Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

“To me, the perfect picture book is a spontaneous creation, inspired by an invisible and mysterious muse not to be found in the marketplace.”

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It was a pleasure to chat with author Kate Banks, pictured here. My brief Q&A with her is posted over at Kirkus this morning.

Kate’s newest picture book is City Cat, illustrated by Lauren Castillo, so I asked her about that book. But since Kate’s first books were published in the 1980s, I thought I’d also ask her how she thinks the picture book fares today. Part of her response is above.

And all the rest is here.

Next week here at 7-Imp, I’ll have some of Lauren’s art from City Cat.

Until tomorrow …

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Photo of Kate Banks used with permission.

(Click to enlarge photo)

 
See that? Author/illustrator Aaron Becker and Those Clever and Brave Children from Aaron’s Journey are waiting for me to join them for breakfast out in the garden. I think this has become, hands down, my favorite interview picture from this year. (Aaron says he dines on Peanut Butter Captain Crunch when he’s feeling particularly brave, and I see he has some cereal bowls waiting for us.)

Aaron is having a good year. If you follow picture books closely, you’ve probably already noticed this. Journey, his debut picture book, was very recently named one of the New York Times’ Best Illustrated Children’s Books of 2013. In fact, he just illustrated a special cover for yesterday’s children’s issue of the New York Times Book Review. Journey has also been met with glowing reviews all around (mostly starred reviews), has been awarded the 2013 platinum “Best Book Award” by the Oppenheim Toy Portfolio, was nominated for Best Picture Book in the Goodreads Choice Awards, has been garnering Caldecott buzz, and was called nothing short of a “masterwork” by Sarah Harrison Smith in the New York Times.

Back in August, when I chatted briefly with Aaron about this book over at Kirkus, I shared that I found myself with a very early copy of Journey after this post from last year when I sort of stumbled upon Aaron’s artwork and website. I loved it so much that one morning I, no kidding, called an emergency picture book coffee-shop meeting with two friends who love picture books as much as I do, ’cause I just had to show them this book. We sat over our cups of strong coffee and ooh’ed and aah’ed a lot.

And I still think it’s special.

Even though we’ve had that short Kirkus chat this year, I still wanted Aaron to come over for a 7-Imp breakfast, ’cause 7-Imp breakfasts mean we see way more art.

I thank him for visiting. Let’s get to it. Read the rest of this entry �

“DJ Kool Herc noticed that dancers danced crazy hard during the breaks in the song when the lyrics ended and the music bumped and thumped. Herc knew that’s what dancers wanted so he plugged in two turntables instead of one. He put the same record on both turntables. He set it up so that when once record ended its break, he could flip over to the other turntable and play it again. Doing this over and over, he made a ten-second break last for ten, fifteen, even twenty minutes or more.”
(Click to enlarge spread)

Today I’ve got the artwork of illustrator Theodore Taylor III. Taylor is an artist, designer, and photographer, who lives in Washington, D.C., and this is his picture book debut. It’s Laban Carrick Hill’s biography of Clive Campbell, When the Beat Was Born (Roaring Brook, August 2013). Campbell was also known as DJ Kool Herc and is the DJ (born in Jamaica but raised in the Bronx) considered the creator of hip hop.

Hill opens the biography with Clive as a young, music-loving child, dancing around the house to vinyl records. His childhood hero was a DJ, named King George, who threw large neighborhood house parties. Though Clive—who desperately wanted to be a DJ—was too young to attend, he’d watch King George set up for the parties. (“Clive had never seen so many records.”)

Read the rest of this entry �

Today at Kirkus, I’ve got the latest picture book from Canadian author/illustrator Anne Villeneuve, Loula is Leaving for Africa, which is all kinds of entertaining. That link is here.

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Last week (here), I wrote about Yusuke Yonezu’s board book, We Love Each Other (Minedition, November 2013). Above is an illustration from this cleverly-designed book, and below are some spreads.

Enjoy.

Read the rest of this entry �

“The various bad odors, smells, and aromas that occasionally befoul your home
are almost always the work of the Stinkers.”
(Click image to enlarge and see spread in its entirety)

 
Hmm … Can’t find my mug. Could be a little household thief.

Last week at Kirkus, I chatted with William Joyce about his newest picture book, The Mischievians (Atheneum, October 2013). That is here, and today I’ve got a bit of art from the book.

Since this book is a catalog of everyday “things that make mischief, make mayhem, [and] make noise” (think: lost homework, missing keys, that kind of thing), Joyce has been inviting children on his recent book tour to create their own dastardly creatures of mayhem. He shared a few of those with me today (from Hunter’s Creek Elementary in Houston, Texas), and they are posted here as well. Here’s one, The Eye-Stealer. He—you guessed it—steals eyeballs (AIEE!), and he was discovered by a young scientist, named Blake. Keep your eyes peeled for The Eye-Stealer, I say.

 
Enjoy the rest. (There’s a bit more art from the book below, as well as three more child-created Mischievians.) Read the rest of this entry �

 
Last week at Kirkus, I wrote about Jonathan Bean’s newest picture book, Big Snow (Farrar Straus Giroux, September 2013). I love this book, which also makes me want to whip up some hot cocoa with marshmallows. Pronto.

That link is here.

And today I follow up with some images — some early storyboard sketches, color studies, cover designs, final art (including the illustration above), and such.

I thank Jonathan for sharing these images today. I like to look at his art so much that I even enjoy looking at his sketches. (Note: The images below that say “final art” have slightly brighter colors here on your screen than what appear in the book.)

Enjoy.

Read the rest of this entry �

(Click to enlarge)

I read just yesterday the book I’m featuring here today, what the Kirkus review (a starred one) calls “The Arrival for younger readers.” I’m lucky I’m able to show you some of the art from this book, since I asked for some spreads last-minute (this is how I roll), but spreads I have!

The book is Here I Am, published by Capstone Press in September. The story is by Patti Kim, and the art is by Sonia Sanchez. Now, I have an uncorrected proof of this, what I was calling a wordless picture book in my head. I see that the Publishers Weekly review (also starred) calls it one, too, yet the Kirkus review describes it as a “slender graphic novel.” Either way, it’s good stuff.

It tells the story of a young boy who leaves his home country—most likely, a country in Asia (in a closing author’s note, Kim notes her own childhood immigration to the U.S. from Korea)—for New York City. He and his family are making a new life in a (loud) new place. During the course of the story, the boy goes from great despondency, during which his only consolation is memories of home, spawned by a red seed he keeps with him at all times, to acceptance. Kim tells an emotionally powerful tale here, and Sanchez’s swirling art is spellbinding. She uses color to great effect to convey strong emotions, and she knows just when to let white space let the story breathe precisely where it needs to. The boy’s own imaginary visions of his former home, as prompted by his red seed, remind me of Kyo Maclear’s Virginia Wolf, illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault, published by Kids Can Press in 2012. (For that reason and several others, I think this book would be so good paired with that one.)

It’s an intense story of the myriad complex emotions that come with immigration. Or, as Sarah Shun-lien Bynum wrote at the New York Times, “Kim and Sanchez bring to their lively pages the heightened perceptions of the recently arrived.”

I’ll just let the art speak for itself now.

Enjoy. Read the rest of this entry �

 

Good morning to all. I’m doing something similar this week (to what I did last week). I wrote a review for the fine folks at BookPage of Joan Holub’s Little Red Writing (Chronicle Books, September 2013), illustrated by Melissa Sweet. And since that review is up over at their site, I thought I’d link to it and share some art from the book. Melissa even sent some early sketches from the book, also posted below.

So, to read about this very fun book (special heads-up to teachers of writing in the elementary grades), head on over here. And the images are below.

I thank Melissa for sharing the art and sketches today.

Read the rest of this entry �

“On sunny days he lay back in it, closed his eyes,
and listened to the lake water whispering its secrets.”(Click to enlarge)

 
Have you seen Jonathan Bean’s newest picture book, Big Snow? My, it’s good. This morning over at Kirkus, I write about it. That link is here.

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Last week, I weighed in on Eve Bunting’s newest picture book, Big Bear’s Big Boat, illustrated by Nancy Carpenter. That link is here.

Below is some more art from that book.

Enjoy. Read the rest of this entry �

“Mahalia and the crowd of thousands cheered. The people who had come to hear Martin on that day were moved to more than a single amen. It was AMEN TIMES TEN!”

 
I love this spread so much. It floors me. It’s one of my favorite picture book illustrations from this year. The color! The energy! The life and joy in it …

This is from Andrea Davis Pinkney’s Martin & Mahalia: His Words, Her Song, illustrated by Brian Pinkney (Little, Brown, July 2013).

Last week, I chatted at Kirkus with Andrea about this collaboration, as well as a couple of other topics. That is here. Below is some more art from the book.

Enjoy. Read the rest of this entry �