Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

{Note: For the rest of today’s Radar-Books schedule, scroll down to the bottom of this post} . . .

It’s arguable whether or not Nancy Crocker’s first novel, Billie Standish Was Here (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers), qualifies as a Radar-Book, as in a book which has been entirely too overlooked. In the grand scheme of things, it’s still a fairly young novel, having been released just this past June, not to mention it has received consistently good reviews: “Set in the late 1960s and early ‘70’s, this tender, touching account of intergenerational friendship provides rich historical context for two memorable female characters who redefine the meaning of family and love” (starred review in Kirkus Reviews), and “{t}his story is beautiful, painful, and complex, and the descriptions of people, events, and emotions are graphic and tangible” from School Library Journal. It was even chosen as a Summer 2007 Children’s Book Sense Pick.

But I’m still declaring it under the radar, because it didn’t get a whole heapin’ dose of blog buzz: The only other blog review I knew of was Kelly Herold’s from July, and I just found this one at a blog called Hypothetically Speaking.

Plus, to be perfectly honest, it is a great excuse for me to interview the author, Nancy Crocker, pictured above.

It’s the summer of 1968 in the small town of Cumberland, Missouri, and Billie — from whose perspective the entire novel is told — is eleven years old. Not only does she not register in her parents’ radar on any level whatsoever (other than providing her food and shelter, as if she’s simply a pet to feed), but the town, way past its heyday, suddenly seems even lonelier than normal after a long period of “bone-soaking rain.” School has ended for the summer. Daily, Billie finds herself alone in her room, as usual, her parents never there. When they are there, she is ashamed and afraid to speak up, doing so making her feel flat-out strange (after her mother makes one particularly hateful comment to Billie, she winces: “When she caught me off guard she could still make me wonder just when it was that she decided to stop taking care of me altogether”). After venturing out one day, she sees and hears no one, wondering why the town seems abandoned and feeling as if she might shrink. As she’s about to turn back for home, she sees and speaks to the neighbor across the street, Lydia Jenkins (“{s}he looked like every grandma in the world”) and learns that the town members are afraid the levee may break. Though everyone else seems to be off working to shore up levees against the river, Billie’s parents, Lydia tells her, are still working in the field every day, as always, Billie’s father having remembered that when the levee broke in ’51, there was enough time to sandbag before the water got to town. Eventually, Billie comes to learn that Miss Lydia is the only other person besides her family to stick around, and a friendship with her is born out of circumstance.

Here’s what else I wrote about Billie Standish in my review this past May of an advance proof of the novel: Read the rest of this entry �

Jules: We’re doing things up a little bit differently today here at 7-Imp. First of all, our apologies to Poetry Friday for the lack of a poem here this morning, but we’ll get back to it. We promise. Or, okay, to make it work, how about this:

Roses are red.
Violets are blue.
We have a new blog
we’d like to share with you.

Ahem, rather pathetic. But, poof, I just made this a Poetry Friday entry, albeit a lame one.

We have an entry today in our blogger interview series, and what is a tad bit different is that this blogger, Minh over at Bottom Shelf Books, is fairly new to the kidlitosphere in the grand scheme of things. We still have a long list of bloggers we have yet to — and really want to — interview, and many of them have been blogging much longer. But, well, we just couldn’t help ourselves — not to mention, if you haven’t already noticed, we pretty much post about whatever inspires us at the moment. That’s just how we roll here in 7-Imp Land. So, Eisha and I had already discovered Minh’s blog and were immediately hooked, and then he emailed us a question and we corresponded a bit, and we found ourselves saying, “Hey, up for an interview?” (Additionally, we’ve only interviewed two — count them, two! — male bloggers thus far, and that would be Roger Sutton and David at the excelsior file, unless you include Hank Green in that list. Shame on us. Not to sound all token-y, but it’s time to shine a spotlight on some XY chromosomes again, even though it’s probably fair to say the kidlitosphere is female-laden).

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Welcome to 7-Imp’s stop in the first-ever One Shot World Tour, as organized by Colleen Mondor at Chasing Ray. The One Shot World Tour will involve approximately fifteen, more or less, blogs highlighting children’s and YA authors from different countries around the world — and all in one day for each stop (hence the “one shot” moniker). Today’s stop is Australia (and a bit of New Zealand). As author Margo Lanagan, our interviewee today (pictured above from a January ’07 visit to India), described it perfectly at her blog, Among Amid While, it’s an “Australian-themed children’s and teen literature multi-blog gabfest.” Today, each participating blog will post the master schedule of which blogs are talking about what books and which authors from Down Under (scroll down to the bottom of this interview to see the One Shot World Tour: Best Read with Vegemite schedule for today). Most bloggers will be talking up their favorite Australians writers/books, but a few blogs will be interviewing authors as well.

And we’re happy to be one of those blogs, because Australian author Margo Lanagan is gracing our site today. To call her “highly-acclaimed” does not even seem to do her justice. Lanagan is one of the most original and fascinating voices in YA literature today.
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Welcome, readers, to another installment of our usually-weekly interviews. Today is a Part Two of sorts, since we interviewed one half of Finding Wonderland, TadMack, two weeks ago. Now we’re getting to know the other half of Finding Wonderland, Sarah J. Stevenson, a.k.a. aquafortis. And yes, since TadMack sent us a sweet baby pic, so did a.fortis. So, let’s just have our little moment:

OOH, PRECIOUS PUNKIN’ MUFFIN!!! SUGAR-BRITCHES!!! YOU ARE SO ADORABLE WITH YOUR SERIOUS WITTLE FACE AND YOUR BIG OL’ TYPEWRITER!! YOU SWEET LIL’ ITTY BITTY FUTURE-WRITER YOU!! SUGAR-BEAR!! SQUASH-BLOSSOM!! BUNNY-BOO!!!

Ahem.

Since it’s Part Two, we’ll just assume that you already know how awesome Finding Wonderland: the Writing YA Weblog is – where a.fortis and TadMack talk about writing, share news and fun tidbits about the YA lit world, and hosted 7 (that’s SEVEN, people) interviews for the Summer Blog Blast Tour in June. And we’ll assume you also are familiar with their companion blog, Reading YA: Readers’ Rants, where they each post lovely, insightful reviews of the YA fiction they read.

But perhaps you haven’t seen a.fortis’s personal blog, aquafortis, where a.fortis talks about her artistic endeavors, travels, and other random stuff (which we’ll hear more about in the interview below). She also reveals the origin of her unusual screenname:

Welcome to aquafortis, the blog that bites. It bites because the term “aqua fortis” was the alchemical term for nitric acid, a necessary component in etching onto zinc plates for intaglio printmaking (which I happen to enjoy, though I use copper and ferric chloride now). It also bites because of my biting wit (uh…I hope), and lastly, it bites because it just does.

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We are happy to bring to you an interview with Tanita Davis, a.k.a. TadMack, from Finding Wonderland, “the WritingYA Weblog.” TadMack and aquafortis (otherwise known as Sarah, whom we will interview next-ish) run the YA-lit treehouse over there, and it’s one of our favorite blogs. As the blog’s front page says, ” . . . welcome to our humble treehouse: a sanctuary and not-so-secret hideout for fans and writers of YA lit. News, advice, links, and fun stuff, straight from the keyboards of our always-intrepid, sometimes-torpid reporting staff. Come on in!” If you weren’t already a frequent reader of their blog — which stemmed from a West-Coast-based writing group who met online on a weekly basis to support each others’ writing and share their love of YA lit, now with posts from TadMack and aquafortis only — then you probably noticed their kickin’ interviews during the recent Summer Blog Blast Tour. They kicked things off with their impressive and exclusive interview with Gene Yang.

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{Note: What excellent timing! Alkelda is hosting the current Carnival of Children’s Literature today over at her site. Go see!}

Okay, so Farida (otherwise known as Alkelda over at her wonderful blog, Saints and Spinners) may not appreciate being called a saint. That’s a lot of pressure. But Jules, in particular, has gotten to know her a lot more lately, and she’s a good, kind person. So there. Saint she will be in our world.

Farida is pictured here with her daughter, who goes by “Lucia” at her site. “Everyone in the House of Glee has a saint’s name or pseudonym, with the exception of Brad the Gorilla, my tenant,” Farida told us. “Brad will probably be outraged that he doesn’t get his own interview. Maybe I’ll interview him for Saints and Spinners just to appease his wrath. I don’t want a gorilla hurling rotten bananas at me from the top of our hutch, after all.”

We at 7-Imp think that Farida’s blog (Saints and Spinners, that is — for the record, she has another blog that serves as her “gig website”) is one of the most distinctive kidlit blogs out there. As a professional storyteller (who also has her M.S. in Library Science) who shares folktales that appeal to all ages (using finger-puppets and instruments to accompany traditional and original songs for toddlers and preschool children; “My favorite stories contain fools, tricksters, and unconventional heroes,” she writes at her site), Farida uses both her gig site and her Saints and Spinners blog to talk about storytelling, her storytelling techniques and props, stories (of course), saints (of course — Farida says, “{I feature} Stories of the Saints, especially when there are specific anecdotes about them”), children’s music (both traditional and contemporary), other musicians who create music for children, mix tapes for her readers; thoughts on parenting (here is Jules’ very, very favorite post of Farida’s on parenting), her gardening, and sometimes her own personal life and adventures with her daughter — without ever getting uncomfortably personal. She also contributes to Poetry Fridays. Read the rest of this entry �

Since 2007 seems to be The Year of Brotherhood 2.0 — in the realm of the kidlitosphere — we thought we would take some time to chat with the one-half of the popular online video project who has nothing to do with children’s or YA lit but has worked his way into the hearts (aw!) of many YA readers (teens and adults alike), Mr. Hank Green. Hank is a champion Nerd Fighter and WorldSuck Decreaser (as his brother John is, whom — to be fair — we randomly interviewed in April, you may remember). Plus, he sings a lot. So, we thought, why not chat with him about his passion for environmental issues, Brotherhood 2.0, and his secret wish to be a rock star? Lucky for us, he was game.

Actually, lucky for all of us, because as our readers showed when we brought up the idea of interviewing Hank, the blogiverse definitely wants to know more. His alternately hilarious and thought-provoking posts on B2.0 have created quite a fan base, and we’re all curious about the Helen Hunt-ode-composing, sock-puppet-wielding, Wikipedia-entry-having, Strawberry Hill-drinking, black-eyeliner-wearing-in-his-misspent-youth half of the Brotherhood.

You’ll notice, though, we refrained from asking the “boxers or briefs” question. Maybe next time.

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This interview with Nancy R. Kienzler, a.k.a. Journey Woman, is another great example of why we love this blogger interview series: You get to learn things about some of your favorite bloggers that you may have never guessed. In this case, who knew that the market researcher calling you on the phone after you have just sat down to dinner is passionate about poetry and blogs about it daily?

And what great timing we seem to have at 7-Imp to have decided to feature Nancy one day after her one-year blogiversary. We had no idea it was July 8 (and one day after we celebrated ours), but we’re pleased the timing worked out that way. Happy blogversary to Journey Woman! Be sure to go read her blogversary post, because she’s having a Lives in Letters Contest to celebrate.

And, speaking of that post, it almost serves as the perfect introduction to this interview you’re reading. She runs down all the highlights of her first year of blogging and all the things about Journey Woman that make it worth your time to visit (by the way, read here and here if you’ve ever wondered about her blog’s title). Here are seven of her blog’s regular features, though Nancy is quick to add, “‘regular’ is a relative term.” Yes, of course, seven. Let’s call it . . .

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Last week’s Summer Blog Blast Tour was really fun, and it is fitting this Monday to return to our blogger interview series with a chat with, arguably, the most beloved presence in the kidlitosphere, author Cynthia Leitich Smith, since Cynthia’s most recent novel is a YA one.

Cynthia is an author of YA gothic fantasy novels, children’s books, and short stories (who quit her government law day job over ten years ago to write full time for children and teens); a member of the faculty of the Vermont College MFA program in Writing for Children and Young Adults; and a speaker who has a passion for connecting with readers and a vibrant online presence. Her primary blog, Cynsations, offers — through the blog itself and through links to her main author site — interviews, reading recommendations (organized by age and genre), publishing information, writer resources, information on literacy advocacy, children’s and YA literature resources, children’s and YA literature bibliographies, an extensive list of “diverse reads,” information on awards, and news in children’s and young adult literature. Her author site also contains “teacher / librarian / researcher resources related to multicultural literature, represented communities, Native American literature, and books related to war and peace.” Really, Cynthia’s site and blog are must-have resources (we here at 7-Imp have linked to Cynsations many a-time, particularly for her informative interviews). She says below in our interview that this is her “way of fulfilling the author’s natural role as youth literature ambassador.” We are glad she does so and provides such a valuable resource to the kidlitosphere.

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Seven Reasons It Must Be So Utterly Awesome To Be Holly Black:

1*  She won the first ever Andre Norton Award for Valiant in 2006.

2*  She went to two proms this year, and one of them actually served alcohol (more on that later…).

3*  Over the past month she’s toured across the country and back, gone to WisCon, Book Expo America, and the Sycamore Hill Writer’s Workshop, and today she’ll be at ALA in D.C. She’s a busy, busy woman, doing very important things and hanging with seriously cool people. And yet she took the time to be interviewed by three bloggers for the SBBT.

4*  She almost became a librarian. This makes us, like, practically related.

5*  She slept on Cecil Castellucci’s couch.

6*  She has lots and lots of very cool shoes. That may be a shallow thing to mention in a literary interview, but whatever. Look at those black-and-red ones!

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