Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

… because you know how it is, when you’re looking for a poem to fit a certain theme or mood or to say something specific? It doesn’t work. You’ll never find it. But I’m sure that a few months from now I’ll run across some perfectly pithy little poem, heartfelt and lovely, sweet without being sappy, and brilliantly worded, that will say exactly what I wish I could say to you all right now. I suppose for now I’ll just have to wing it.

Thanks to everyone who expressed their concern and support through comments and emails over the past couple of weeks. I was truly, deeply touched.

And thanks to all the far-flung friends and family who came to my aunt’s services. It was good to celebrate her life with so many loved ones.

Thanks to Jules, who ran this blog single-handed while I was staying with my internet-deprived mom.

And I’m sorry, I don’t want to get preachy or weird here, but I just have to say it, especially since I think most of our readership is female. Breast cancer is a horrible, debilitating disease. Please remember to give yourself monthly self-exams. Please get your yearly mammogram, if you’re of age. Please take care of yourselves. Please donate to cancer research funds. Please cherish every moment you have on this earth. Please tell your friends and family that you love them. Please call your mom. And your grandmother. Please send cards to people on their birthdays. Please live as hard and happy as you can. Please. And thank you. And, um… amen.

Andrea and Mark, the nice folks over at Just One More Book!! (JOMB), don’t need little ‘ol me to tell you to go listen to their great podcasts; for one, School Library Journal called them out on their greatness in January of this year. And, as I’ve admitted with a red face to Andrea before, I am sometimes podcast-challenged and don’t always get to their reviews and interviews (which they conduct over their morning coffee ritual, as they put it, and in their favorite coffee house), even the ones I really want to hear. But they always do things up ever-so nicely and professionally over there at their spot in cyber-space.

And, while we normally tend to focus on book reviews and Poetry Fridays (and, well, now interviews, too, I suppose) here at 7-Imp, let me steer you in the direction of JOMB’s post from yesterday in which they talk to Arthur Yorinks. Yes, the Arthur Yorinks, who for “thirty-five years has written and directed for opera, theater, dance, and film and is the author of over two dozen acclaimed and award-winning books for children, including the Caldecott Medal winner, Hey, Al“* — and, most recently, co-creator of Mommy? (and Andrea is always so dang humble about these kickin’ interviews they manage to snag all on their own — in her words, it’s “just me and Mark, our coffee and our love of children’s books”).

Now, I confess to having a HUGE bias towards the authors and author/illustrators of what was clearly (okay, arguably) The Golden Age of Children’s Literature — the time in which Yorinks met Sendak and Sendak came into his brilliance and shared it with the world and Ursula was around and all that jazz. But, even if you do not share my enthusiasm for that, you might find their interview with Mr. Yorinks interesting. Just look at a few of the many topics he talks to Mark about in the interview:

• the current state of affairs (which Yorinks finds lamentable) of children’s book publishing, what with diminished funding for libraries and the subsequent dwindling influence librarians have today (compared to The Older Days and versus today’s world of commercialism and phenomena such as celebrity authors). Now, I hate to get all “nostalgia-isn’t-what-it-used-to-be” on ya (a wonderful lyric from a Sam Philllips song), but he makes some great points; Read the rest of this entry �

Hi there. Happy Poetry Friday to all. We don’t have a proper entry for today, but we would like to humbly submit for today’s poetry entry the below interview with Haven Kimmel, over which we are still squealing in excitement, since she’s one of our favorite writers. Haven began her writing career as a poet and wrote poetry under the name Haven Koontz (visit this link and scroll down for a list of some of her published poetry. Also, here you will see an excerpt of one of her poems, “Heartland”). She’s made it clear in several interviews that poetry was her first love.

And head here at A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy for this week’s Poetry Friday round-up.

Secondly, check out this beautiful cover art here. We give you a loud and resounding and heartfelt WOO HOO! when we say that not only did Random House debut this cover art yesterday for Jarrett J. Krocoszka’s October release of Punk Farm on Tour, but he also has agreed to let us grill him in an upcoming interview. He’s not only so impossibly nice that he’s agreed to answer our weird questions, but he also sent us that cover art (lest Random House think I just stole it from their site). We are big fans of Punk Farm as well as Jarrett’s other books, so we’re all agog over this news (yes, I said “agog.” I’m trying to use one word a day I’ve never used before).

Next, we would be terribly remiss if we did not steer you in the direction of readergirlz, a new “online book community celebrating gutsy girls in life & lit,” in the words of the four YA authors who gave birth to this iniative: Dia Calhoun, Janet Lee Carey, Lorie Ann Grover and Justina Chen Headley. Here’s what they have to say about readergirlz: Read the rest of this entry �

First things first: The Cybil Awards are being announced today, so woo hoo! All eyes over at the Cybils site, please!

Secondly, here’s my valentine for today (having already bestowed some upon my family) . . . I have been waiting patiently for a good, long while now to get my hands on a library copy of Kara LaReau and Scott Magoon’s Ugly Fish (June 2006; Harcourt Children’s Books), ever since Jarrett J. Krosoczka recommended it on his blog (look, JJK won’t steer you wrong; he did, after all, introduce me — again, via his blog — to David Ezra Stein’s Cowboy Ned and Andy, which I reviewed here, is one of the Best Picture Books Ever You Can Give as a Birthday Gift to A Friend, and makes me tear up every time at the end — yes, every time, though I know what’s comin’).

Now, I don’t live in Nashville proper, but I drive quite a distance every Tuesday to attend the story times at the big, beautiful, main branch of the Nashville Public Library (with their slammin’ slogan, “a city with a great library is a great city” . . . to which I say, word) in downtown Nashville. The main library has a staff of three full-time performers — known collectively as Wishing Chair Productions, as I understand it — who also entertain with marionettes (read the wonderful history here). They put on an excellent story time. Read the rest of this entry �

Yes, that is actually one of Socrates’ lesser-known quotes.

So, Eisha and I don’t normally use blog space to talk about book give-aways. However, the folks at Chronicle Books are not only nice and do good work, but they have a book give-away going on now that involves some really great titles, including autographed copies of Dianna Aston’s and Sylvia Long’s An Egg is Quiet, Annie Barrows and Sophie Blackall’s Ivy and Bean, Mark Shulman and Adam McCauley’s Mom and Dad Are Palindromes, Komako Sakai’s Emily’s Balloon, and much more. (I reviewed most of those titles last year, so hit the search box if you want to know my humble opinion on those titles, but I can tell you now they’re excellent books — each and every one of ’em). Here is all the information you need if you’re interested. That link also takes you to some author interviews, book excerpts, and much more. As Socrates is known to have stated in his later years, “free books are all good.” And I know that — let’s face it — we librarians can be downright maniacal and unpleasant when it comes to getting our hands on autographed copies of our favorite books. Am I right? The. claws. come. out.

And speaking of free books, on Tuesday of next week, 7-Imp will have a visitor come a-knockin’ at our cyber-door: Lisa Graff, author of the just-released The Thing About Georgie and member of the spirited Longstockings, will be dropping by here on her seven-day blog tour. She kicks things off on her own blog; then she’ll join us; and for the rest of the week, she’ll visit Kelly at Big A little a, Little Willow at Bildungsroman, Fuse, MotherReader, and Gothamist. We get to ask Ms. Graff all kinds of fun questions, so don’t miss that interview on Tuesday (and that’ll be right after Monday’s blogger interview). And here’s where the free books part comes in again. As Lisa explains at the above link:

During the tour, HarperCollins is also running a BOOK GIVEAWAY SPECTACULAR. The first three people to email a special, Georgie-tastic email address each day and tell them where they saw my interview will receive a *free* copy of THE THING ABOUT GEORGIE. Free books!! It really doesn’t get much better than that.

That last line there — “Free books!! It really doesn’t get much better than that” — should really be attributed to Socrates, known to have been his first words. Lisa obviously has issues with lifting authors’ words. Yikes. Embarrassing for her. Cringe-tacular.

We’re excited about getting to know Lisa better. She seems, thus far, to be a wicked funny person. And to have a hand in helping someone perhaps get a free book, too. Woo hoo! Geez, if someone we know wins a free book, let us know.

Ciao!

eisha: Now that I have your attention… I was wondering if anyone in the Boston-ish area would like to get together for a post-Cybils celebration? I’m thinking something low-key, just a quiet gathering of lit-fanatics, maybe somewhere that would offer alcohol… Anyone else interested?

The actual Announcement Day won’t do, of course, since many of us will be obligated to spend it in recognition of that OTHER holiday that’s taking place. And the weekend immediately following is also a holiday, so that’s probably out. So, how about Saturday, February 24th? Like, 7:00ish? I’ll try to think of a good location, if it turns out anyone else is game.

You don’t even have to be directly involved with the Cybils. You could just be someone who happens to enjoy good books and is pleased that bloggers came up with such a cool award. Or, you know, a librarian, or a writer, or someone in publishing, or someone who knows how to read… whatever. Just leave a comment here if you think it’d be fun to get together and celebrate.

Who knows? Maybe the idea will catch on and they’ll be throwing Cybils Parties all over the continent!

jules: On that note . . . I can’t fly up to join you all in Boston, though I’d really love to meet some of you kidlitosphere (and otherwise) bloggers in the Boston area. But is there anyone, by chance, in the Nashville area who wants to meet up? I don’t think there are any Cybillers out there from this area, but I could be wrong. Anyone else? Anyone? Anyone? (“Anyone? Something-d-o-o economics. ‘Voodoo’ economics” . . . but I digress).

And, as lame as this sounds, I’d prefer to meet up during the day. I’ll explain why to anyone who might want to get together if, uh, anyone’s out there?? Thanks!

Short, quickie announcement: ALA has announced The Big Award Winners. I’m particularly thrilled to see Sonya Hartnett’s Surrender get a Printz Honor. And Eisha’s beloved Kadir Nelson has been honored as well. Oh and James Marshall is the recipient of the Wilder Award for his lasting contribution to children’s literature. YES! YES! The Stupids somewhere are cheering. Go here to read about all the winners.

And, scene.

So, when Jules had this idea to start interviewing all our fellow bloggers and featuring them here at 7ITBB, I thought, “Neat.  That’ll be fun.”  I thought other bloggers would get a kick out of it.  I thought we might get a little more traffic, to boot.

 I didn’t think it would lead to HAVEN KIMMEL ACTUALLY EMAILING US.  Yeah, the Haven Kimmel.  The one author we both agreed would be a must-invite to our Fantasy Author Coffee/Wine Extravaganza.  The author who shows up on both of our “About Us” pages as an all-time favorite.  The author who (speaking personally, but I’m sure Jules would agree) absolutely slays me with her ability to completely immerse herself in the voice and perspective of a child, who writes about the intimacies of small-town life with such warmth and wit and eloquence and grace.  The author who has made “speedy-quick” a permanent fixture in my vocabulary.  Haven.  Kimmel.  Emailed.  Us.

And in her gracious email, which is a lovely piece of prose in its own right, she enumerated all the reasons why she would indeed be the perfect guest for our soiree:

Read the rest of this entry �

The 10th Carnival of Children’s Literature is up over at Big A little a. Many thanks to Kelly for hosting. She even categorized the posts, and there is a lot to see. Time to re-visit your favorite blogs and discover some new ones while you’re at it.

Kelly has posted at the Carnival a lovely photo from bigfoto.com of a chilly, winter landscape. As I began typing this, I wondered if I had any interesting winter photos of my own to tack onto this post. And I remembered one, though whether or not it passes as interesting will depend on the reader . . . My husband makes it an annual tradition — when we actually get winter weather, that is — to trek through the snow (at least once around the house) without any shoes or socks. Freak. He enjoys cold weather, whereas I have no blood or something and get chilly in 80 degree temps (freak) and watch in horror through the window when he makes these frosty exploits. He snapped a photo one year of his tattooed foot in the snow. Click to see a larger version if you’re into shivering and all. Freak.

Also, excuse our momentary boasting, but we’re just excited: We are a bit slow in getting to this, but we just discovered that we were named on the School Library Journal blog as a Blog to Bookmark in 2007. Here’s the link. (People will be watching in ’07? I better stop saying dude so much). Wow. We’re honored. Even though I’m almost two weeks late in seeing this, I do visit their blog and am excited they’ve noticed us. Since I managed to fail even leaving a comment over there (dude, I blame low coffee consumption thus far today; it’s making me unable to work with any technology this afternoon), we’d like to thank SLJ.

Don’t forget the first installment in our interview series just below this post if you haven’t seen it already. Don’t you just wanna hang out with Liz?

We hope everyone who is currently ala’ing is having fun in Seattle.

. . . to talk briefly about a bit of business.

Soon after Eisha and I created this blog, we did a short post about how we would really rather not accept review copies from publishers and authors, since we were in this for fun. Well, we’ve changed our minds. To be perfectly frank, getting noticed by publishers, which we have, is flattering — not to mention that sometimes it’s nice to avoid being on a long holds list at the pubalic liberry (sorry, but that phrase is all that I remember from having to read The Human Comedy in high school). And, since the sole reason we do this is to aid readers in book selection, review copies will keep us a bit more in-the-know.

However, once Eisha and I started talking about whether or not to accept review copies, some ethical issues popped up for us. We then turned to some esteemed kidlitosphere bloggers to get some advice, and we quickly saw that reviewing books today is evolving so rapidly due to the world of blogs. Read the rest of this entry �