Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Tomorrow morning at Kirkus, I’ll have a brief Q & A with illustrator Amy June Bates (whose work I very much adore, as I made clear in 2008’s breakfast interview), Chair of the Society of Illustrators’ 2011 Original Art jury. Amy gives Kirkus readers the low-down on the winners of this year’s Gold and Silver awards, as well as some of the history behind this award and its significance in the field of children’s lit.

As you’ll see tomorrow, should you be so inclined to go read the column, I also threw in a group shot of the 2011 jury. We may look very tired, as the picture was taken after a day of looking at over 500 picture books, but we are the happy kind of tired.

That link will be here in the morning. {Edited to add on Friday: The link is here.}

In last week’s Kirkus column, I discussed Brian Selznick’s latest title, Wonderstruck, to be released by Scholastic on September 13th. Today I’m here to show two gorgeous spreads from the book. One is above, and there’s one more below. (“While Hugo was beautifully crafted, Wonderstruck is even more so,” I wrote last week. “I found myself lingering over the pencil drawings of young Rose in particular. This is some of Selznick’s most visually arresting work.”)

That’s the young Rose pictured above. See what I mean?

I have the opportunity to chat with Selznick this week and will gladly bring you that 7-Imp interview relatively soon.

Here’s the other Wonderstruck image, the “Cabinets of Wonders.” You may click the image itself to enlarge it slightly. Enjoy.

Illustrations from Wonderstruck. Copyright © 2011 by Brian Selznick. Used with permission from Scholastic Press.

I’ve been totally swamped, but it is the first Sunday of the month, right? If I’m wrong and you’re giggling, please humor me and do so behind my back. Come on. A good friend would, right?

On first Sundays, I like to shine the spotlight here at 7-Imp on student or brand-new illustrators in the field. Today, I’ve got Bethanie Murguia, whose debut picture book was released in May by Tricycle Press. Read the rest of this entry �

Tomorrow morning over at Kirkus, I’ll be writing about Brian Selznick’s much-anticipated September release, Wonderstruck. The link will be here. {Edited to add on Friday: The link is here.}

If you missed last week’s column, I weighed in on Lane Smith’s newest picture book release, Grandpa Green. I only might have said that this is only one of the most gorgeous and unforgettable picture books I’ve seen all year. Dare I mutter the “c” word? C-c-c-c-caldecott? Okay. There I said it. Definite contender, I would think.

As always, I’m here this week to show some art from the book, and Lane also sent some dummy pages, as well as “some tests I did to achieve the best look for the book (mostly varying pen lines)” … Lane said he re-did the illustrations a few times until he “got the balance right.”

I thank Lane for sharing, and you can click on each image to enlarge and see up close. (I may or may not be yelling that for emphasis, ’cause did I mention the illustrations are beautiful?) Well, a couple of images are not click-able, but knock yourself out and go absolutely crazy with unbridled clicking on the rest of ’em.

Enjoy … Read the rest of this entry �

I’m reading The Rescuers by Margery Sharp (“the rare children’s book in which mice aid Norwegians,” as Betsy Bird calls it in her Amazon review), originally published in the late 1950s and illustrated by Garth Williams. I’m forging ahead with this post, even though I haven’t finished the book yet. I’ve gotta take a break from my manuscript deadline, and I choose to enjoy some illustrations from Mr. Williams, whose work I enjoy so much. So, won’t you join me for a second?

Thank goodness for the New York Review Children’s Collection. Have any of you seen their series, which features “time-honored classics for children of all ages”? It began in 2003 as a response to readers who wished for the return of favorite, but long out-of-print, titles. “Reissue” can be a beautiful word if we’re talkin’ just the right book, don’t you know. A lot of happy exclamations came flying from my mouth as I perused their 2010-2011 catalog (and no doubt there’s a new one out), which includes titles from authors and illustrators such as the d’Aulaires, Ruth Krauss, Esther Averill, Munro Leaf, Marc Simont, Robert McCloskey, Edward Gorey, James Thurber … I could go on. Glorious, yes? Read the rest of this entry �

Every now and then, the 7-Imp portion of my brain realizes that I don’t spend enough time focusing on board book illustrations, art for the wee’est of humans.

Well, today I’m gonna.

This morning I shine the spotlight on Joyce Wan, whose art, she tells me, is inspired by Asian traditional and popular culture. She also comes from an architectural design background and loves creating those books for wee ones that are tactile or contain interactive elements.

Read the rest of this entry �

Tomorrow morning at Kirkus, I’ll weigh in on Lane Smith’s newest picture book, Grandpa Green. The link will be here. {Edited to add on Friday: The link is here.}

Also up tomorrow will be my QRANK quiz on Must-Reads for School-Aged Children. Trivia fun! Good times. Come on, you know you wanna play! That will be here.

If you missed last week’s Kirkus column, I discussed the newest picture book titles from Peter Brown, Michael Emberley, and Adam Gudeon. But you know I can’t talk about picture books without also showing lots of art and sketches, so here I am this morning to indulge in that. Peter Brown also treats us all this morning, via images and words, to a detailed description of his process, so let’s get right to it. Oh, here is last week’s column if you want to know a summary of the books and my thoughts on them, but below is all the art. We’ll start with Peter (though pictured above left are the serenading stars of Adam’s Me and Meow). Enjoy.

Note: You can click each image below from Peter Brown’s discussion of the art for You Will Be My Friend! (Little, Brown, September 2011) to enlarge and see in more detail.

Peter: Everything starts in my sketchbook, with story webs and doodles.

Once I’ve figured out my story arc, I’m ready to begin sketching. For You Will Be My Friend!, I did most of my sketching in Photoshop, where I also added text and borders to the sketch for each page. Then I printed those pages out and put them up on my wall so I could see how all the pages looked together as a whole. Read the rest of this entry �

Every now and then, in the name of graphic novels for the youngest of children, I like to check in on Babymouse.

And she’s back. Well, she’s been back since May of this year, but sometimes I’m slow with my posts.

And this is her fourteenth title from Jenni and Matt Holm. Yes, fourteenth.

In this one, Babymouse #14: Mad Scientist (Random House), Babymouse meets her new science teacher, Mr. Shelldon (who has “received little support from my colleagues for my discovery that slime mold makes a great pet,” he tells his class). Babymouse, entering the school science fair, has to decide upon a project and eventually lands on amoebas. Looking one day at what she calls a “blob” in her microscope, she meets an amoeba, named Squish. Squish likes to eat cupcakes. Ah, an amoeba after her own heart.

That same month, the Holms released their first title (volume 1), all about this new character, Squish, Super Amoeba (also from Random House), which Kirkus in their starred review called the “hilarious misadventures of a hapless young everylad who happens to be an amoeba.” Yes, a fun science’y graphic novel series about an amoeba: Leave it to the Holms. Worth seeing for Peggy the paramecium alone, it’s a promising series, particularly for those children who are drawn to the Holms’ funny, manic, accessible style, yet might mutter, “Babymouse is for girls” (which I’d argue anyway). Squish loves comics (“Super Amoeba!”) and Twinkies, and he—like Babymouse—is simply navigating life through elementary school (though if you want to know if tacos can stop global warming, not to mention if single-celled creatures can be counted on to step up to do what’s right, this is the book for you). Read the rest of this entry �

This morning, over at Kirkus I take a look at three upcoming picture books (all Fall 2011 titles) for … well, specifically for incoming kindergartners (though they’ll work for other elementary-aged children as well). The link is here.

That’s my story, and I’m stickin’ it to it.

Until later …

I’m going to have fried-egg sandwiches with author/illustrator, designer, and concept artist Jon Klassen this morning. Well, that’s his breakfast-of-choice if he’s cooking, but it’s French toast if he’s ordering. Wait. I know! How about this? Since this is all pretend and only a cyber-breakfast anyway (though I wish we were sitting face-to-face in a diner), we’ll have both. Sounds like a plan, yes?

Won’t you join us for our breakfast? Jon’s newest title, I Want My Hat Back, out on shelves next month from Candlewick, is one of the funniest picture books I’ve seen all year. I see a lot of picture books yearly, and this one is a more-than-slightly-demented breath of fresh air that makes me laugh every time I see it. (Yup, I right away mentally added this one to the growing list of Slightly Demented Picture Books, which Adrienne Furness and I composed years ago, still one of my favorite posts).

I Want My Hat Back is deliciously dark and twisted-funny (“did he really just do that?” I asked myself of Klassen after laughing out loud when first reading the ending), and sometimes I just need that (after stacks and stacks of the cute books … and, before anyone fusses at me, yes, I know that cute books have their place, too). This book puts the “wicked” in “wicked funny” — but I can’t tell you why, as I don’t want to give away the plot. You gotta love how the Kirkus reviewer describes it as “cynical on wry.” And Publishers Weekly writes of the “delectable results” of this, Klassen’s author/illustrator debut. Read the rest of this entry �

Seven points if you got the Simpsons reference in that post title.

Yup, it’s kind of a crazy week around here, particularly given that this week Betsy and Peter and I are wrapping up our manuscript to be sent off once and for all to our editor. I hope to be back later this week with some 7-Imp content, but for now (and as alluded to in that post title), I decided to bring you—instead of silence and nothing-ness—a 7-Imp Clip Show. [Insert laugh track here. And that image is from “Lisa’s Pony,” episode 8, season 3, which is referenced in The Simpson’s first-ever clip show. *COUGH* NERD.]

And what do I bring you in 7-Imp’s first-ever clip show? I bring you seven of my favorite posts from the past five years. Just to pass the time. If you’re so inclined, go read or skim each OR you can even print them all and laminate them and use them for, I dunno, placemats to make your meals more art-filled. But it’s about all I can do this week until I get caught up on my own writing.

Enjoy.

* Because they just won Silver Medals in the recent Society of Illustrators’ 2011 Original Art award, I bring you my 2008 interview with Kadir Nelson and my 2008 interview with Lane Smith (even if, tragically, those interviews were before I learned how to right-align images in a post).

* Because she collects pictures of the backs of people’s heads, not to mention Depression-era dolls and various bits of animals, and because I like her art work, I bring you my 2008 interview with then illustrator (but now author/illustrator) Sophie Blackall. (I’d like to note that Sophie also assembles those dolls and bits of animals into “funny, unsettling creatures,” and for that reason, could have, at any time, a deer hoof or a bird wing at her feet. Don’t you just want to hang out with her? I do.) Read the rest of this entry �