Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Jules: How funny is that illustration? I love it.

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You all know I like to shine the spotlight on up-and-coming illustrators here at 7-Imp, but I also like to keep up with some of my favorites. So, I went asking for some spreads from new titles to share with you — from folks whom I’ve previously interviewed or otherwise featured here at the blog. That includes Lane Smith, Sean Qualls, David Ezra Stein, Adam Rex, Matthew Cordell, Steve Jenkins, and more. Heaven help me, I keep adding to the list, too, and somehow it’s become The Men of Children’s Lit series of posts. Anyway. I’m going to break this up into a few posts, starting today with Lane Smith and David Ezra Stein. I’m talkin’ a quick stopping-in here to simply summarize their in-one-way-or-another fabulous new titles and then let the art speak for itself.

First up: Lane Smith, who stopped by 7-Imp during August of last year. In that interview, Lane said:

I am working on a book with my idol, Florence Parry Heide… It’s about a princess who floats. It’s called Rescuing the Princess. I wrote to Florence nearly twenty years ago to tell her how much I loved the Treehorn books that she did with Edward Gorey. It’s taken us all this time to finally collaborate. Better late than never. It will be out in 2009.

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1). I think Adam is one of the most exciting contemporary illustrators at work, quite frankly, and I enjoy following his career. His answer to a question posed to him (in this October interview) about what inspires him pretty much sums up his appeal for me:

Making light of the darker things, allowing the strange and ridiculous in the front door whenever possible. Avoiding trends, like antlers and ironic bunny rabbits. Making it personal.

2). The illustrations for Vivian Walsh’s new picture book, June and August (Abrams, September 2009):

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At the risk of sounding like Grumpy Old Man in a Series #7,000, I have to say that I pretty much loathe how children today are targeted as consumers at such very young ages. Though I limit the amount of time my children sit in front of the television screen, I actually don’t have a problem with storytelling (done well and in moderation) via the medium of television or DVD; it’s the commercials that I DO NOT want them to see. My husband taught our girls to say, at very young ages, “commercials are for suckers.” This would be why I’m happy to share some illustrations today from Mélanie Watt’s newest picture book, Have I Got a Book for You!, in which Mr. Al Foxword, one very insistent salesman, tries just about everything to get you to buy his book already.

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Yeah. Whew. That’s a long post title, but I enjoyed this conversation with debut picture book author Denise Doyen so much that I wanted to get your attention. Denise—who studied creative writing, poetry, design, and film direction and who directed children’s television for Disney—recently went back to school to focus on writing for children. Her first title—Once Upon a Twice (Random House, August 2009 — cover below), illustrated by the-seven-kinds-of-fabulous Barry Moser—is a cautionary tale (about both the hubris, or “furry overconfidence,” of a young mouse named Jam Boy and the dangers of the night) in the grand tradition of nonsense verse (“clever nonsense words and rhyming verse reminiscent of Lewis Carroll’s ‘Jabberwocky,'” the publisher likes to say). And it’s dark (in regards to both dramatic action and Moser’s lush, richly-dark palette — “a marvel of nighttime beauty,” writes Publishers Weekly) and eerie and beautiful and begs to be read aloud. Or, if you’re Kirkus, it’s “deliciously inventive,” possessing “fresh, inventive wordplay and masterful illustrations.”

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Regular 7-Imp readers may know of my deep and abiding love for British illustrator Polly Dunbar’s work. There’s been this post and this interview and this post and Penguin (I love that penguin and the blue lion who eats Ben for being too noisy)…and oh-so much more.

You may also remember this Sunday post from February of this year in which we met Tilly and her friends: This is a terrifically charming series of books for the wee’est of toddlers. Not a sticky-sweet kind of charming either. (You know I won’t steer you toward the Sticky Sweet.) And they’re funny. And the characters—Tilly and her friends, Doodle, Tiptoe, Pru, Hector, and Tumpty, who all live together in a little yellow house—will settle themselves quite comfortably into the lives of young children. This I know from experience with my own.

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Jules: Welcome to 7-Imp’s 7 Kicks, our weekly meeting ground for taking some time to reflect on Seven(ish) Exceptionally Fabulous, Beautiful, Interesting, Hilarious, or Otherwise Positive Noteworthy Things from the past week, whether book-related or not, that happened to you.

I’m keeping the feature this week simple, since it’s been a busy weekend. See that sleepy elephant up there? I’m in need of his sleep, I think. But the busy-ness is the good kind of busy. More on that in my kicks.

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There’s this book. It’s about a book. A book that likes to eat people. It wants to have you for one impossible breakfast. And it’s called—you’ll never guess—The Book That Eats People (Tricycle Press, August 2009). In fact, I’m nervous even posting about it, lest it find out and come after me. I know, should I ever see it, not to read it with syrupy fingers or with cookies in my pocket, and I know not to turn my back on it or read it alone. Because it is ALWAYS HUNGRY. But let’s just say I’m prepared: If I hear it growling and clomping towards me, I’ve got something heavy to put on top of it.

This public-service-announcement of a book—warning us of the legend of this book and, did I mention, to always assume the book is ready to snack, people—was written by John Perry and illustrated by Mark Fearing, who is also a comic book artist, animator, and graphic designer. (Why, no, I’m not making up his last name.) John, who told an Ann Arbor freelance writer that he wrote this after getting worn out with the “fairy stories, stories with morals and stories that went to the beach” he was reading to his young daughters, says his life’s mission is to warn readers about it. Well, even though this is serious business, folks, this book makes me laugh, and I can’t even begin to tell you how much fun I’ve had with it in my home, my wee daughters putting heavy objects on top of it and gasping whenever they see it in a new spot. Mwahahaha. And you all know I’m fond of books in which characters get devoured. As the illustrator puts it below—since both book-creators are here today to talk a bit about it and their work—it’s “not too cute, not too darling, not full of sugar,” and I always like to talk about books like that. Even if they’re threatening to end me.

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I’m still nervous about seeing the film adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are. As Eisha and I were talking about recently, the book’s just sacred to me, not to mention my raving fan-dom for All Things Sendak. This video certainly helps quell some fears. (I saw part of this in a movie theater, while waiting for the weird-ass “Ponyo” to start, and I nearly jumped up, did an arm pump, and yelled “SENDAK!”)

And anyway, no matter how you feel about the upcoming movie, it’s always a good day when you get to hear Sendak talk. (Please excuse the ad at the beginning.)

Jules: Meet the Fabulous Fortunatos, who sing, dance, play the banjo, tell jokes, and juggle brilliantly. With them is their son, Lorenzo, who often felt like he had been born into the wrong family. He pondered important matters in his crib, drew pictures of the planets on the walls as a toddler, and generally kept his head in the clouds. Instead of, you know, somersaulting and walking on tightropes like the rest of his family.

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