Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Read the rest of this entry �

One of my favorite contemporary illustrators is here today. And I mean one of my TOP-FIVE favorites. With my love of hyperbole aside, I say that British illustrator Emily Gravett is one of the most exciting writer-artists at work today who creates books for children. When she released Monkey and Me in the UK in ’07, The Sunday Times wrote that the title “marks out the exceptional from the mediocre.” I’d say that about all her books thus far. The Irish Times called her a magic-weaver. Her work is daring and one-of-a-kind and oh-so slightly subversive, some of my favorite elements in a picture book.

Remember when she hit the scene with the multimedia wonder that was Wolves (released by Simon & Schuster in the U.S.), the poster child for postmodern picture books of 2006? Turning a traditional narrative on its head, she told the imaginative, suspenseful tale (which also managed to be terrifically informative) of a rabbit with his nose firmly stuck in a nonfiction title about wolves, a book whose subject matter has stepped off the page with a snarl and an appetite, unbeknownst to the rabbit. And the alternate ending? Well, it vies for Best Picture Book Ending Ever. Truly. The book was not only critically-acclaimed, but it also made approximately seven bajillion kidlitosphere bloggers go berserk with glee. Wolves, which started out as a college project, also won Emily the 2005 Kate Greenaway Medal and a 2007 Boston Globe–Horn Book Honor.

Read the rest of this entry �

This is little Casey Jenkins. He’s the the worst player in the Delmar Dogs, the underdog Little League team of James Preller’s new picture book, Mighty Casey, a re-working of Ernest Thayer’s Casey at the Bat, illustrated by Matthew Cordell (Feiwel & Friends; March, 2009). “It’s unkind to speak ill / of a batter who can’t hit. / So, um, gee . . . that Casey . . . / he sure could chew and spit!” writes Preller. Not only does Casey’s every at-bat end “not with a bang, but a whiff,” but his teammates aren’t faring much better: Omar scrapes a knee, Ronald relieves himself over in left field, Ashanti takes a nap, Tommy Maney’s climbed a tree, Jamal got stung by a bee, and Johnny Reel refuses to run. Eventually, things turn around for the boys, and above we have Casey up to bat there, during a crucial moment. He strides to the plate, as you can see. He really is a true-blue geek—a lovable one at that—so I love the seriousness with which he taps his cleats there.

Read the rest of this entry �

Jules: Author/Illustrator Selina Alko is visiting today, and I just have to open with her illustration of Tennessee from Sheila Keenan’s nonfiction title, Greetings from the 50 States (Scholastic). And that’s because Eisha and I are both from Tennessee (well, okay, I was really born in Kentucky but consider Tennessee home), even though I returned after a bit of time away from it but Eisha up and moved to Massachusetts and then settled in New York. (I think, however, that she’ll always be a Southern girl at heart, y’all. She can correct me if I’m wrong, but once you’ve lived in the shadow of those Great Smoky Mountains, as we both did for quite a while, the state quite firmly settles itself into a cozy corner of your heart. One with fiddles playing on the radio and a stash of MoonPies and Jack Daniel’s nearby.)

Read the rest of this entry �

Jules: Artist Dave McKean, whom 7-Imp welcomes this morning with a big, strong cup of coffee and all kinds of adoration and severely geeky fan-dom, is capable of way more than seven impossible things before breakfast, it’s safe to say. He’s an award-winning graphic novelist; author; photographer; designer; illustrator of hundreds of comic-book and book covers, as well as CDs; editorial illustrator; film designer; director; and jazz pianist, even co-founding the record label Feral Records with saxophonist and composer Iain Ballamy. I’m probably missing a whole slew of other things. Dave McKean is unceasingly inventive.

Read the rest of this entry �

Jules: Welcome to 7-Imp’s 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.

Read the rest of this entry �

See this fabulous spread? This is from a new picture book, entitled You Never Heard of Sandy Koufax?! (Schwartz & Wade; February, 2009) by Jonah Winter and illustrated by André Carrilho. And this title has the most exciting picture book art I’ve seen all year, I have to say.

Read the rest of this entry �

Here’s one of the best things about blogging: I get to chat with book-creators whose work I have admired for a long time. Illustrator Stefano Vitale is one of those people. His art work is a force of nature, and whenever I see that he’s illustrated a new title, I run to find a copy.

Even though I didn’t get to chat with him directly—this was one of those interviews conducted via his publicist (I’m sure he’s a very busy guy, so this is hardly a complaint)—I’m still thrilled that I was two degrees away from someone whose art work has brought me so much joy. Better yet, I get to either share it with fellow fans today OR introduce the uninitiated to his books and show you what his paintbrush can produce. Both things are big kicks, indeed.

Read the rest of this entry �

There’s this book. It’s called The Cuckoo’s Haiku: And Other Birding Poems (Candlewick). It was written by the very prolific Michael J. Rosen and illustrated with remarkable grace by Stan Fellows and will be released very, very soon — in March. This poetry volume is designed to be not unlike a field notebook on birds — twenty-four North American birds from the Eastern Bluebird to the Dark-Eyed Junco — divided by seasons, starting with Spring and ending with Winter. (The Pileated Woodpecker opens this post.) A spare, evocative haiku from the mind and observant eye of Rosen accompanies each bird (“first feeders at dawn / paired like red quotation marks / last feeders at dusk” is the entry for the Northern Cardinal), as well as lush and—there’s no other word for it—beautiful watercolors from Fellows of these birds in their habitats that just shimmer right off the page. (His illustrations even include Rosen’s ardent notes about these creatures of the air. My favorites are on the American Goldfinch spreads: “travel in small groups, feeder is a tower of gold” and “funny — their song is ‘potato-chips, potato-chips.'”)

It’s a thing of beauty, this book.

Read the rest of this entry �

Jules: Here is the the semi-fictionalized version of author Daniel Pinkwater (from his 1993 title, Author’s Day, which he also illustrated). It’s a bit daunting to introduce Pinkwater this morning — and not just because he’s staring so intently at us here. He puts the very “pro” in prolific, not to mention we’re super-geeky fans of his books and have been for years.

And, since we at 7-Imp consider ourselves advocates of—to put it bluntly—children’s books that don’t suck (you’re welcome for that moment of eloquence), we’re also happy for his NPR-musings: As many of our devoted readers surely know, he is commentator over there at NPR’s All Things Considered and Weekend Edition Saturday with Scott Simon, often promoting—with much passion and, at times, that irreverent wit we love—new children’s titles. (To be clear, he also comments on “the caprices and vagaries of life,” thank goodness, as his NPR bio puts it.)

“Pinkwater’s books are designed to be understood by children aged six to 14, but are read by people of all ages,” the bio adds. Ain’t that the truth. His fans are not only wide-ranging in age, but we are rabid, I say. Mention his name around one of us serious Pinkwater devotees, and you’ll hear hoots and squeals and hollers — followed by a long list of beloved Pinkwater memories. I’d say we’re cult-like. The Bad Bears books, illustrated by his wife, Jill (I covered one of those titles here back in ’07 when our images were tragically small); the Fat Camp Commando titles; the Werewolf Club titles; The Neddiad and its sequel, The Yggyssey, Pinkwater’s newest title, which opens with the ghost of Rudolph Valentino smoking a cigar in a little girl’s bedroom, and both of which Pinkwater made available online to read free-of-charge; and oh-so much more, including the ones we reminisce about below — they’re quick-witted, wonderfully far-fetched, entertaining, and flat-out funny-as-hell adventures. And we love ’em all. There. How’s that for adoration?

Read the rest of this entry �