anyone you want to invite.

Hopefully I’ll see you there!