Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

I’m taking a moment here to tell you about Newbery medalist Cynthia Rylant’s new picture book, to be released in March from Abrams Books for Young Readers. It’s called All in a Day, and it makes me happy. I mean, “there is a faith in morningtime, there is belief in noon.” How much do you love that? The book’s illustrated with boldness and style by self-taught artist Nikki McClure, but I’ll get to that in a sec.

This is a simple (well, seemingly — Rylant makes it look and sound easy) text that nudges the reader, gently urging us to consider: Just what will you do with your today? She gives us some refreshing takes on this notion of twenty-four hours. And what a day’s promise means. Or can mean. She introduces the day as a “perfect piece of time to live a life, to plant a seed…You can make a wish, and start again…” And, as you can see below (though the text may be challenging to read), it’s also a fitting time to find our way back home. Ah, sweet. If a “day is all you have to be, it’s all you get to keep,” then in a hammock with mama, resting under the sun, looks like a good way of being to me. Read the rest of this entry �

Meet Ernst. There he is up above and here to the left with a bird he made himself out of the wooden tail of a carousel dog, which had fallen off as the carousel was getting closed up for the winter. Ernst’s story comes to us from author/illustrator Elisa Kleven. It will be released on March 1 from Tricycle Press.

Booklist has already weighed in on this story by writing, “{t}he clear, colorfully detailed, collage pictures celebrate the transforming power of art” (the geeky emphasis here is mine). As I’ve said so often here at the blog before that you might very well be weary of me saying it, this is probably my very favorite theme in the arts.

Today, Elisa is stopping by for a brief chat, all as a result of my nerdy fan-dom and me asking her simply, what inspired Ernst’s tale? And her response—you can consider this a sort of “in her own words” post—is so thoughtful and so deeply beautiful, I think, that this has become one of my favorite 7-Imp posts. (And, of course, it helps that I really adore the book.) I’m so pleased she was willing to stop by our impish little art and literature salon, have some coffee with me (you may remember from my interview with her last October that she’s a fellow strong-coffee fan), and talk about some of the larger ideas behind this picture book. I know for a fact that Elisa didn’t want to come across as the interviewee on, say, Oprah’s couch who is baring her soul a little bit too much for everyone’s comfort. This made me laugh; I totally get that. But she’s got too much subtlety and mystery in her soul for that; instead, what she gives us here, I believe, is a perfect, little window into a bit of the artist’s and author’s process — while still leaving room for our own interpretations. And I find it to be such a truly lovely manifesto of sorts on that wonderful theme of the power of art to heal.

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Jules: Once upon a time, I wanted to interview the insanely talented collage illustrator and author Bryan Collier. Well, I shouldn’t say once upon a time, since I will always want to interview him. But last year—and, actually, the year before, too—I tried as hard as I could to snag an interview through both the publisher Henry Holt and all by myself with my own stubborn determination by my side. Hard as I and the nice Henry Holt publicist tried, it just didn’t pan out. Not that Collier isn’t also insanely nice: I met him once, and he is a very personable, friendly fellow. And if you read the “about” page of his site, you’ll see that he is all about going into classrooms to talk with teachers, librarians, and students about books and art. But, hey, blog interviews probably aren’t for everyone. Which is a-okay.

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If there’s one thing I want my girls to appreciate, as they grow, just about as much as I hope they’ll appreciate art, it’s music. When someone from the Chicago Review Press emailed to ask if I’d be interested in Duke Ellington: His Life in Jazz with 21 Activities, I wasn’t so sure. I’ve been way pickier about review copies lately, for different reasons. But it’s the Duke! My interest was piqued, especially since it’s one of those books that a music teacher or music-appreciation instructor would really dig: It includes twenty-one hands-on activities all in the name of engaging students a bit more. Okay, I was sold. I had to see it.

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Jules: Hello? Anyone out there? I’ve been checked out all week with some kind of dastardly flu-like thing. And a big pile of work. A big pile of work that stuck out its tongue at my dastardly flu-like thing and said it had no pity for me. (This is, ultimately, a good thing, since self-pity gets one nowhere, though it didn’t make it any easier to have that pile of work saying nah nah nah nah nah in my face.) I’ve felt rather removed from everything all week and like I’m finally just now emerging, since—as of yesterday morning—the room was spinning a little less and words on the computer screen were a little less jumpy. I hope all our devoted Sunday kickers are doing well and that you all come along and kick away and share your fabulous lives today.

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Jules: How can we even begin to describe, as the big fans we are, how exciting it is to have renowned Caldecott medalist Ed Young stop by for a chat today? Young has brought us over eighty illustrated picture book titles — visually-delightful works of the imagination, as well as countless adaptations and re-tellings of the old folk tales and fables of our world, often rendered in paper-collage. If I were asked to name a contemporary illustrator whose works provide a truly exciting visual experience, no matter the book’s tone, Young would be the first to come to mind. Whether he’s using the bold, bright collage of a book like The Emperor and the Kite (written by Jane Yolen and published in 1967) or bringing us ethereal impressionistic paintings, such as in 1989’s Lon Po Po: A Red Riding Hood Story from China, it’s always dramatic. Always striking. Always infused with an elegance. You look at his illustrations, and you can see the poet in him.

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I’ve been wanting to do a quick post about nonfiction goddess April Pulley Sayre’s Trout Are Made of Trees, illustrated by Kate Endle, for a while now. It was released last year by Charlesbridge—way back in January, I believe—and sometimes I’m just slow.

It’s a good thing I waited a bit, though, since I was eventually able to chat a bit with Kate, the illustrator, who studied at The Columbus College of Art & Design, and convince her to share some of her other art work in one of these in-their-own-words random illustrator features I’m fond of doing these days.

Opening this post is one of Kate’s collages, not from that title, but more on that in a minute.

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This is probably my very favorite picture book illustration from all of 2008:

Yeah, I have a thing for sun images, but even with that affinity aside, isn’t that just stunning? I wish I could make it even bigger for you so that you could see the detailed collage work.

That would be the handiwork of award-winning designer, illustrator, and author Carin Berger, who joins me this morning for seven questions over breakfast. “I am a bit of a breakfast-skipper,” she told me. “But on a fine, leisurely late morning (say, a birthday or Mother’s Day), crepes with lemon and powdered sugar are a fave. And a swig or two of my husband’s very strong, but milky, coffee.” Let’s consider this a fine, leisurely late morning, I say, and we’ll have those crepes and coffee. It’s also a special morning, since I’m a huge fan of her collage work. And the very way her mind works, bringing us books like 2008’s The Little Yellow Leaf (Greenwillow Books), the book from which the opening illustration and the below illustrations come and which was named a New York Times Best Illustrated Children’s Book of 2008. And one of my top-five favorite books from last year. Seriously, did you guys see the thing of beauty this book is?

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Devoted Readers of 7-Imp With Good Memories may recollect that, back in November of ’07, author Jack Gantos stopped by and sung the praises of author/illustrator Laurie Keller. Well, what a good reminder that was that I’d love to chat with her one day. Over one year later (hey, sometimes I’m just really slow) and after the birth of the handy-dandy seven-
questions-over-
breakfast illustrator interview, here we are.

Laurie’s here to join me for breakfast, and can I just tell you how fun it is to chat with her over a cyber-breakfast and how much I wish it were a REAL, in-person breakfast in her cottage in Michigan? Any hugely huge fan of Waiting for Guffman, a movie I’ve seen PRECISELY seven blajillion times and can probably quote to everyone’s great irritation, is a friend of mine. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

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It’s been a while since I’ve done a totally random illustrator feature (as in, the Illustration Junkie just sometimes can’t wait ’til the usual Sunday illustrator feature), but here I am today with German (but London-based) author and illustrator Viviane Schwarz, whose books I’ve never even seen. But I stumbled across her site (thanks to Canadian illustrator Eric Orchard), liked what I saw, and asked her to stop by. (This is the way I roll sometimes, for good or bad. Emily Gravett has sung Viviane’s praises before as well, as I see here, so hey, I’m in very good company in liking what I see.)

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