Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Adam Rex has a new book out, Frankenstein Takes the Cake (Which is Full of Funny Stuff Like Rotting Heads and Giant Gorillas and Zombies Dressed as Little Girls and Edgar Allan Poe. The Book, We Mean — Not the Cake), published by Harcourt. It’s a sequel, of course, to 2006’s Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich (And Other Stories You’re Sure to Like, Because They’re All About Monsters, And Some of Them Are Also About Food. You Like Food, Don’t You? Well, All Right Then). And if you haven’t read that prequel, well there’s a hole in your life too big and awkward for us to even address, so we won’t do that then, okay? Moving right along…

Since 7-Imp’s fan-dom for Adam’s work knows little to no bounds, we imps are quite excited. But you won’t see a review of this illustrated poetry anthology until later this month. Kelly Fineman, Poetry Goddess, and I plan to co-review it over at Guys Lit Wire (and perhaps I’ll post the same content here in 7-Imp-Land. Plus, if Eisha’s got a copy of the book by then, why of course she’ll have to chime in). More on that later.

But Adam is stopping by briefly this afternoon to share some of his illustrating process with us. If you’ve seen the book, you know that it includes very funny blog entries from Off the Top of My Head: The Official Blog of the Headless Horseman. There’s a wide array of artistic styles on display in this wonderful sequel (which, again, we’ll address later), but the blog spreads—a total of three (for those of you who haven’t seen the book yet)—were created using good old-fashioned photography. But just how did Adam create the Horseman’s head, pictured above as it appears in the book in the please-stop-staring-at-my-delicious-head spread? Well, wonder no more, since Adam is here to explain, for which I thank him heartily. You know how I love to yak it up with illustrators about their artistic processes.

So, in Adam’s words… Read the rest of this entry �

If you read our blog regularly, you could probably guess that it would be difficult for me—should someone, say, have a gun to my head, absurdly enough—to name my top-ten favorite illustrators. It’d just be hard to narrow, my friends.

But Sophie Blackall would, without question, be on my list. There is a lightness and a brightness to her work that always makes me smile; at the same time, her Chinese inks and watercolors are capable of either great elegance or supreme goofiness and lots of humor, depending on the story she’s illustrating. For an example of the former, see 2007’s Red Butterfly: How a Princess Smuggled the Secret of Silk Out of China (Candlewick), written by Deborah Noyes, and for an example of the latter, YOU ABSOLUTELY CANNOT MISS this year’s deadpan Jumpy Jack & Googily (Henry Holt), written by Sophie’s bud and frequent picture-book-making partner, Meg Rosoff (not to mention the other picture book titles on which they’ve partnered, which are listed below):

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When author/illustrator William Bee released his second book, And the Train Goes… (Candlewick, 2007), Kirkus Reviews described it as “{a} fresh, visually arresting read-aloud with a lovely old-time feel.” You could say that about William’s other two books as well—Whatever, released by Candlewick in 2005, and this year’s Beware of the Frog (also Candlewick)—but you’d be simplifying his books and his style a bit much by calling them old-timey. There is a modernity to his style as well, what with his ultra-stylized design sense — not to mention the demented, deadpan humor and spirit of at least two of his books thus far (the very Pierre-esque Whatever and the warped almost-fairy-tale world of Beware of the Frog). Kirkus even wrote about Beware of the Frog that it joins “the rapidly swelling ranks of seemingly innocuous tales for younglings in which main characters are suddenly killed off.” (If you’re thinking what in the what the?, you need look no further than Tadpole’s Promise or Ugly Fish as but two examples.)

There are actually many things about William’s style as an illustrator that appeal to me — not just this ability he has to veer from quite demented to totally traditional (as Publishers Weekly pointed out, And the Train Goes… is filled with what they called “English archetypes,” and have you used this book as read-aloud yet? Wonderful, I say). There’s also his web site in which you learn…well, nothing about his books but an awful lot about a few of his favorite things (staying home, giraffes, 1978, tape measures, London buses, Michael Caine, supersonic planes). Dare I say it? Dare I employ the so-overused-it-barely-registers-meaning-anymore “quirky”? Okay, he’s quirky. There. I said it.

So, yeah, my interest was piqued, and I snagged an over-breakfast interview with him. (William tells me we’ll be very disappointed with his breakfast-of-choice: “I usually have half a litre of water and a banana. On Sundays, I sometimes go mad and have two slices of toast with butter and Tiptree Jam, and a cup of tea — ‘Yorkshire’ tea with milk and two sugars.”) Read the rest of this entry �

I’m going to keep this short, because it almost pains me to post on top of Eisha’s and Adrienne’s very fun post from yesterday. Scroll down a bit if you missed it then and take in the conversation, dear readers.

I’m over at Guys Lit Wire today with a bit about Marc Tyler Nobleman and illustrator Ross MacDonald’s new picture book biography, Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman, released just this week by Knopf Books for Young Readers — and already met with a handful of starred reviews. It’s all about Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the two unsung heroes who created Superman. And I conducted a short Q & A with Nobleman as well; I didn’t give him the usually rather lengthy and Pivot-y 7-Imp treatment, since I’m guesting at another blog, but I did chat with him a bit about his new book — as well as his next project, a book for older readers about the uncredited co-creator and original writer of Batman.

Plus, you can find out who exactly a pionerd is if you go read what Marc has to say. “Pionerd” is currently my new favorite word.

Here’s the link. Enjoy!

Happy Sunday, everyone!

So, what do you do when there are tentacles in your hallway?

Jules: We’re featuring the illustrations of artist and freelance illustrator Jen Corace this week, and we’re excited to be doing so. Some of you may have seen this Spring’s Little Hoot, released by Chronicle Books, another pairing of Jen and author Amy Krouse Rosenthal (who also created Little Pea in ’05). I’m actually not terribly familiar with Little Pea (I read it once and liked it is about all I can say on that), but I’ve got a copy of Little Hoot, and it’s . . . well, a hoot. Go check it out. When Betsy Bird reviewed it in January, she wrote: “Here’s the deal with illustrator Jen Corace… uh… she’s awesome. Not very descriptive but whatcha gonna do? Maybe it’s her design background and alternative feel, but when Corace illustrates a book, that book has done been illustrated, consarn it.” We couldn’t agree more.

Let’s pause for another moment of Jen awesome-ness: Read the rest of this entry �

I really intended for this round-up to include several more titles, but I’m doing what I can here with a new project for work that’s taking a considerable chunk of time and a storytelling gig on Tuesday. I’m off to practice my story one more time, but for now, here are three new titles, released this Spring, that are sure to entertain in one fashion or another. Perhaps tomorrow I can add some more titles to the mix. Enjoy!

This dog’s tale from Emily Jenkins and Pierre Pratt has Publishers Weekly saying that the picture book duo prove one more time that “author and illustrator are brilliantly simpatico.” Well, who would argue that? This is the story of Dumpling, “a dog of enormous enthusiasm, excellent obedience skills—and very little nose.” Yup, Dumpling’s smart and skilled at dog tricks and oh-so loving (she goes into “paroxysms of joy” when her people come home), but she can’t smell a thing and—as a result—has no friends (seeing as how dogs like to sniff around one another to get intimate). When the family moves to the country, Dumpling finds herself with an expansive new back yard and a doghouse. After encountering a skunk who sprays her multiple times, Dumping heads back inside, much to her family’s dismay (amusingly enough, they try a handful of tricks to get the skunk smell off the dog, most of them the determined mother has read “somewhere”). When Dumpling heads back out, she gets sprayed again, though she shares a meal with the skunk: “She couldn’t smell anything, so she didn’t care.” And so it goes—family tries another technique to get rid of the skunk funk and Dumpling heads back outside. Dumpling is bummed to discover his new friend has disappeared — or so he thinks. Turns out the skunk is waiting for him in his doghouse. A friendship is born: “And though she sometimes got sprayed, when the skunk was startled or in a cranky mood, Dumpling never minded a bit. She couldn’t smell anything, so she didn’t care.”

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We’re not the only ones interviewing today (see my chat with author Gail Gauthier below): Don’t miss Jama Rattigan’s chat with picture book creator extraordinnaire Marla Frazee over at Jama’s Alphabet Soup, posted today. You know I love my illustrator interviews, and Jama does it up right, my friends. Lots of fabulous questions and wonderful images, and Marla talks about the story behind her latest, award-winning book, A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever, reviewed here at 7-Imp. (She also mentions working on Liz’s text — boy howdy and howdy boy, I can’t wait to see that book!).

Scoot. Scat. Vamoose! Go read and enjoy.

P.S. This isn’t the first great illustrator interview Jama’s done. There’s also a great chat with Laura Vaccaro Seeger here, Grace Lin here, and much more over there at her yummy Alphabet Soup.

You’d think we’d be pretty blasé about this kind of thing by now. I mean, we’ve been lucky enough to have interviewed a lot of cool, brilliant, amazing people over the past two years. You’d think we’d be all: “Ho hum, here’s yet another person with more talent in his little pinky finger than we’ll ever hope to have in our entire bodies. *Yawn.* Whatever.”

But no. It’s always a thrill when someone we admire is willing to cyber-hang with us. And we’re pretty much gobsmacked over this one.

Today, we’re talking with David Small. Yes, the David Small. We are just a teensy bit in love with him. But then, who isn’t? Eisha can date her crush to the first time she read Imogene’s Antlers, wa-a-a-ay back in her early children’s librarian days. That spread where Imogene is wearing doughnuts on her antlers to feed the birds pretty much knocked her flat. And it only got better with each successive book: David’s ability to convey everything you need to know about a character and exactly what he/she is thinking and feeling at a given moment is uncanny. Take a look at the gentle social satire evoked by Miss McGillicuddy’s long-suffering expressions in The Money Tree; the surreal hilarity of those bovine troublemakers in George Washington’s Cows; the irresistible charm of The Gardener; the painfully familiar heroine of The Library; the quietly luminous The Journey; the… okay, can’t-even-think-about-this-one-without-crying perfection of The Mouse and His Child; and the sweet, subtle grace of The Friend. Just, you know, to name a few faves.

David has been making picture books since 1981. As the biography at his site states, David’s books have been translated into several languages, made into animated films and musicals, and have won many prestigious illustration awards, including the 1998 Caldecott Honor for The Gardener written by his wife, Sarah Stewart, and the 2001 Caldecott Medal for So, You Want To Be President? by Judith St. George. “To date he has illustrated over 40 picture books,” the biography closes. “At an average of 40 pages per book, that makes around 1,840 illustrations, though someone ought to check that math.”

David has also done extensive work for national magazines and newspapers; his drawings appeared regularly in The New Yorker and The New York Times. Some examples of his editorial illustrations can be viewed here at his site. Pictured here is our Commander-in-Chief.

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O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!

I’m only capable of such exuberant Carrollian language after having had a couple cups of coffee.

I’ve got a post over at Guys Lit Wire today. It’s all about Christopher Myers’ reimagining of Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky from last year. Yes, I’m a bit slow in getting to this title, but better late than never. Here’s how the post starts out:

Leave it to artist Christopher Myers to remind us that not all children’s books are merely the “products of wild imaginations and unfettered flights of fancy,” as they are often made out to be. “{M}y books are, more often than not, products of painstaking research,” he writes in the closing author’s note of Jabberwocky, Myers’ re-imagining of the classic nonsense verse by Lewis Carroll, published last year by Jump at the Sun/Hyperion.

And leave it to Myers to present us with another example of a picture book that appeals to teens. Myers takes this legendary poem—written over one hundred and thirty years ago and published in Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There by Carroll, the pen name for the Reverend Charles Dodgson—and sets it on the basketball court in a contemporary, inner-city setting: “The slithy toves” who “did gyre and gimble in the wabe” are jump-ropers, looking over their shoulder to see the Jabberwock’s entrance onto the basketball court. He’s a basketball behemoth, a cyclopean man with seven fingers, looming on the court, ready for a face-off. “Beware the Jabberwock, my son!”

You can read the rest here.

Note: The June Carnival of Children’s Lit, “Fathers in Children’s Books,” is also up over at Susan Taylor Brown’s blog.

As Jama pointed out last week, summer is upon us. Yes, last week marked the first official day of summer, much to my surprise. I had thought it was mostly already gone. Shows you what I know.

Nevertheless, this all brought to mind two picture book titles I have yet to talk about here at 7-Imp, two that are perfect summer-time fare and one that was recently awarded a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor in the Picture Book category.

A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever, written and illustrated by Marla Frazee, was released in March of this year (Harcourt) and has been met with all kinds of critical acclaim, including the aforementioned BGHB Honor. (If you follow the Amazon URL to which I linked the book title, you’ll see what I mean under “Editorial Reviews.”) It tells the story of two young boys, James and Eamon, who stay at Eamon’s grandparents’ house (Bill and Pam — and not this Bill and Pam, though I’m sorry to disappoint MotherReader fans) during a week of Nature Day Camp. Very little to no nature-observing actually occurs; the boys would rather be at Bill and Pam’s house watching television, jumping on the blow-up mattress downstairs, eating Pam’s banana waffles, and playing Nintendo. “Wanna go outside?” James asks Eamon one day via the speech balloons that pepper the spreads. “Nope,” Eamon answers, as they both stare out the window at the beach. “Nature camp was just so great,” says Frazee’s text on the following page above the rolling waves on the ocean. Read the rest of this entry �