Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Mii maanda ezhi-gkendmaanh / This Is How I Know (Groundwood, March 2021) is a book about the seasons — and a beautiful collaboration between author Brittany Luby, illustrator Joshua Mangeshig Pawis-Steckley, and translators Alvin Ted Corbiere and Alan Corbiere. The book is written in both Anishinaabemowin and English.

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Title page spread
(Click to enlarge and see with text)

 
Today, I’ve got a Q&A over at Chapter 16 with author Jessica Young, who chats with me about her newest picture book, I’ll Meet You in Your Dreams (Little, Brown, March 2021), illustrated by Rafael López.

Here is the Chapter 16 chat with Jessica.

Pictured above is the book’s title page spread (sans text), and below are some more spreads from the book. Also! Please do come join me for a Parnassus Books Facebook Live event during which I’ll chat with both Jessica and Rafael about this book. That will be next Tuesday, March 9th, at 6:00 PM Central. Here’s the info.

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I’ve a review over at BookPage of the bright and beautiful Starting Over in Sunset Park (Tilbury House, February 2021), written by José Pelaez and Lynn McGee and illustrated by Bianca Diaz.

The review is here, and below are some spreads.

Enjoy!

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“Because once people have eaten apples and bananas, purple potatoes and
yellow tomatoes, kiwifruit and sugar snap peas and spaghetti squash …
who knows what they’ll try next?”
(Click spread to enlarge)

 
The next time you eat passion fruit, a donut peach, or purple asparagus, you can give a note of thanks to produce pioneer Frieda Caplan, the subject of a new picture book biography from Mara Rockliff. Illustrated by Giselle Potter and arriving on shelves last month (Beach Lane Books), Try It! How Frieda Caplan Changed the Way We Eat is informative, eye-opening, and will have you reaching for the nearest fruits.

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“It is magic.”
(Click spread to enlarge)

“Once I began focusing on Monet, I kept writing drafts that started in his childhood, which is a typical way to connect a young reader to historical biography. I soon realized that Monet’s childhood would bore children, because it was boring me! When I asked myself what I thought a young reader would find interesting, the answer was the boat.
Why would you paint on a boat? How do you paint on a boat?
What happens when you paint on a boat?”
— Barb Rosenstock

Over at BookPage, I’ve a Q&A with author Barb Rosenstock and illustrator Mary GrandPré about their newest collaboration, Mornings with Monet (Knopf, March 2021). It’s a nonfiction picture book, as Barb notes in our Q&A, that begins and ends in four hours and captures Claude Monet one morning (3:30 AM, no less) “on his way to work.” And “work” is painting, from his rowboat (his “studio boat”), on the Seine. It’s a beautifully crafted book, filled with vivid sensory language and richly imagined acrylic illustrations.

Here’s the Q&A, and below is another spread from the book.

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(Click image to enlarge)

 

Get out your fountain pens! Steve Light is here.

Pictured above is an early character sketch from Steve Light’s Road Trip! A Whiskers Hollow Adventure (Candlewick, February 2021). This is a picture book with its own delightfully distinct world, one that Steve had fun building and tells me about below in our art-filled chat today. It’s a wooded world we enter, with animals zipping around in tiny cars on interconnected tree branches (there’s even an acorn car); characters with intricate homes in the trunks of trees; a heading dose of mud; and good friends. Oh, and there are endpapers that feature maps so that little hands can orient themselves — and, as Steve discusses below, even create their own imaginary adventures with locations not in this story.

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“[11th Street] had nature and her best friend, Ada.”

 
I’m gonna take us back to 2020 for a moment and show you some spreads from a book released back in September. My review of Everything Naomi Loved (Norton Young Readers), written by Katie Yamasaki and Ian ­Lendler and illustrated by Katie Yamasaki, is over here at the Horn Book.

And here today at 7-Imp are some spreads from this tender story.

Enjoy!

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I’ve a review over at BookPage of Phùng Nguyên Quang’s and Huỳnh Kim Liên’s captivating My First Day (Make Me a World, February 2021).

That is here, and below are a couple spreads from the book.

Enjoy!

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There are many things I like about following picture book imports, and one is that they often don’t shy from addressing some of life’s hardest challenges (even oftentimes exhibiting more of a willingness to let complex questions rest unanswered). Let’s look today at a picture book originally published in French about an extremely difficult topic — domestic abuse. Valérie Fontaine’s The Big Bad Wolf in My House (Groundwood Books), illustrated by Nathalie Dion, is a book that could be a lifeline for children experiencing this and a book that, at the very least, can help them feel seen. It was first published last year, will be on American shelves early next month, and has been translated by Shelley Tanaka.

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Author Leda Schubert shares a story based on her own family in Nathan’s Song (Dial, February 2021), illustrated by Maya Ish-Shalom — a picture book that is a valentine to family (and keeping family stories alive). I’ve got some spreads today from this spirited, big-hearted true tale.

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