Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Happy Fall, one and all.

This morning, I’m featuring illustrations from two books meant for grown-ups, Sophie Blackall’s Missed Connections: Love, Lost & Found (from which the second illustration above comes) and Graphic USA: An Alternative Guide to 25 U.S. Cities (from which Austin designer Bryan Keplesky’s wonderful don’t-shave image above comes), edited by Ziggy Hanaor and with art from various illustrators and designers — but two books with exciting art, nonetheless. And exciting art, which talented illustrators and designers create, is what 7-Imp is all about, yes? I’d like to think so.

And can I just say that these two books are super-rad-neato-skeeto, to be erudite about it? They really are. I love them.

First up …

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At Kirkus this morning, I weigh in on Toys Come Home (Schwartz & Wade, September 2011), the third set of stories about Stingray, Plastic, and Lumphy, written by Emily Jenkins and illustrated by Paul O. Zelinsky. The link is here.

If you missed last week’s column, I discussed a picture book so funny that I’ve been evangelizing it with nearly every kid I see lately. Seriously, I’ve been reading a lot at my daughters’ school (read to the kindergartner’s class, read to the second grader’s class, and read to first graders in the library), and I’ve taken this book every time. Each age group has responded so positively to it. Meaning, they laugh very loudly (as do I), since this one is so cleverly done and so. very. funny. The book is Anton Can Do Magic, an international import from Gecko Press, originally published as Anton kann zaubern in Germany in 2006 and translated for this first American edition by Catherine Chidgey. It was written and illustrated by Ole Könnecke. Since it’s about magic, I like to whip out my magic nickel after reading it to kids, though I can never quite get that trick right. (I’m supposed to make the nickel disappear, you see, but I keep accidentally shrinking it, and who is gonna take a tiny nickel as currency, I ask you?)

Here are some illustrations from this wonderful picture book. Enjoy.

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What can I add to the discussion about this already much-lauded book, Kadir Nelson’s Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans (Balzer + Bray, September 2011)?

The book takes on nothing less than African American history from the founding of America to Barack Obama’s Democratic nomination for President. Actually, I didn’t have enough coffee before breakfast today and I take that back: Nelson, as noted in the book’s closing timeline, goes back in the first chapter (“Declarations of Independence”) to 1565 when Africans first arrived in North America as slaves of Spanish colonists. An elderly African American female serves as the book’s narrator—“You have to know where you come from so you can move forward…it’s important that you pay attention, honey, because I’m only going to tell you this story but once”—and she takes us back to when her own grandfather, Joseph (“Pap”), was captured in Africa in the year 1850 at the age of six and brought to America.

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A spiral, that is. Spirals are bold. And warm and safe. And protective. And beautiful and mysterious. And much more. All depending on the creature or object in nature in which they are residing.

These spirals in nature are the focus of the latest picture book from poet and author Joyce Sidman, Swirl by Swirl: Spirals in Nature, to be released by Houghton Mifflin next month. The illustrations for this book, which Kirkus called no less than “[e]xquisitely simple and memorable,” were rendered by Caldcott Medalist Beth Krommes, pictured here, who is joining me for a cyber-breakfast this morning.

Beth tells me that at 6 a.m. daily, she has strong black coffee and locally-made bread, toasted with butter. She had me at strong coffee, though I might sneak some cream into my mug during her visit this morning.

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Today, I’m featuring an illustrator whose latest picture book title I haven’t seen yet. It comes out in October, and I don’t have an early copy, but a) I like what I see and b) it’s written by Phyllis Root, and boy howdy and howdy boy does she have a great track record with picture books. So, it’s with confidence that I say: I bet this book is goooood. If I’m wrong, one of my readers can come back later and scold me. I guess.

The book I speak of is called Scrawny Cat (Candlewick), and its illustrations come from Alison Friend, who lives and works in Sheffield, England. Alison, who previously worked in greeting cards, illustrated her first picture book in 2010, Maxine Kumin’s What Color Is Caesar?, also published by Candlewick.

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This week at Kirkus, I’m discussing one of the funniest picture books I’ve seen all year, a German import from Gecko Press, titled Anton Can Do Magic. That link is here this morning.

If you missed last week’s column, I conducted a short Q & A with illustrator Amy June Bates, the Chair of the jury for the Society of Illustrator’s 2011 Original Art award. That link is here. In October, closer to the opening of the Original Art exhibit, I’ll have an interview here at 7-Imp with Rosalyn Schanzer, who won the Gold this year for her book Witches! The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem (National Geographic, September 2011). But for now, I open this post with one of the many illustrations she sent me for the interview, one moment from the book. (It’s imp-tastic, isn’t it?)

Here is a group shot of us jury members after a long (but wonderful) day of looking at over 500 picture books.

Illustration copyright © 2011 by Rosalyn Schanzer and used with permission.

Photo of 2011 Original Art jury by Laurent Linn and used with permission.

Here’s a little story:

I read a galley of Richard Peck’s Secrets at Sea (Dial Books) this summer, and then I got busy with my own manuscript deadline. As in, super duper big-time suh-wamped.

But I really loved this very funny book, Peck’s animal fantasy / comedy of manners — an illustrated novel with art from Kelly Murphy. I read it out loud to my young daughters, and we all enjoyed it (though, I have to say, I think they’d get even more of the sophisticated humor in it when they’re a bit older). So, when I sat down today to post about it—I’ve got some of the book’s interior art to showcase today, as well as a few words from Kelly about what it was like to illustrate this and some of her early sketches—I really figured this post would come well after the book’s release. But, no, I see here that it’s scheduled to be released in mid-October.

I have mentioned many times before here at 7-Imp that I’m incredibly disorganized, right? When it comes to blogging, that is. I think a 7-Imp Administrative Assistant would do me well. I’d give this person all the coffee he or she wants, too. I mean, Alfred is handy, and he does tell those wicked funny knock-knock jokes, but between me, you, and the cyberspace gatepost, he dozes a lot on the job.

Anyway. The other challenge is to describe this book when I read it so many months ago, but I’ll do my best here: Read the rest of this entry �

If you look at some of the comments that have been made by professional reviewers about Barbara Lehman’s latest picture book, The Secret Box (Houghton Mifflin, March 2011), you will see that they accurately reflect her career as a picture book author/illustrator on the whole. “A provocative example of the complexity that can be conveyed using only pictures,” wrote Publishers Weekly about the book. “Lehman’s clean-lined, highly-detailed artwork creates an ingenious visual puzzle that invites repeated viewings and flights of imagination,” adds Booklist.

Yes, the same can be said for all of Lehman’s wordless picture books — enigmatic visual puzzles and conceptually sophisticated adventure stories, rich in magic and discovery. The 2005 Caldecott committee acknowledged the skill that goes into Lehman’s work with a Caldecott Honor that year for The Red Book (Houghton Mifflin).

In this latest flight-of-fancy—The Secret Box, another richly-layered, unpredictable wordless adventure tale—she celebrates imagination and friendship with visually striking cartoon art. In this story, a young boy from long ago hides a box of treasures under a floorboard. Years later, that building is a school, and a trio of boys finds the box, following the map inside to a surprise destination, one filled with children from many points along the timeline. Readers see the adventure will repeat itself for future children, thanks to the magic box. As I’ve already noted in one of my April Kirkus columns, which includes this title, Lehman leaves room for the child reader to piece out the story puzzle in many directions, something I always like to see in picture books.

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For this morning, the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, I had planned on posting the illustrations from Don Brown that are featured in this post. For several reasons, I decided to post it on Friday, as you can see, which left me unsure of what I was going to post today.

But then two things crossed my mind, as I pondered what art to feature on this sad day: 1) Julie Paschkis, because she’s one of my top-five favorite illustrators and because her artwork fills me with hope, the kind of hope that leaves you feeling warm (that might sound redundant but there is a kind of hope that can leave you feeling empty, though I digress), and 2) a phoenix.

Yup. A phoenix. I thought it would be a fitting image for today, seeing as how it’s a symbol of re-birth and regeneration.

And wouldn’t you believe my luck, it suddenly occurred to me that Julie herself had painted a phoenix for the wonderful picture book poetry collection by Julie Larios, titled Imaginary Menagerie, published by Harcourt in 2008. (I posted about it here back in the day.) So, I secured Paschkis’s permission to post it, and here we are.

So, yeah. It’s a sad day for many Americans. I am rather speechless, as I’m sure many folks are. Instead of my babbling, I’ll quote the first part of Larios’ poem, “Phoenix,” the one for which Paschkis created that image: “Rising / from the ashes of her nest, / away she flies. / She is a bird that never dies…”

In the book’s closing note about the creatures featured in the book, Larios also writes: “Ancient Greek mythology describes the phoenix singing so beautifully that the sun stops in its path across the sky to listen to her song.”

If I try to describe how these things make me think of the people who died on 9/11, I might very well sound like an idiot, but they do. I guess I’m saying: May we remember them with song and sun and light and warmth. May we continue to rise from the ashes, while at the same time pausing to remember those lost. (And may we treat one another with understanding and respect. I’m talkin’ to you, Lou Ann Zelenik and Andy Miller. Sigh.)

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Back in 2009, when he visited me for cyber-breakfast, I sung the praises of the work of Don Brown, whom School Library Journal has described as “a current pacesetter who has put the finishing touches on the standards for storyographies.” Brown crafts engaging and accessible nonfiction titles, and his quirky, soft-focused pen-and-ink and watercolor illustrations are often touched with a subtle, wry humor and energy — and an understated eloquence.

And that would be the case with his latest title (though you can factor “humor” out of the equation, given the subject matter here). In mid-August, Roaring Brook released Don’s account of 9/11, America is Under Attack: September 11, 2001: The Day the Towers Fell. Ten years away from the horrific events of 9/11, this is an even-handed, honest account of the attacks that day and how New Yorkers responded. This is quite moving as well, as Don weaves into his narrative several personal stories of those affected by the collapse of the Towers. (In fact, if the very last spread in the book doesn’t at least put a lump in your throat, I don’t wanna know you.)

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