Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

I know I’m going to look insufferably and nerdily overachieving here, but I’m using my turn for this Poetry Friday to highlight three poetry books across the board, so to speak — picture book, middle-grade, and YA (actually, the Grandits book is more squarely aimed at teens, but it’d work just dandy for a middle-school reader as well). That’s because I can’t choose which to highlight today, not to mention I’ve been feeling rather behind on reviews lately. Here goes:

How has it taken me over three-quarters of the year to find this title? It’s wonderful. Portions of it were previously published in 1960, but here it is now with warm, ebullient illustrations from Melissa Iwai. In this rhyming text, Kuskin — winner of the NCTE Award for Excellence in Poetry, among many other honors — offers the child reader a series of imaginative hypothetical questions: “If you could be green/ would you be a lawn/ or a lean green bean/ and the stalk it’s on?/ Would you be a leaf/ on a leafy tree?/ Tell me, lean green one,/ what would you be?” . . . The other hypothetical questions proposed to the reader involve being square, soft, loud, small, red, fierce, blue, and bright (“Tell me, quite bright one,/ what would you be?”) with a slightly surreal mind-bender proposed at the end. It’s a book to delight and engage in, to share with a group of children at story time, and ponder the world around and the qualities of it. And, as the Booklist review pointed out, Kuskin uses the sound of her words and their meaning to great effect (“If you could be small/ would you be a mouse/ or a mouse’s child/ or a mouse’s house/ or a mouse’s house’s/ front door key?”). Iwai’s imaginative acrylic paintings are soft, fanciful when they need to be and playful-with-perspective in just the right spots. A lively pre-school book, to share either one-on-one or in an interactive story time hour.

This is a follow-up title to Grandits’ 2004 anthology of original concrete poems, entitled Technically, It’s Not My Fault, also published by Clarion Books (which I’ve not read but Eisha enjoyed), this title following Jessie, a high schooler with fervent opinions about her pesky younger brother, Robert (who narrated the first anthology); designing her own clothes; volleyball; her cat; “stupid pep rallies” (“I’m not feeling peppy, and the pep rally isn’t helping”); and much more. Book and magazine designer Grandits scores with these visually-enticing poems whose very shapes echo their subject matter, the words and type and design coming together to make a poem and a picture — an hourglass for “Allergic to Time,” a graph which charts out Jessie’s day in “My Absolutely Bad Cranky Day,” and the spray of a shower in “All My Important Thinking Gets Done in the Shower.” Read the rest of this entry �

Jules: They’re back! Cow, Sheep, Pig, Goat, and Chicken, that is. When we met the gang in 2005 in Punk Farm (Knopf Books for Young Readers), Eisha and I were both impressed with the droll humor of the book and the explosive, dynamic, all-around rockin’ illustrations by Jarrett J. Krosoczka. In that title, the gang rocks out with “Old MacDonald Had a Farm” while Farmer Joe sleeps. This time, Farmer Joe heads out for the Tractor Society Conference in Reno, but meanwhile, back at the farm . . . well, the gang sneaks out on a cross-country Punk Farm concert tour, no less. Unfortunately, their beat-up, worn-down old tour van is threatening to ruin their plans, and Krosoczka uses this premise to give us a glimpse into Punk Farm’s current tour hit, “The Wheels on the Van” (thanks to some quick thinking on the part of Sheep).

Eisha, you told me in an email that Punk Farm on Tour=awesome, and I’d have to agree. Would you like to elaborate?

eisha: Happy to, Jules . . . Read the rest of this entry �

Remember when MotherReader did this last year? In September, she asked the kidlitosphere to come up with their top picks of the year (thus far, that is), and then she compiled everyone’s choices into that master list linked there. Well, she’s suggested it again for this year. Here’s what she had to say about it:

“We can consider it a public service toward next summer’s reading lists, and school librarians’ fall ordering, and just plain reading choices for people everywhere. If you want to join in, post your ‘Best Books of 2007 (So Far)’ in any or all of the categories: Picture Books, Early Elementary, Elementary, Middle School, High School. Mix in your nonfiction or graphic novels by the age categories. Narrow it down to five choices per category (I know it will be tough) . . . My ultimate plan is to pull together the posts into one big list by the middle(ish) of September . . .”

I had to read and re-read and re-read again that narrow-it-down-to-five-choices part. I know MotherReader is a laid back, easy-going gal and will not care if I post more than five, but I’m gonna try to follow the rules here. Limiting to five will be hard — but perhaps the mental exercise will be good for me.

And I want to add my usual disclaimer: I have not read everything. I mean, it truly is some kind of crime that I haven’t yet read Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith’s Cowboy & Octopus. Can I just say that a) I don’t get review copies from Viking Juvenile, and b) I don’t understand for the life of me why the OPACs of both library systems I use do not even register the title. Hubba hubba wha? This is also some kind of crime, but I digress.

I’m going to tackle Picture Books here, followed by a small stab at Poetry, because that is all I feel qualified to do. I read middle-grade and YA on a regular basis, but I’ve read way more picture books this year. I counted and I’ve reviewed approximately 115 picture books from ’07 (thus far) here at 7-Imp. I’ve read more than that, but most of them that are making my lists below are ones I’ve reviewed here (since I review the ones that I think are outstanding in one way or another), so I’ll link my choices to my reviews — which include why I loved it; the month of publication; the publisher; the web sites, if applicable, of the author and/or illustrator; and all that important stuff, if you care to know it. Here goes:

Jules: Many thanks to Julie Vivas, one of Australia’s foremost children’s book illustrators, and Kane/Miller Books for our illustration this week. This is a spread from Helen Manos’ Samsara Dog, originally published in Australia in 2006 and published this year by Kane/Miller in its First American Edition.

It’s not often that you come across a picture book, geared at young children, which addresses the subject of reincarnation. Manos, a practicing Buddhist, wanted to show this subject matter in as natural a way as possible and wrote this story of a dog who lives many lives — as a wild dog on the streets; with a biker gang; as a sniffer dog; with a street juggler; as a rescue dog; and more — “{moving} through a tunnel of light into his next life” each time. In the spread above, Read the rest of this entry �

I try to mix things up a lot here at 7-Imp by reviewing library copies as well as review copies, and I try to review titles from a variety of publishers — both big and small. And so I’m sorry that it has almost verged on Harcourt Week here at 7-Imp this week; this title I’m reviewing today is the fifth Harcourt title I’ll be praising this week (though, to be fair, I’ve reviewed fourteen picture books this week, including this one, so it’s not been one publisher all the time). They’ve just got some great new Fall titles out right now. So be it.

And how can I pass up reviewing Leo and Diane Dillon’s new title, which is about Mother Goose, on Poetry Friday during our self-proclaimed Picture Book Week? I mean, it’s Leo and Diane Dillon — the duo who have been illustrating beautiful, award-winning picture books for fifty years. Exclamation mark. Exclamation mark. And it’s Mother Goose, the mama of all poetry for children. And it’s a winner, this book is. Read the rest of this entry �

Hey, pssst! Guess what? Adam Rex will be stopping by tomorrow here at 7-Imp for an impossible interview before breakfast (we’ll make it lunch — a sandwich, in fact — in honor of one of Adam’s books, a favorite of ours). And, in anticipation of his visit, we thought we’d take a moment today to review his two latest and greatest titles — his new picture book, Pssst!, which he both wrote and illustrated, and his first novel for children, The True Meaning of Smekday (here is its very own site), aimed at the 4-8 range*, if we have to pick age ranges here, which will be released next month. Adam also both wrote and illustrated Smekday as well.

We’re not only huge Adam Rex fans already, but we love these books. Actually, Jules has read Pssst!, and Eisha’s read Smekday, so we’re handling the reviews that way.

Without further ado then . . .

Jules: So, here we have a new picture book from Adam Rex, and it’s a wild ride and a very funny story, one that I think would be well-paired with last year’s Hippo! No, Rhino (Little, Brown Young Readers) by Jeff Newman (which I reviewed here last year). And why is that? Well, for many reasons, including the fact that both books are a visual delight, but primarily because in both books, the young child protagonists visiting the zoo are way smarter and helpful than any adult could even pretend to be. Power to the Children and all that good stuff.

Read the rest of this entry �

We here at 7-Imp felt like it was some sort of small crime that we hadn’t yet interviewed Mo Willems, because he is one of our favorite author/illustrators and has been since he started creating books. We are grateful that he stopped by to rectify this matter (especially during 7-Imp’s random declaration of Picture Book Week), even though we’re sure he has the busiest of schedules right now.

If you are a devoted reader of our blog, that means you probably really care about and keep up with children’s literature. And if that’s the case, that means you’ve likely heard of Mo. Chances are, you (and your children and/or your students) already know and love Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!, his picture book debut in 2003, for which he was awarded a 2004 Caldecott Honor, and the series of Pigeon books that followed, including The Pigeon Finds a Hotdog! (2004) and Don’t Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late! (2006), all published by Hyperion. Child readers can easily identify with the persistent Pigeon and what this Caldecott blurb from ALA amusingly calls the “emotional blackmail” he puts to use in order to get what he wants, while — at the same time — as a School Library Journal review of Don’t Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late! put it, “{y}oungsters are thrust into the role of caregiver as the puerile pigeon attempts to talk his way out of the inevitable, coming up with requests that range from manipulative . . . to cajoling . . . to classic.” Ask any children’s librarian anywhere, and they’ll likely say: Just how exactly did we get by at story times before these wonderful read-alouds which invite audience participation from the children, giving them a chance to turn the tables and yell “NO!” repeatedly and enthusiastically?

And then in 2005, Mo was awarded a second Caldecott Honor for Knuffle Bunny (Hyperion), “a hilarious epic drama of miscommunication” (ALA blurb again — who writes those great things?) and what he calls at his site a “semi-autobiographical story” about a toddler named Trixie who joins her daddy on a laundromat errand in their Brooklyn neighborhood, only to leave her beloved stuffed bunny in the washing machine. And, well, we feel silly even describing it to you, ’cause if you love children’s lit, you’ve likely read this book (unless you’ve been living in a laundry machine) with its sepia-toned photographs upon which are superimposed cartoon drawings of people. Booklist called it a “comic gem” to which a lot of children and their parents all over this country responded: Word. (Knuffle Bunny was also made into a Carnegie Medal-winning animated short, featuring the voices of the entire Willems’ gang and some pretty kickin’ jazz by Robert Reynolds and Scotty Huff). Read the rest of this entry �

. . . Or how about Ursus-tastic?

Yeesh.

Anyway, yes, it’s Picture Book Week here at 7-Imp! Just a random declaration of an entire week of lovin’ those picture books. Normally, we feature blogger interviews on Mondays, but this week will be a tad different. Plus, we’ll bring you our interview with Mo Willems tomorrow, so that’ll be fun.

We got things started yesterday with a little feature on Jonathan Bean at our kicks list, including an illustration he shared with us, and a picture book round-up. Here are some new titles all about bears that, for one reason or another, stand out to me. Think of it as a sort of Part Two to this post from May — some picture book titles you can’t bear to miss. Buh-dum-ching. As Little Willow pointed out last time, if Stephen Colbert (or shall we say Colbeart) hears of this, I’ll end up on ThreatDown, but I take my chances.

(Yeesh again. I’m just going to get right to it then) . . .

No cutesy, anthropomorphic teddy bears for you here in this lengthy and well-written picture book by Canadian author Victoria Miles with oil-and-chalk illustrations from Molly Bang. “Rare is the bear who lives to a ripe old age,” Miles tells us. The tale is fictionalized but is based upon a grizzly bear in the Flathead River Valley of southern British Columbia along the Montana border. Bruce McLellan, a biologist, observed a bear dubbed “Blanche” (or grizzly #385) and recorded her existence for posterity, and it is this bear around which Miles’ story revolves. In a dignified, reverent, and realistic manner (yet sometimes a bit lyrical: at the inevitable death of the bear in the book’s close — handled beautifully and lovingly by Miles — she writes: “In the night, a crying storm descended upon the slope. But the grizzly bear knew nothing of it. She was already gone, past drowse and beyond winter. Her memory she left with every cub she had ever reared; her body she released to the mountain”), she writes of the life of a grizzly bear living on a mountainside, starting with the birth of three cubs during a hibernation (and recalling the bear’s own birth twenty-four summers before) and ending with the spring of her twenty-seventh year when “the old she-bear awoke in a worn body.” We read about her nursing and nurturing her young; their emergence from the mountainside through the wet snow; tearing the meat loose from a deer for food for her family; hunting for ground squirrels during the spring; defending her young from a male grizzly while eating blueberries; the “slow, steady ache {that} accompanied her everywhere” as spring continues in the mountain and her cubs grow; and another winter hibernation. In the third summer of her cubs’ lives, they left their mother: “And every summer, when the huckleberries were ripe, both {sisters} would trace the tracks of their mother up into the alpine meadows.” Miles handles the old mother bear’s death at the end of the book with great respect and even tenderness: Read the rest of this entry �

Here are my 7 Kicks for this week, my Part Two, if you will, to today’s 7 Kicks post. These are seven picture books that I read this week that made me happy in one way or another, all in the name of kicking off Picture Book Week here at 7-Imp . . .

May I pretty please just send you to Betsy Bird’s wonderfully detailed review of this title (parts one and two)? She covers the all-around brilliance of this picture book, Lauren Thompson’s original cumulative tale about a young girl’s delight in the apple pie (“warm and sweet”) her farmer father has baked for her — starting with the apples, “juicy and sweet,” that he plucks from the tree on their farm — with the little girl’s help after she wakes in the morning and sees him trotting off with a ladder and a basket for the apples. As Betsy pointed out:

Read the rest of this entry �

{Note: For the rest of today’s Radar-Books schedule, scroll down to the bottom of this post} . . .

It’s arguable whether or not Nancy Crocker’s first novel, Billie Standish Was Here (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers), qualifies as a Radar-Book, as in a book which has been entirely too overlooked. In the grand scheme of things, it’s still a fairly young novel, having been released just this past June, not to mention it has received consistently good reviews: “Set in the late 1960s and early ‘70’s, this tender, touching account of intergenerational friendship provides rich historical context for two memorable female characters who redefine the meaning of family and love” (starred review in Kirkus Reviews), and “{t}his story is beautiful, painful, and complex, and the descriptions of people, events, and emotions are graphic and tangible” from School Library Journal. It was even chosen as a Summer 2007 Children’s Book Sense Pick.

But I’m still declaring it under the radar, because it didn’t get a whole heapin’ dose of blog buzz: The only other blog review I knew of was Kelly Herold’s from July, and I just found this one at a blog called Hypothetically Speaking.

Plus, to be perfectly honest, it is a great excuse for me to interview the author, Nancy Crocker, pictured above.

It’s the summer of 1968 in the small town of Cumberland, Missouri, and Billie — from whose perspective the entire novel is told — is eleven years old. Not only does she not register in her parents’ radar on any level whatsoever (other than providing her food and shelter, as if she’s simply a pet to feed), but the town, way past its heyday, suddenly seems even lonelier than normal after a long period of “bone-soaking rain.” School has ended for the summer. Daily, Billie finds herself alone in her room, as usual, her parents never there. When they are there, she is ashamed and afraid to speak up, doing so making her feel flat-out strange (after her mother makes one particularly hateful comment to Billie, she winces: “When she caught me off guard she could still make me wonder just when it was that she decided to stop taking care of me altogether”). After venturing out one day, she sees and hears no one, wondering why the town seems abandoned and feeling as if she might shrink. As she’s about to turn back for home, she sees and speaks to the neighbor across the street, Lydia Jenkins (“{s}he looked like every grandma in the world”) and learns that the town members are afraid the levee may break. Though everyone else seems to be off working to shore up levees against the river, Billie’s parents, Lydia tells her, are still working in the field every day, as always, Billie’s father having remembered that when the levee broke in ’51, there was enough time to sandbag before the water got to town. Eventually, Billie comes to learn that Miss Lydia is the only other person besides her family to stick around, and a friendship with her is born out of circumstance.

Here’s what else I wrote about Billie Standish in my review this past May of an advance proof of the novel: Read the rest of this entry �