Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

It’s the first Sunday of the month when I shine the spotlight on a student or debut illustrator, and this morning I bring you the latter.

Mississipian Sarah Frances Hardy will see her first picture book published this Spring. I haven’t seen a copy, but she’s here today to introduce herself and tell us a bit about it. And there’s even more information about her here at her site.

Without further ado, here’s Sarah Frances… Read the rest of this entry �

This morning over at my Kirkus column, I write about Nicola Davies’ Outside Your Window: A First Book of Nature, illustrated by Mark Hearld. Heavens. It’s a beautiful book. That link is here. I hope to have art from it next week to share with you here at 7-Imp.

If you missed last week’s column, I wrote about the BolognaRagazzi Awards. That link is here.

I don’t have any art for my readers this morning, but here’s what I want to do, fingers crossed. Cristiana Clerici and I think it’d be super neato-skeeto (to put it all professional-like) to post all the book covers from the winning titles (and Mentions), along with at least one spread from each book. This is not a trivial task, though, given that many of these books are published in other countries, but we are going to try (after I get back in town next week from some more blogging-related travel).

So, we hope to have that for you one day in the near future — if we have our way, we’ll be sharing some international illustrations with you.

Until then …

In 2009, author/illustrator Taeeun Yoo visited for a cyber-breakfast, and it remains one of my favorite interviews. Not just because her response to the Pivot question about what turns her on was “Coffee. A sunny day. A stormy day, too. Music. Good conversations with friends. And cupcakes.” Mostly ’cause I love her illustration work.

Every now and then I like to check in with her, and it turns out she has at least (there could be more, for all I know) two titles out this year. And she’s here today to share some art from them.

Read the rest of this entry �

Yes. Me grunt. No time talk. Me knee-deep in manuscript edits.

No, really. I can try to be a bit more eloquent. AHEM. [Straightening my spine, clearing my throat here, generally pulling myself up from my slump over my keyboard] …

Right. Before I get back to manuscript edits, here’s a quick post to say that, when it is released in March (not long from now), I highly recommend finding a copy, by hook or by crook, of Julie Paschkis’ Mooshka: A Quilt Story (Peachtree). What a beauty this picture book is. And Julie is here today to share some images and a few early sketches from it, as well as talk a bit about it. Read the rest of this entry �

Today, I shine the spotlight on a nonfiction picture book, called Brothers at Bat: The True Story of an Amazing All-Brother Baseball Team (Clarion Books), written by Audrey Vernick and illustrated by Steven Salerno. It’ll be released in early April.

Baseball is not a sport that I play (though I enjoy it), and it’s not a sport that I watch either. (We’ve been over how you don’t want me in a room when I’m rooting for a team, right?) But I love this book, because it’s really not only about baseball. It’s about brotherhood (literally and figuratively, I might add).

I love the opening:

When winter’s chill melts into spring, back doors swing open and slap shut as kids just home from school run outside—mitts, bats, and balls in hand.

In one New Jersey town near the ocean, back in the 1920s and ’30s, you could hear the same door slam over and over. Three brothers raced out. Out went three more. And more … And still more.

Yup, the Acerra family had “twelve baseball-playing brothers,” as well as four sisters. (In the spread where Vernick notes that “most people thought sports were just for boys” back then, Salerno depicts the sisters playing determinedly at their own game of ball with a broom and ball of yarn. I like that.) Read the rest of this entry �

Hi, dear 7-Imp’ers. I’m starin’ down some manuscript edits this week. How are you all? Once this round of manuscript edits is done, I hope to post a bit more on a weekly basis here in the land of 7-Imp.

But for now …

Tomorrow morning over at Kirkus, I give a brief run-down of the BolognaRagazzi Awards, since the 2012 winners were announced just this week. But I also step back to describe what in the hubba-what the Bologna Children’s Book Fair is all about (as well as the four categories in the Ragazzi Awards), since I realize that to even the most hard-core children’s lit aficionado in this country, it might be a bit of a mystery.

For those interested in seeing the 2012 winners, they are as follows (note three American titles make Mentions this year in two different categories!) —

• Fiction winner and two Mentions
• Nonfiction winner and three Mentions
• New Horizons winner and two Mentions
• Opera Prima winner and three Mentions

That Kirkus column will be here tomorrow.

For last week’s column, which is here, I wrote about Maira Kalman’s Looking for Lincoln. You can read about it at that link, and today I share some art from it. Enjoy. Read the rest of this entry �

This isn’t the first time illustrator Erin Stead has visited 7-Imp. About a year prior to the release of her Caldecott-winning A Sick Day for Amos McGree, written by Philip C. Stead (who happens to be her husband), she visited to share some early art and the tools she used to make the illustrations for the book. I have to say, when it won the 2011 Caldecott, you would have heard me screaming, had you been standing outside my home (yeah, I screamed that loudly in happiness and enthusiasm, but wait … why are you standing outside my home?), because back then, in 2009, my smart readers (who possess such good taste) and I all recognized it as the special picture book that it is. (To boot, she visited again in 2010, the year the book was actually released, to share even more.)

Read the rest of this entry �

I know that tomorrow we celebrate President’s Day and that Martin Luther King, Jr. Day has already passed, so forgive my blatant disregard of the calendar here. But I wanted to show a few illustrations from a book I meant to highlight in January. (Not to mention we should celebrate King any day of the year. For a more presidential post, should that be your desire today, see my Kirkus column from yesterday.)

Shane W. Evans’ We March, released last month by Neal Porter/Roaring Brook, is the simple and elegantly-told account of one family’s march in the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Filled with just nine short sentences (and I mean some as short as “We sing”), Evans lets the focus here be on the people involved, shining a spotlight on their determination and spirit. I love what Evans does with lines (what the Publishers Weekly review calls his “angular characters”) and how you can see his very brushstrokes on the characters’ faces — and even in the textured backgrounds. (The art I’ve got here today, though not a lot and not full spreads, speaks way better than I, so be sure to take a look.)

With a palette getting progressively warmer as the story unfolds, it culminates in a luminescent spread of King himself giving his historic speech, the sun rising in shimmering yellows behind his head. It’s lovely. Read the rest of this entry �

For this week’s Kirkus column, which will be here tomorrow, I take a look at Maira Kalman’s latest picture book, Looking at Lincoln. (You can also head over here to Jama Rattigan’s side to read about it.)

If you missed last week’s column, I wrote about Marilyn Singer’s latest poetry collection, A Stick Is an Excellent Thing, to be released by Clarion at the end of the month and illustrated by LeUyen Pham. That link is here.

Today I feature some spreads and early thumbnails from the book, courtesy of Ms. Pham. Enjoy. Read the rest of this entry �

I’m just back from being out of town, and jet lag is my enemy.

Okay, so maybe I lined this post up before I left, and I suspect that jet lag will be my nemesis today, but I wanted to share this art with you. This will be short and sweet.

I like to see the illustrations of painter and illustrator Laura Dronzek. There is a soft, dream-like quality to her work that draws me in. Helen V. Griffith’s latest book, Moonlight (Greenwillow, February 2012), illustrated by Dronzek, is about a rabbit waiting for the moon, as you can see above: “Rabbit hides in shadow /under cloudy skies / waiting for the moonlight / blinking sleepy eyes.” When the moon comes out, it covers Dronzek’s night-time scenes in luminescent rays. “Moonlight slides like butter,” Griffith’s write, taking the butter analogy all the way to the book’s end. A “butter trace” is left in the sky, it covers the mountainside, it covers the trees, it “sucks at twigs and branches / like a butter bee,” and more. Indeed, the light “butters Rabbit’s dreams” till he wakes.

It’s a poem of a picture book, though I suspect the butter motif may not be for everyone. For me, it works, and Dronzek’s rich, graceful illustrations shimmer with color, particularly the buttery light. The artwork, bordered with those thick, yellow lines (see below) and rendered in acrylics, are soothing and warm, even given the darker, night-time palette.

And I have trouble imagining how Griffiths’ final line, with the accompanying joyful spread, wouldn’t put a huge smile on the face of a young child: “Rabbit dances in the field / butter on his head!”

Here are two more spreads (without the text). Enjoy. Read the rest of this entry �