Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

 

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Over at BookPage, I reviewed Philip C. Stead’s newest book, Ideas Are All Around, published this month by Neal Porter Books/Roaring Brook Press. That review is here if you want to read a bit about what the book is about (and why I like it).

Phil visits today to talk about learning what art is, how he made the illustrations for this one, and how he’s unsure how to answer your question about which parts of the book are real (and which are not).

Let’s get right to it. I thank Phil for visiting.

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Out of the Box

 
My guest today is artist Helen Zughaib, who was born in Beirut. Helen says she knew she wanted a life of painting and making art when she was very young and cites Matisse, Rousseau, Mondrian, and Jacob Lawrence as influences. Growing up primarily in the Arab world, she says, also influenced her — “the light, the patterns and colors on carpets, tiles, and buildings that surrounded me.”

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“Nobody calls me Bill / Except my wife / I’m the Count / Ol’ Base / Or Holy Main …”
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Today over at Kirkus, I take a look at the first book in a new picture book series of sorts from author Sara O’Leary and illustrator Karen Klassen. That is here.

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Last week, I wrote here about my love for Roxane Orgill’s Jazz Day: The Making of a Famous Photograph, illustrated by Francis Vallejo (Candlewick, March 2016). I’m following up today here at 7-Imp with a couple of spreads from the book.

I highly recommend spending time at Francis’s site. There’s more art there.

Enjoy!

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Pictured above is one of Christy Hale’s beautiful illustrations from Cindy Jenson-Elliott’s Antsy Ansel: Ansel Adams, A Life in Nature, coming to shelves in September of this year. “This was Ansel’s front yard,” Christy tells me, “the Golden Gate Headlands before there was a bridge. I work traditionally in collage, pasting down papers and stylized photographic elements. Line work and addition layers are added in Photoshop.”

It’s a pleasure to have Christy visiting 7-Imp for a cyber-breakfast this morning. She is pictured here with Jerry Pinkney, who was her illustration teacher at Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute. Pinkney must be proud. Christy went on to forge herself an impressive career in this field — not only illustrating but also writing, designing, art directing, and teaching. She talks more below about that work, as well as shares more images from Antsy Ansel — and lots of other artwork.

“A book is architecture of the imagination,” she noted in her 2013 Boston Globe-Horn Book Nonfiction Honor acceptance speech for the wonderful Dreaming Up: A Celebration of Building, which she both wrote and illustrated, and her work over the years has sparked the imagination of many children. As a former school librarian and now a parent, I look forward to any book with her name on the cover. Her richly textured illustrations are ones to pore over.

Since she usually switches her breakfast up between oatmeal/berries/almonds and scrambled eggs, I say we have all of the above. And coffee, because she says there’s always coffee. Looks like we’re aligned on that.

Let’s get to it, and I thank Christy for visiting. …

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” … I force my feet to move. But one block in, I can’t go on.
I hear the beat of feet. …”
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Anyone else remember 2014’s Little Melba and Her Big Trombone, written by Katheryn Russell-Brown and illustrated by Frank Morrison? There’s art from the book here at 7-Imp; it won a 2015 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor.

Well, today I have some more artwork from Frank, this time from Pat Zietlow Miller’s The Quickest Kid in Clarksville (Chronicle Books, February 2016). That’s right: Clarksville. As in, Clarksville, Tennessee, which is only about 70 miles from where I live. Tennessee represents. WOO!

This is the story of Alta, the spirited girl of the book’s title, who likes to pretend she’s three-time Olympic gold medalist Wilma Rudolph, “the fastest woman in the world.” (An Author’s Note explains that Wilma herself grew up in Clarksville.) As Alta considers the Clarksville parade, coming up tomorrow, a new girl in town sashays her way up to Alta and her friends to show off her new shoes. This girl’s name is Charmaine, and she struts in these “only-been-worn-by-her shoes with stripes down the sides and laces so white they glow.” Charmaine even compares her shoes to Wilma’s. (Gasp!) Alta is stunned; her own shoes are falling apart.

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“You wanna see my tattoos?
Why, little man, you always want to see my tattoos. Here we go then.”
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Today over at Kirkus, I’ve got a wonderful, new picture book, a superb blend of nonfiction and poetry. That will be here soon.

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Last week, I wrote here about Alison McGhee’s Tell Me a Tattoo Story (Chronicle, April 2016), illustrated by Eliza Wheeler. Today I have some art from the book, as well as some preliminary images from Eliza.

Enjoy!

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From Bryan Konietzko’s Threadworlds,
coming in 2017

 
Last week I spoke here at Kirkus with First Second’s Editorial Director, Mark Siegel, about graphic novels and ten years of First Second Books.

Today, I’m following up with art — a sneak peek at some upcoming graphic novels from First Second.

Enjoy!

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“My name is Dasha. I am twelve years old.”
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Last year, I read Dasha Tolstikova’s A Year Without Mom, released by Groundwood Books in October. Dasha and I started a conversation about this book at year’s end, and life (as it is wont to do) got in the way quite a bit, interrupting our chat, but we finally wrapped it up and I’m posting it today. Better late than never.

I featured Dasha’s artwork here back in 2013, and it’s wonderful to be talking about this book today. A Year Without Mom is what Maria Russo in the New York Times Book Review called a “perceptive story about change, aloneness, ambition and, ultimately, resilience” and Kirkus Reviews called “fascinating and heartfelt.” This 176-page illustrated book follows Dasha herself through a year in Moscow with her grandparents after her mother goes to America to study advertising. Politics are touched upon—essentially, Gorbachev’s leave with Yeltsin taking up the reins—but the book also tells the universal story of a middle-schooler. Crushes, the dynamics between friends, school — all of this without her mother near.

Dasha visits today to talk about this book and what’s next on her plate. I thank her for sharing.

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“Once upon a time there was a hungry lion, a penguin, a turtle, a little calico kitten,
a brown mouse, a bunny with floppy ears and a bunny with un-floppy ears, a frog,
a bat, a pig, a slightly bigger pig, a woolly sheep, a koala, and also a hen.”
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I’ve got a few spreads today from Lucy Ruth Cummins’ A Hungry Lion, or a Dwindling Assortment of Animals, coming from Atheneum next month. Cummins is not only a writer and illustrator; she is also a full-time art director. (Here’s her site.) This new book, which she rendered via brush marker, gouache, graphite, colored pencil, and charcoal, is the story of a very hungry lion, as you can see from the three spreads here today. It takes the sweet ending you expect and turns it on its head in the vein of the contemporary subversive picture book, but instead of a surprise revenge, Cummins brings readers yet another twist at the close of the story, which I won’t ruin for you.

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“Worm loves Worm. ‘Let’s be married,’ says Worm to Worm.
‘Yes!’ answers Worm. ‘Let’s be married.'”
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This morning over at Kirkus, I’ve got tattoos and tales on the mind. That link is here.

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Last week, I wrote here about J. J. Austrian’s Worm Loves Worm (Balzer + Bray, January 2016), illustrated by Mike Curato, so I’m following up with some spreads from the book today.

Enjoy!

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