Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

“They dined on twigs and bark and clover and cabbage.”

Welcome to the Valentine’s Day 2012 edition of the 7-Kicks list.

One of my favorite things in all of PictureBook-dom is when Kara LaReau and Scott Magoon join forces and make books together. Today, both Scott and Kara are visiting to share images and early sketches from the two most recent books on which they collaborated, and they’re also here to say a bit about these books, their work together, and what’s next for each of them.

Their very most recent picture book, Mr. Prickles (pictured here)—what Publishers Weekly called a “tale of misfits” (aw, I have a soft spot for misfits)—was released at the tail end of last year (from Roaring Brook), and it’s the “quill-fated love story” of two porcupines. Porcupines are “very hard to get close to,” so poor Mr. Prickles has a difficult time making friends. He tries, he fails, he gets lonely, and he even gets prickly-angry. (The other woodland creatures are downright mean to him.) That is, till he meets Miss Pointypants. And then (just in time for your Valentine’s-Day read), love is in the air.

As you are wont to get with a LaReau/Magoon collaboration, there’s humor, emotion, and lots of style. It’s also got a pulsing heart at its center without being overly schmaltzy about it.

And, if you missed it last summer, don’t forget to take a look at their other collaboration, Otto: The Boy Who Loved Cars, also released by Roaring Brook (but in June of last year). Read the rest of this entry �

I’m getting ready to head out of town for a bit, but I can’t leave my 7-Imp readers hanging. This means that today I’ve got a bit of art for you; tomorrow, my Kirkus column will be up (over in Kirkus-land, of course); and Sunday, I’ll have the kicks post up, even though I won’t be around to respond. (How could I leave my kickers hanging? I’ve not once done that! Only wild aliens will keep me from posting on Sundays, I tell you.)

Tomorrow morning over at Kirkus, I shine the spotlight on Marilyn Singer’s upcoming picture book poetry collection, A Stick is an Excellent Thing, illustrated by LeUyen Pham. That link will be here first thing in the morning.

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Last week at Kirkus, I discussed Kevin Henkes’ upcoming book, which is actually his debut as a beginning-reader author/illustrator. It’s called Penny and Her Song and will be released by Greenwillow at the end of February. That column is here, if you missed it. Pictured here today are three interior illustrations from the book. Enjoy …

Read the rest of this entry �

Picture books with really successful bah-dum-ching, final-page punchlines are hard to pull off, but here’s one that does it well.

Toni Buzzeo’s One Cool Friend, illustrated by Caldecott medalist David Small, was released by Dial in early January. I am loathe to ruin the ending for you before you read it yourself, so this post may seem kind of vague if you haven’t read it yet. But I enjoyed it and want to feature it, not to mention David is here to share some early sketches (and final images) from the book, and Toni is visiting as well. I’ve got my coffee cups all set out, don’t you know.

First things first, though: A brief summary. Meet Elliot, pictured left. Yes, he’s dapper, isn’t he? He is a “very proper young man.” One day, as you’ll see in a below spread, his father asks him if he’d like to attend Family Fun Day at the aquarium. Despite Elliot’s reservations (“Kids, masses of noisy kids”), he agrees to join his father.

The young boy falls for the penguins: “In their tidy black feather tuxedos with their proper posture, they reminded Elliot of himself.” His father, who appears to be clueless and altogether absent-minded, hands Elliot a twenty-dollar bill for a penguin, and Elliot picks out the smallest one he sees (an actual live, breathing one, not a plush one) and pops it inside his backpack. Magellan, the penguin, makes himself comfy at Elliot’s home, the boy doing all he can to conceal him from his father, who is a bit obsessed with a different creature, a ginormous sea tortoise from the Galápagos Islands. (Observant readers will notice that Elliot’s father is himself very tortoise-esque in appearance. Hint: Even looking at the shadows in this book is rewarding.) Read the rest of this entry �

“This is from my first published book, titled Danie Dreyer se dinosouruseier en ander alfabetpret, written by Jaco Jacobs. It is an alphabet book, and this illustration was done for the letter ‘H,’ which is about a girl who is always late,
in spite of all the clocks on her hat (gouache on paper).”

That’s illustrator Maja Sereda speaking up there. I’m bending the rules a bit this morning with her visit. On the first Sunday of each month, I feature student or new-to-the-field illustrators, and it’s the first Sunday of February, but Maja is not exactly new to illustrating. However, she may be new to many of us readers here in the U.S., since she is from Poland and now lives and works in South Africa.

I’ll let Maja tell you about herself, and she has some more images to share below. I thank her for visiting. Read the rest of this entry �

“One day my sister Virginia woke up feeling wolfish.
She made wolf sounds and did strange things…”
(Click to enlarge and see full spread,
which includes Isabelle Arsenault’s hand-lettered text)

 

“…the boo-hoo blues, the you lose blues, the oh no, don’t go, miss you blues…”
(Click to enlarge spread)

 
For this week’s Kirkus column, which will be here tomorrow morning, I take a look at Kevin Henkes’ upcoming book, Penny and Her Song, which is Henkes’ debut as a beginning-reader author/illustrator.

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If you missed last week’s column, I featured the beautiful picture book Virginia Wolf (to be released in March from Kids Can Press), written by Kyo Maclear and illustrated by Canadian Isabelle Arsenault. Long-time 7-Imp readers may remember this 2008 feature on Arsenault. How much do I love her artwork? If I counted the ways, we’d be here all week.

This morning, Arsenault shares some images and early studies from Virginia Wolf, and I thank her so much. I’m also featuring some illustrations from R. G. Roth from Everybody Gets the Blues (Harcourt, January 2012), written by author and illustrator Leslie Staub, a book I mentioned in last week’s column as well. Roth’s illustrations were hand-drawn, combined with collage, and then designed in Photoshop.

Enjoy. Read the rest of this entry �

A visit, that is. From Brian. Before breakfast. I do have strong coffee out, though.

Last year, one book I very much liked on many levels was author/illustrator (and former art director and graphic designer) Brian Biggs’ On Land (Balzer + Bray, September 2011), what is, it turns out, the first in an Everything Goes series of picture books he has planned (as you’ll read below, if you’re so inclined).

Brian and I discussed last year a cyber-breakfast visit here at 7-Imp, but I got busy and he got busy — and then it just never happened. Better late than never, though. He’s here this morning to talk about that book, as well as what’s coming up next in the series. And he’s sharing lots of images (which is exactly how you win over this illustration junkie’s heart). Read the rest of this entry �

Top illustration from Peter McCarty’s The Monster Returns;
Bottom spread from McCarty’s Chloe
(Click bottom image to enlarge and see in detail)

I’m having a McCarty Party today.

Caldecott Honor author/illustrator Peter McCarty, that is.

I love his picture books. You never quite know what he’s going to do next. (The soft-focus art of Hondo and Fabian? Or the spikier-lined art of Jeremy Draws a Monster, featured here at 7-Imp in ’09?) And he can go from quiet to funny in one second flat. The books he’s illustrated or both written and illustrated are smart, never talking down to children, and with each new book, he seems to get more inventive in his artwork. I always look forward to a new McCarty title.

So, it’s with happiness that I share art from two new McCarty picture books this morning, one out in a couple of days and the other coming out in May. Read the rest of this entry �

“Harry is going out. ‘Will you be good, George?’ asks Harry.
‘Yes,’ says George. ‘I’ll be very good.'”

Tomorrow morning at Kirkus, I take a look at the new picture book from author and illustrator duo Kyo Maclear and Isabelle Arsenault. It’s called Virginia Wolf, and I love it. (I also very briefly discuss the topic of depression in contemporary picture books.) The link will be here tomorrow.

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Last week, I covered Chris Haughton’s Oh No, George!, which will be released by Candlewick in March. I noted in that write-up that Haughton is a British author/illustrator, but he’s really Irish (and currently living in London). So, that’s for the record there. Error all fixed.

I like this book. Funny and puts the very quirk in quirky. But there’s more about it at last week’s link. Above is a spread from it, and here’s one more. Enjoy.

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OH NO, GEORGE!. Copyright © 2012 by Chris Haughton. Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Candlewick Press, Somerville, MA on behalf of Walker Books, London.

Meet Davy’s Mom and Dad. Davy’s got these doting folks all to himself, and life is good. That is, till his new, little brother arrives. And then the next one. And the next one. And the one after that.

This is Another Brother (Feiwel & Friends), the new picture book from author/illustrator Matthew Cordell, the second one he’s both written and illustrated (though he’s illustrated many others), to be released at the end of this month. And it’s funny. So very funny.

You can see Davy below and how he feels about these encroaching siblings. Cordell had me at the headband. Clearly, Davy aspires to rock star status. And that’s just it: That’s the kind of detail Cordell will put into his illustrations that ring so true to childhood. You know that kid who was so earnest, tried so hard, successfully reached a certain level of cluelessness as to the fact that others disdained (and quite possibly snort-laughed at) his rock star yearnings? Didn’t care so much that he may have been construed as dorky by others? (Maybe that kid was you. It certainly was me, though I wanted to be an anchorwoman, not a rock star. Er, no comment.) Yeah. That. Cordell nails it here.

Another Brother is being greeted here in the land of early 2012 with a host of starred reviews. “Cordell emphasizes the humor in the once only child’s whiplash of conflicting emotions,” writes Pamela Paul here at the New York Times. “Baby brothers may be a pain, but the havoc they create can be painfully funny.” In Kirkus’ starred review, they note that this “is not just another new-baby book.” Matt’s “humorous text and mischievously silly, expressive cartoon art,” the reviewer adds, “make this one stand out in the crowd.” (Or, as the Booklist reviewer put it, Matthew “takes the old picture-book staple of an only child upset by the arrival of a new sibling and turns it up to 11.”) True, there are tons of very funny details, and Davy’s change of heart in the story—I don’t want to entirely ruin the read for you, but essentially his resentment over his brothers mimicking him suddenly turns into loneliness when they finally stop—is both funny and poignant. And, again, it’s real. It (and many of Matt’s illustrations) speaks so accurately to the awkward moments of childhood. (Let it be said that Cordell is not one to make it all look rosy and impossibly, overly cute.) Read the rest of this entry �

Congratulations to all of today’s ALA Youth Media Award winners. Many of the winners have stopped by to visit 7-Imp this year, which you can find in the archives. (I’m sorry that I am not including a comprehensive listing here, but I’m working on an interview for tomorrow. I thought I’d have it done by now, but I had to sit down with my girls and re-read many of the winning books with them. Which was fun.)

For now, though, a short and sweet post: I just realized that when Chris Raschka visited in 2009, he shared an early image from A Ball for Daisy, which picked up today’s Caldecott Award. Here it is. You can click on it to embiggen it. Enjoy!

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Image re-posted from this earlier interview.