Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

“Some friends are more than friends. They grow like twin cherries from the same stem. Just like Dina and Adin, who knew what the other one was thinking,
even without talking.”
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Want to read about a picture book import this morning? Cherry Blossom and Paper Planes (Floris) is from Belgian author Jef Aerts and is illustrated by Dutch artist Sanne te Loo. Originally published in Dutch in 2017, it’s on shelves here in the U.S. this month.

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It may be 2020, but here’s one more 2019 picture book, this one released back in September — Beth Waters’s Child of St Kilda (Child’s Play). This is the detailed, 64-page story of a “lost way of life,” a book that took Waters over two years of research and was nominated for the 2020 Kate Greenaway Medal.

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“Inside, the boy heard the tale of the Israelites leaving Egypt.
Outside, the kitten heard leaves whispering in the trees.
Still the boy waited. Still the kitten waited.”
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Today, illustrator Susan Gal visits to share some work-in-process images and final art from her illustrations for Lesléa Newman’s Welcoming Elijah: A Passover Tale with a Tail, coming to shelves from Charlesbridge at the end of this month.

It’s the first night of Passover, and a family welcomes their friends and family to a Seder. From inside the house, a young boy spots a kitten outdoors. A compassionate story unfolds, one of the traditions of a Jewish holiday, happening indoors, and a small stray kitten, doing his best to survive outside. How the boy and the kitten meet — and how the kitten finds a home and a name — is the heart of this story. Appended are an author’s note, providing more information about Passover, and a list of some traditional rituals of a Seder. Read the rest of this entry �

 

I’m sending you today to the Horn Book’s website — specifically to Calling Caldecott, a blog I help run. Over there, Nithya Sivashankar visits to write about international picture books; what books she would choose as her favorite 2019 “CaldeNott” choices (that term was coined by Thom Barthelmess); and citizenship status, access, power and how they all relate to picture books and the Caldecott Award.

I love to see international picture books and really enjoyed Nithya’s piece. (Pictured above is a book she mentions in that post.)

Her thoughts are here.

 
Know one reason I appreciate the picture books in this BookPage picture book round-up I wrote? They are books about snow, and at this point, snow is something I can only dream of here in Tennessee. (It’s a record-breaking 70 degrees outside as I type.) Okay, we did have some flurries before the holidays. Just a bit. For that, I’m grateful. I hope we see some more.

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“I swam on by the people onshore hollering,
‘A girl like you needs to be stay out of the water
and be dry, like everyone else.'”
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A collaboration I like to see is this one — author Angela Johnson and illustrator Nina Crews. Their new book is called A Girl Like Me and is coming to shelves early next month (Millbrook Press).

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Over at Tennessee’s Chapter 16, I’ve a Q&A with author Rita Lorraine Hubbard about her picture book biography, The Oldest Student: How Mary Walker Learned to Read (Schwartz & Wade, January 2020), illustrated by Oge Mora.

That Q&A is here.

And here at 7-Imp today, I’m including some of Mora’s illustrations from the book.

Enjoy!

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Happy new year, Imps!

The Horn Book has posted my review of Jon Agee’s I Want a Dog (Dial). Did any of you see this one back in September? Agee, I think, is a picture book master.

That review is here, if you’d like to read more about the book.

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Happy winter, everyone! It hardly feels like it here in Tennessee — it is rather depressingly warm here (depressing, if you look forward to winter and hope for snow, as I do) — but maybe our temps will drop soon. To celebrate winter, I’m sharing this image today from Phoebe Wahl. It was 2013 in this post that she came and visited as an “up-and-coming” illustrator, and since then she’s created some beautiful books. She’s one of my favorite illustrators.

This piece of art is called Lady Winter, and I believe Phoebe made it for a wall calendar back in 2015. I thank her for allowing me to share it here today.

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Happy holidays to all from 7-Imp! This image was created by author-illustrator Robert Neubecker.

May your holiday season be a peaceful and relaxed one.

See you Sunday!