Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Two really good things came out of our recent Dave McKean interview: First (the obvious), the fact that WE GOT TO CHAT WITH DAVE MCKEAN, for which we gave seven loud WOOT!s; second, that all kinds of folks came along to respond to his art work and unique artistic vision. My very favorite thing about blogging is the community of readers we have here. You all are my colleagues now, since I’m sitting at home, while temporarily away from librarianship, working in my PJs, chasing a couple kids, and blogging from my kitchen. Your collective wisdom and wit and wicked-funny funny-bones play a large part in Making My Day.

But I digress. But only just slightly, because—speaking of comments—a third good thing happened: An artist and professor of art, heretofore unbeknownst to me (he was featured in Blogging for a Cure 2007 by another blogger, but then so were over 175 other illustrators), left a comment at the McKean interview. And, as is often the case, I went exploring at the link to which he attached his name. And I was instantly drawn in by the works on display there at his blog, his alluring contemporary fantastic art. I asked him if he’d like to stop by for one of my Random Illustrator Features, and lucky for me, he said yes. His name is Bill Carman, he received his MFA from Brigham Young University, and—as you’ll read below—he is a designer, artist (as in fine art), illustrator (as in, well…illustration, of course), and teacher. And, as is also often the case, I asked if he’d like to say anything about his work. So, here is Bill Carman, in his own words, and lots of his art work. (Please see alt tags for image titles.)

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Here’s Douglas Florian, who is pictured outside his studio on West 52nd Street in Manhattan (“also known as Swing Street,” he told me, “because the jazz musicians used to record there”) and whom I’m happy to welcome to 7-Imp this morning for a breakfast chat.

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I am madly and truly and deeply in love with this illustration, Chris Raschka’s depiction of the Jabberwock (and the “beamish boy” who slays him). You can click on the image to see it along with the classic Lewis Carroll poem, as it appears in A Foot in the Mouth: Poems to Speak, Sing, and Shout, released last month by Candlewick. My poem for today is also from this title, but I’ll get to that in a second.

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Harry Bliss hardly needs an introduction to parents and the teachers and librarians of elementary-aged children. His first illustrated title, A Fine, Fine School, written by Sharon Creech and published by HarperCollins in 2001, became a New York Times bestseller, and he has gone on to illustrate many other best-selling titles, including the popular Diary of a Worm (2003), Diary of a Spider (2005), and Diary of a Fly (2007), all written by Doreen Cronin. His most recent illustrated title was last year’s Louise, The Adventures of a Chicken, written by Kate DiCamillo, the tale of an intrepid chicken, longing for adventure, who leaves her comfortable nest and goes to sea. Harry’s forthcoming title—as in, on shelves this month—is Luke on the Loose, a TOON Book from Raw Junior, which Harry both wrote and illustrated.

But many people will also recognize Harry’s cartoon work: He is a cartoonist and cover artist for The New Yorker. In fact, his collection of New Yorker covers can be viewed at his web site, as well as many cartoons and peeks into his illustrated children’s titles. Harry also signed on with Tribune Media Services to create a self-titled strip, featuring his single-panel gag cartoons, Bliss. (The Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, and the Chicago Tribune are a few of the newspapers which run it.) The Bliss collection can also be seen at Harry’s site.

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Well, this past Sunday—in which the art of Julie Fortenberry was featured, incidentally, so go check that out, if you missed it—I took a poll as to whether or not the creature below was a Rabbit or a Duck. As you can see, this spread below from Amy Krouse Rosenthal’s and Tom Lichtenheld’s Duck! Rabbit! is slightly different from the spread shown on Sunday, but it’s not much more help for the undecided:

To be official about it all, here were my poll results (my online poll, that is; my five-year-old walked around with the book all last week, quizzing everyone she saw):

• “Um, hello. It is obviously a RABBIT. Okay, so it can also be a duck. But look closely people! As a RABBIT, it is so much cuter! Cuteness always wins. Therefore it is a RABBIT.”
• “I think it’s both, but I agree that the rabbit is definitely cuter.”
• “I vote for Rabbit (he told me to).”
• “I’m very left-to-right-oriented, so that’s a rabbit to me – rabbit ears, then head. If it were a duck, he would be facing the other way.”
• “Duck. I can accept it as a rabbit only if I can accept that rabbits don’t have mouths.”
• “…it looks like a Hesperornis without the scary teeth.”
• “I vote rabbit.”
• “I saw a rabbit.”
• “…Rabbit. 100%.”
• “…that duck/rabbit is messing me up.”

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Here is one of my all-time favorite picture characters in all the universe. Do you know him, too?

He showed up in 2000, brought to life by author/illustrator D.B. Johnson, who is pictured here, and his story, Henry Hikes to Fitchburg (Houghton Mifflin)—the first of many Henry stories, we came to find out later—was inspired by a short passage from Henry David Thoreau’s Walden. This book came out right around the time that I had decided to study children’s lit in grad school via a library degree. (At this point, I was married and living with my husband, but just prior to that and when I was single, Eisha had been my roomie, and she’d bring home beautiful and/or clever picture books from her library job and leave them sitting on our kitchen table. As I’ve said before here at 7-Imp, she’s to blame for my picture book passion. But I digress.) I had never seen anything like it before, and neither had the rest of the world: In fact, D.B., who goes by Don, was awarded the Ezra Jack Keats New Writer Award for Henry Hikes to Fitchburg, which he discusses a bit below, as well as the 2000 Boston Globe–Horn Book Award for Picture Books. (See his wonderful acceptance speech here: “This whole idea of walking to get where you want to go resonated with my life. It was Thoreau’s way to be his own man, to stay close to nature, to be a writer. It was my way to be an artist.”) Three more Henry books were to follow: Henry Builds a Cabin in 2002, Henry Climbs a Mountain in 2003, and Henry Works in 2004. (Incidentally, you can see the books online at the “books” portion of Don’s site.)

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Jules: I know it’s a bright Sunday morning, a new day, and not time to climb back into our beds, but I can’t help but open with this image, because I love the colors so much I just might want to marry them.

This comes from illustrator Julie Fortenberry. Julie has two blogs—one devoted solely to her art and one all about picture book illustration. And here’s the thing: I’ve always loved her children’s illustration blog, but I never quite made the connection that it was Julie Fortenberry who authored it. Sometimes I’m slow-on-the-draw like that.

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I do a lot of illustrator interviews here at 7-Imp, but as I was formatting this one, I realized that I don’t often talk to artists like Geoffrey Hayes who create books for the VERY WEE set, as in the pre-preschool crowd. For that—and many other reasons—it’s good to welcome Geoffrey this morning for seven questions over breakfast.

Geoffrey has written and illustrated over forty children’s books, including Bear By Himself, Margaret Wise Brown’s When the Wind Blew, and the early-reader series, Otto & Uncle Tooth. To be perfectly honest, I’m still exploring his previous titles, but what caught my eye—what made me want to invite him over for a breakfast chat—are his new Benny and Penny titles for RAW Junior. These titles are Geoffrey at his very best.

Have you seen these guys yet?

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Back when I took part in my half of 7-Imp’s blog identity crisis, I decided to no longer accept review copies of titles for a while. Well, after that while passed, I came to discover a more fine-tuned focus, I guess you could say, here at 7-Imp — for my part. And that would be that I love talking to illustrators, and I love love LOVES me some good picture book art. So, while I no longer accept review copies of novels, I find it hard to turn down—and, it turns out, will gladly accept—advance copies of new picture book titles that I think look exciting. All of that is to say that I keep wanting to say to you all, have you SEEN Betsy Franco’s new collection of concrete poems, A Curious Collection of Cats, illustrated by Michael Wertz? I’ve been wanting to say that for a while. And then I have to stop and remind myself that it’s not out on bookshelves and in libraries yet. But guess what? Yup, you got it: It’ll be out in April from Tricycle Press, and April is wowwheredoesthetimego NEXT WEEK. In honor, then, of National Poetry Month, which will be here oh-so soon, I’m finally going to show you some illustrations from this engaging book.

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Here is the celebrated and award-winning author and illustrator of many picture book biographies, Don Brown. He is having A Moment with what he refers to below in our chat as his wondrous, yet flat-out evil, printer. I’m happy to welcome Don this morning for seven questions over breakfast — not only to distract him from his printer woes, but also because his books are ones I’ve followed and enjoyed for years.

If you’re a children’s librarian—whether a public librarian or school librarian—and/or a parent who keeps up with children’s lit, particularly nonfiction titles, you may wonder, as I do, where we’d be without his engaging picture book biographies, particularly since he often, but certainly not always, brings us the lives of lesser-known figures (Ruth Law, Mary Kingsley, Alice Ramsey — to name a few). And even when he’s telling us the story of more celebrated figures of history—Mark Twain, Albert Einstein, Dolley Madison—he manages to stand apart from the crowd: Kirkus wrote about One Giant Leap: The Story of Neil Armstrong, “{t}he story has been told many times, but perhaps never with so much heart and spirit.” I think the common denominator in his picture book biographies, no matter the subject matter, is that he’s bringing us the stories of those people who followed their bliss and lived with passion.

And if you enjoy his books as much as I do, you’re probably nodding as I say: Doesn’t that seem like what he’s doing, too? I’ve never read a Don Brown story in which it didn’t seem as if he was having great fun sharing with us. And, in the words of School Library Journal, he’s “a current pacesetter who has put the finishing touches on the standards for storyographies.”

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