Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Boy howdy, have I been looking forward to this interview. Sean Qualls is one of my favorite new illustrators, one whose career I follow with great and geeky interest. His mixed-media artwork (mostly painting, drawing, and collage) never fails to surprise, and I must add, as odd as it might sound, that I particularly love his consistent use of circles. (See the sketches and spreads below for Dizzy and Before John Was a Jazz Giant as excellent examples of my point, what with the “the sounds dreamily dancing through the air amid streaming ribbons of music,” as School Library Journal put it in their review of the latter title, a 2009 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Book.) And, in the words of Kirkus, Sean’s got his own unique “sonic iconography,” and he’s got it down pat.

You know, like this:

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I’m happy to welcome author/poet/blogger Laura Purdie Salas this morning, a big cup of strong, pipin’ hot coffee extended as we get ready for a 7-Imp chat. I’ve wanted to interview Laura for a while, though some folks may remember that she stopped by exactly one year and one day ago with the rest of the Poetry Seven for a group interview. Today, though, she’s goin’ it solo, and she’s here to talk a bit about her new book, Stampede!: Poems to Celebrate the Wild Side of School, published this month by Clarion and illustrated by Steven Salerno, as well as discuss her blogging and other writing.

Laura is a former teacher and has written over fifty books for kids and teens. She writes nonfiction titles, as well as poetry, including 2008’s Write Your Own Poetry, geared at upper-elementary and middle-grade students. Last year, she also published ten poetry titles with Capstone Press, a set of books in which she incorporated a number of poetic forms. Her web site has lots of information about her titles and also includes information about her writing presentations and school visits. For Stampede, Laura’s first trade picture book, she conducted an online launch party, an intriguing idea for us wallflowers of the world. I asked her about it, and she discusses that a bit below. Laura also blogs over at her LiveJournal home, often presenting writing challenges and ideas for other writers and poets, such as this recent example, and always sharing the results with her readers.

I thank Laura for stopping by. Let’s get right to it . . .

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The phrase “signature style” gets thrown around a lot when folks are talking about the work of authors and illustrators, and if you ever meet someone to whom the meaning of that phrase is unclear, just show them the work of Calef Brown. The signature in his style is his and his alone, unlike any other. Sure, you can take his quirky wit and very angular illustrations on a flat plane and liken his style to others’ (the wonderful work of Maira Kalman comes to mind, for one), but no one else does creative proportions, purple faces (and almost every other shade imaginable), distinctive elongated noses, and the overall postmodern folk-art vibe quite like Calef. His art has an energy that jumps off the page, and the best thing about his poetry is that you never quite know what you’re going to get. Happy surprises all around.

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This is not Dan Yaccarino, but this is one of the objects of his hero worship — Jacques Cousteau, the subject of Dan’s engaging new picture book biography, released last month. This is Dan below, in his VERY fun-looking studio. You can even click on the image to see his robots up close:

Good thing I invited him for a breakfast chat, since breakfast is, “by far, my favorite meal,” he told me, “next to lunch, dinner, and snack time. I’m a savory person, rather than a sweet one (just ask my wife). My favorite omelette is Swiss, mushroom, and onion. Along with that, a toasted bialy, slathered with butter, and an exceedingly strong cup of coffee. Yes, I know, I’m a real health nut.”

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Here’s Douglas Florian, who is pictured outside his studio on West 52nd Street in Manhattan (“also known as Swing Street,” he told me, “because the jazz musicians used to record there”) and whom I’m happy to welcome to 7-Imp this morning for a breakfast chat.

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Harry Bliss hardly needs an introduction to parents and the teachers and librarians of elementary-aged children. His first illustrated title, A Fine, Fine School, written by Sharon Creech and published by HarperCollins in 2001, became a New York Times bestseller, and he has gone on to illustrate many other best-selling titles, including the popular Diary of a Worm (2003), Diary of a Spider (2005), and Diary of a Fly (2007), all written by Doreen Cronin. His most recent illustrated title was last year’s Louise, The Adventures of a Chicken, written by Kate DiCamillo, the tale of an intrepid chicken, longing for adventure, who leaves her comfortable nest and goes to sea. Harry’s forthcoming title—as in, on shelves this month—is Luke on the Loose, a TOON Book from Raw Junior, which Harry both wrote and illustrated.

But many people will also recognize Harry’s cartoon work: He is a cartoonist and cover artist for The New Yorker. In fact, his collection of New Yorker covers can be viewed at his web site, as well as many cartoons and peeks into his illustrated children’s titles. Harry also signed on with Tribune Media Services to create a self-titled strip, featuring his single-panel gag cartoons, Bliss. (The Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, and the Chicago Tribune are a few of the newspapers which run it.) The Bliss collection can also be seen at Harry’s site.

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Here is one of my all-time favorite picture characters in all the universe. Do you know him, too?

He showed up in 2000, brought to life by author/illustrator D.B. Johnson, who is pictured here, and his story, Henry Hikes to Fitchburg (Houghton Mifflin)—the first of many Henry stories, we came to find out later—was inspired by a short passage from Henry David Thoreau’s Walden. This book came out right around the time that I had decided to study children’s lit in grad school via a library degree. (At this point, I was married and living with my husband, but just prior to that and when I was single, Eisha had been my roomie, and she’d bring home beautiful and/or clever picture books from her library job and leave them sitting on our kitchen table. As I’ve said before here at 7-Imp, she’s to blame for my picture book passion. But I digress.) I had never seen anything like it before, and neither had the rest of the world: In fact, D.B., who goes by Don, was awarded the Ezra Jack Keats New Writer Award for Henry Hikes to Fitchburg, which he discusses a bit below, as well as the 2000 Boston Globe–Horn Book Award for Picture Books. (See his wonderful acceptance speech here: “This whole idea of walking to get where you want to go resonated with my life. It was Thoreau’s way to be his own man, to stay close to nature, to be a writer. It was my way to be an artist.”) Three more Henry books were to follow: Henry Builds a Cabin in 2002, Henry Climbs a Mountain in 2003, and Henry Works in 2004. (Incidentally, you can see the books online at the “books” portion of Don’s site.)

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I do a lot of illustrator interviews here at 7-Imp, but as I was formatting this one, I realized that I don’t often talk to artists like Geoffrey Hayes who create books for the VERY WEE set, as in the pre-preschool crowd. For that—and many other reasons—it’s good to welcome Geoffrey this morning for seven questions over breakfast.

Geoffrey has written and illustrated over forty children’s books, including Bear By Himself, Margaret Wise Brown’s When the Wind Blew, and the early-reader series, Otto & Uncle Tooth. To be perfectly honest, I’m still exploring his previous titles, but what caught my eye—what made me want to invite him over for a breakfast chat—are his new Benny and Penny titles for RAW Junior. These titles are Geoffrey at his very best.

Have you seen these guys yet?

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Back when I took part in my half of 7-Imp’s blog identity crisis, I decided to no longer accept review copies of titles for a while. Well, after that while passed, I came to discover a more fine-tuned focus, I guess you could say, here at 7-Imp — for my part. And that would be that I love talking to illustrators, and I love love LOVES me some good picture book art. So, while I no longer accept review copies of novels, I find it hard to turn down—and, it turns out, will gladly accept—advance copies of new picture book titles that I think look exciting. All of that is to say that I keep wanting to say to you all, have you SEEN Betsy Franco’s new collection of concrete poems, A Curious Collection of Cats, illustrated by Michael Wertz? I’ve been wanting to say that for a while. And then I have to stop and remind myself that it’s not out on bookshelves and in libraries yet. But guess what? Yup, you got it: It’ll be out in April from Tricycle Press, and April is wowwheredoesthetimego NEXT WEEK. In honor, then, of National Poetry Month, which will be here oh-so soon, I’m finally going to show you some illustrations from this engaging book.

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Here is the celebrated and award-winning author and illustrator of many picture book biographies, Don Brown. He is having A Moment with what he refers to below in our chat as his wondrous, yet flat-out evil, printer. I’m happy to welcome Don this morning for seven questions over breakfast — not only to distract him from his printer woes, but also because his books are ones I’ve followed and enjoyed for years.

If you’re a children’s librarian—whether a public librarian or school librarian—and/or a parent who keeps up with children’s lit, particularly nonfiction titles, you may wonder, as I do, where we’d be without his engaging picture book biographies, particularly since he often, but certainly not always, brings us the lives of lesser-known figures (Ruth Law, Mary Kingsley, Alice Ramsey — to name a few). And even when he’s telling us the story of more celebrated figures of history—Mark Twain, Albert Einstein, Dolley Madison—he manages to stand apart from the crowd: Kirkus wrote about One Giant Leap: The Story of Neil Armstrong, “{t}he story has been told many times, but perhaps never with so much heart and spirit.” I think the common denominator in his picture book biographies, no matter the subject matter, is that he’s bringing us the stories of those people who followed their bliss and lived with passion.

And if you enjoy his books as much as I do, you’re probably nodding as I say: Doesn’t that seem like what he’s doing, too? I’ve never read a Don Brown story in which it didn’t seem as if he was having great fun sharing with us. And, in the words of School Library Journal, he’s “a current pacesetter who has put the finishing touches on the standards for storyographies.”

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