Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Last week, I read about the blog Terrible Yellow Eyes over at Fuse’s site. At this blog, which makes my eyeballs pop out of my head and fly straightaway across the room, various artists are contributing their own works, created in tribute to Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are. Hey, wait. It just occurred to me: Tomorrow is Sendak’s birthday. This I know because of my excessively geeky Sendak fan-dom. I should be posting this tomorrow, but I’m not. Well, we’ll just wish him happy birthday one day in advance.

Anyway, back to the blog. It is run by one Cory Godbey, and—as one of my favorite blog-readers and bloggers, John E. Simpson, put it last week—this project possibly “smacks of blasphemy to some folks… but not to me.” I’m with John. I think the site is a beautiful thing. Here’s one of my favorites — by Adam Volker.

Here is what Terrible Yellow Eyes is all about, in Cory’s words:

Over the coming weeks and months I’ll display a growing collection of works created by invited contributing artists and myself.

We share a love and admiration for Sendak’s work and the pieces we present here are done as a tribute to his life and legacy.

Remember this feature I did on illustrator Bill Carman in April? Bill gave me his permission today to post his contribution to Terrible Yellow Eyes, Wild Ride, here at 7-Imp. Take a look.

And happy birthday—one day early—to The One and Only…

{Note: Speaking of Betsy Bird and Sendak, as I have in this post, did you all see James Preller’s interview with Betsy last month, in which she said that the book-creator she’s dying to meet is Sendak, yet “if I met him I’d just flap my gums for a while and be destroyed by his single withering glance.” Heh. That made me laugh outloud. I’m not going to pretend I’ve not dreamed of meeting—or even interviewing—him, too, but well…he’s SENDAK, people. So, right now it remains just a dream. A very lovely one.}

Have you all seen Sylvie yet? Here she is, the star (you can tell she doesn’t mind being in the spotlight) of Jennifer Sattler’s new title, Sylvie, published by Random House at the end of last month. Sylvie’s story has a lot in common with Petr Horáček’s Silly Suzy Goose (from ’06): Sylvie, the wee flamingo, looks at her family one morning, all very pink, and then takes a look at the rest of the very colorful world and wonders why she is pink. “Well, dear,” her Mama tells her, “we’re pink because the little shrimp we eat are pink.” Sylvie then takes it upon herself to change her hue by nibbling on palm leaves (thus turning green), some grapes (turning herself purple), some chocolate…You get the picture. Here she flies by a kite…

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Jules: Happy first-Sunday-of-the-month to one and all. First Sundays here at 7-Imp means a student illustrator or artist otherwise new to the field of children’s lit will get the spotlight. This morning we have illustrator, designer, and art instructor (inspiring children, thank goodness, to “think conceptually as well as independently”) Duane Smith, who studied at Pratt Insitute and currently lives in Brooklyn. This morning, I’ve got some of his art work from Janet Halfmann’s Seven Miles to Freedom: The Robert Smalls Story, published by Lee & Low Books last year. Janet is also here this morning to say a bit about the book.

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In yesterday’s post, or my attempt to spread some laughs this week via cartoon art, I intended to include a few more titles, but I talked long enough for two of them. So, here’s my Part Two to that post, celebrating the cartoon-style of illustrating in picture books currently on shelves.

The art opening this post is from Jean Van Leeuwen’s Chicken Soup, illustrated by David Gavril (Abrams, May 2009), which Publishers Weekly described as a “marvel of suspense and silliness” and a “kid-pleasing read-aloud.” All the chickens are on the run, because the farm-yard rumor mill is that Mrs. Farmer has pulled her big cooking pot off the shelves and is about to make some chicken soup. All the chickens, that is, except for Little Chickie, who has the sniffles, and you know how that goes: One doesn’t much feel like skedaddling out of a henhouse and all across the farm when one has a cold in her beak. “Run anyway!” advises Red Hen. And so Little Chickie runs. Lots of sneezing is involved, since—every time the animals think they’ve got themselves well-hidden—Little Chickie lets loose with a raucous “AAH-CHOO!”

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I don’t know about you, but the news this week — both from my little sphere of friends and the world-at-large — is bringing me down. Reminding me that life is, simply and fundamentally, un-flippin’-fair. (How about that infixing there?) I thought, for that reason, I’d shine a spotlight today on some light-hearted cartoon-esque picture book titles. Wait. There is no “esque” about it. These are illustrators working very much in a cartoon style. Perhaps they will contribute a laugh to your day. They certainly try, and they certainly did so for me.

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This is art from illustrator Pamela Zagarenski. I fell in love with her detailed, intricate, folk-art-esque mixed-media art—with the highly stylized characters therein—the first time I saw it. Have you all seen Joyce Sidman’s Red Sings from Treetrops: A Year in Colors, the most recent illustrated title of Pamela’s? It was released by Houghton Mifflin in April, and it is a wonder. It’s a poetry collection which celebrates the changing of the seasons — but through the lens of color. And I mean color in ways you hadn’t considered experiencing it — hearing, tasting, and even smelling it.

In SPRING,
Red sings
from treetops:
cheer-cheer-cheer,
each note dropping
like a cherry
into my ear…

And, in Summer, “Yellow melts / everything it touches . . . / smells like butter, / tastes like salt.”

If you’re not familiar with Sidman’s work, you’ll be treating yourself to read more of her titles. Check out these links for more information: Read the rest of this entry �

Jules: See my new doll? This is my kick #1 this week and a gift from illustrator Katherine Tillotson. I received the doll—we’ll call her Mrs. Petal Pauline McWheely—just yesterday as a thank-you for today’s feature: Katherine’s here today to share some art from her newly-illustrated picture book by author Megan McDonald, It’s Picture Day Today! (to be released in June by Atheneum Books).

Mrs. Petal Pauline McWheely has a lot in common with the students in McDonald’s picture book — students with names like Buttons and Feathers. Yup, it’s a school full of art materials: Clothespins, Easter grasses, glittering stars, twisty yarns, and lots of wheely things. They all gather for the class pic, only to discover that Glue is missing. (Glue is a popular guy, as you can probably imagine.) It’s pretty much mayhem (and kudos to Katherine for keeping it interesting; I’m no artist, but it seems to me it’d be challenging to animate things like fuzzy pom-poms and string), until the picture gets snapped right before the book’s close, which opens up into a four-page spread — and which I won’t give away. But it has a lot to do with how Mrs. McWheely is structured here: Making order out of scraps, out of chaos, out of what you thought was little to nothing.

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I love that author/illustrator David McPhail describes himself as a misanthrope. Not only because statements like that from people who create books for children help eradicate this notion that all of them—or anyone else working near or around children, for that matter—live in little pink bubbles, surrounded by severely cute and insanely fluffy bunnies. (Seriously, the average 7-Imp reader knows they don’t, but I think that notion still prevails with the general public.) But also because of the element of surprise that resides in that statement: McPhail’s work is often infused with a sweet affection, sensitivity, and warmth and often revolves around the themes of friendship, cooperation, and familial relationships — often, but not always, animal characters, for which he is probably best-known. Not that misanthropes can’t appreciate cooperation, mind you. I guess I’m just saying: I flippin’ love it when someone surprises you.

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Jules: Happy (upcoming) Memorial Day and happy three-day-weekend to one and all! We hope folks are around today to come kickin’ with us, and we certainly hope everyone is having a relaxing and sunny weekend thus far.

Oh, wait. Yeah. I should have introduced the penguin here. The penguin with the plunger. That’s Patrick. If you think he looks as if he might be sleepwalking, well…you’re right. He’s got sleep issues. He’s also got his own picture book.

And I’m going to let author/illustrator Sarah Ackerley tell you all about him. Sarah—who grew up in Texas, studied art at The University of Texas at Austin, and moved to California last year—is here to tell us what she’s done, what got her inspired to make books for children (here’s a hint), and what’s to-come.

And we thank her kindly for stopping by. Ladies and gentlemen, with no further ado, we welcome Sarah Ackerley . . .

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Jules: We have an author and illustrator duo visiting us this morning, shining a light on some nonfiction today: The creators of Bubble Homes and Fish Farts (released by Charlesbridge in February of this year), author Fiona Bayrock, who has written many science books for children, and author/illustrator Carolyn Conahan. Yeah, I said fish farts. In her March review of this book, Jen Robinson, one of our pretty regular kickers here on Sundays, wrote: “Fiona Bayrock has taken a unique premise, researched it to find lots of interesting, factual examples, and then added (with Carolyn Conahan’s help) both humor and heart.” Well, I say she nailed it with that statement. Just when you thought you understood all there was to know about bubbles and their purpose in this world, along comes Fiona. PSYCHE! Or “paradigm shift,” in the words of The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books. (Can I yell “PARADIGM SHIFT!” like someone would yell “PSYCHE!” Nah. Doesn’t flow well.) Yes, where was I? Fiona shows us the varied, weird, wild, wonderful, and all-around funky ways animals use bubbles. Sixteen different ways, to be precise, from the star-nosed mole’s bubble-blowing from its sniffer (note: that is not a rigorous scientific term) in order to find food to the the rattlebox moth’s “glob of yellow bubbles” that seep from its head as a warning to predators — and lots of other bubble action in between.

I want to say you’ll be blown away by this title, but then Andrea and Mark, the dynamic duo over at Just One More Book, beat me to that very necessary pun.

I asked both Fiona and Carolyn to talk a bit about the book today, and Carolyn is also here to share some watercolors from it, as well as a few sneak peeks at some of her other projects.

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