Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

It’s summer in Lynne Rae Perkins’ new picture book, in which a family takes a trip to “the old family farm. No one lived at the farm anymore, but our grandparents were spending the summer there and we were going to visit them.” The story, told from the perspective of one of the two young children in the family, is packed with the child-centered detail for which Perkins is known (and, as usual for Perkins, by bringing us the idiosyncrasies of one particular family, she manages to bring us the universal). Getting things rolling right away on the title and CIP page, Perkins shows us that the children have some pretty vivid ideas of what this vacation could be (“maybe we will stop at a motel with a pool”). The boy dreaming of mountain climbing and the father dreaming of butter tarts, we see how “vacation” can be defined in wildly different ways, depending on the family member. And, pulling out tiny cameras and notebooks for the children before the trip begins, the mother provides our young narrator with some tools that can be used to bring us, as readers, a multi-media (her photos and notebook writing) account of their vacation and that can be used as a receptacle for her memories.

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I feel like it’s been a little while since I’ve talked about books, what with my computer issues this week (I’m beginning to wonder if the phrase “customer service” should now be “customer disservice” anymore, but I digress). Here are two picture book reviews that I managed to pull off this week, even with a terribly slow or altogether useless modem. More to come later, as I still have a huge stack. Happy Saturday to all . . .

If you’re a fan of Kevin Hawkes’ illustrations for Andrea Beaty’s imaginative ’06 title, When Giants Come to Play, then you will likely take much pleasure in his depiction of yet another larger-than-life (in more ways than one) character. This time it’s a wicked big toddlah. There’s nothing about this tot’s life that is any different from any other toddler’s – except that he’s ginormous. The title page spread brings us a stork carrying a hugely huge baby in his bill, heading straight toward the state of Maine (hence, the “toddlah” pronunciation, of course), and it’s on the opening page that the chuckles come, as we see that the poor bird -– complete with plaid hunting cap — is about to burst from the weight of it all and is doing everything he can just to stay up in the air. Read the rest of this entry �

Remember last year’s wonderfully impish Wolves (the Cybils shortlister) by Emily Gravett? Well, this year she’s back with two titles. Rather, one of them — Orange Pear Apple Bear (Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing) — was published last year, but we’re seeing the first American edition this month, and the other one — Monkey and Me (Macmillan Children’s Books) — was released in April in the U.K.

For these two titles, Gravett drops the dry humor and winks and nudges that permeate Wolves and, apparently, Meerkat Mail (a title from last year I’m still waiting to read) and brings us stories a bit more stripped down but just as charming as any of her other titles. I know “charming” is a bit cliché in book reviewing, but MY GOD, THE CHARM. The woman’s work just reeks charisma and buckets of child appeal. Does she possess some sort of supernatural power? Hmmm, I’m beginning to wonder. She is one of my top-five new favorite picture book illustrators. Thank heavens she showed up.

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Yeesh, that’s a particularly painful post title, but my creativity is put to the test with each new picture book round-up. Let’s just forget it and get right to the books then . . .

Here’s to a determined advancement of one’s own views as only Emily Jenkins can tell it; make way (again) for Daffodil! As you may recall from the 2004 title, Daffodil is one of three sisters who all look alike and who all have rather florid names (Violet and Rose are her sisters). Even their poor mother sometimes can’t tell the girls apart. Always charming those they meet, without even meaning to (“They’re such NICE little girls . . . So clean. So pretty. So quiet. Like a bouquet of flowers”), Daffodil gets a bit fed up with being mistaken for her sisters, even in school, and with all the rather condescending, cutesy attention paid to her. One day she takes the papier mâché project her mother is creating, a crocodile head that fits just perfectly, and wears it around. “I like it! . . . Crocodiles are not flowers . . . Raaa raaa raaa Chomp chomp chomp,” she tells her sisters. Read the rest of this entry �

Yeah, I need to just drop the whole parts-to-a-whole idea on my picture book round-ups. If you haven’t noticed, I’m trying to be more productive when it comes to reviewing new picture books, and I have decided to review as many new titles as I can this year. Perhaps at the end of the year, I can say that here at 7-Imp I reviewed (or co-reviewed with Eisha) a Cybil winner or the Caldecott Honor or some such thing. Plus, I enjoy it immensely. Even if I didn’t have two young children who enjoy them, too, I’d be returning from the library with a huge stack of them every week.

So, I’m going to forgo the whole Part So-and-So idea and continue reviewing as many of them as I possibly can in various and asundry picture book round-ups. Onwards then . . .

I made that book cover image huge on purpose. Isn’t that a handsome book? There’s no dust jacket; the book is covered in a rich red fabric; the black letters you see there (the title and author/illustrator) are embossed; the wonderfully weird small illustration centered there does not overwhelm the cover; and the endpages are mysterious and gorgeous. Keep going, and it gets even better. Yoo’s detailed watercolored etchings are simply divine. For the most part, they’re rather opaque, but then Yoo knows exactly when to bring the light in. The colors are primarily sepia-toned — nothing more than browns, blacks, and a bit of grey — until the fish appears in bright red . . . Yes, JeJe is visiting his grandfather at his old library in the middle of the forest, and he’s brought along his little red fish for the visit. It’s the first time JeJe’s ever seen the library, crammed with books wall-to-wall, and he’s amazed and explores freely. He soon falls asleep, and when he wakes, the room is dark and empty, and “{h}e felt as though he had been swallowed up by the darkness.” Read the rest of this entry �

Teaching sequencing skills, anyone? You will want to experience this title, in which LaRochelle takes the traditional fairy tale structure and turns it on its head, saying “shh, shh, don’t speak” to conventional storytelling. And it’s delightful. I’m even going to tack a star onto this little review (though I’m not planning on making this a habit), just ’cause I like this book so much and just for fun and just so the star might catch your eye . . . When you read this one, you learn that “once upon a time a clever princess decided to make a big bowl of lemonade,” but that, in fact, is the final spread in the book (well, right before the closing title page spread). Read the rest of this entry �

God, this book is funny. Just. so. funny. And, apparently, I’m not the only one who thinks so; it garnered quite a bit of advanced praise and then managed to get some good reviews (from The Horn Book and School Library Journal to name just a couple). I have David Elzey’s review at The Excelsior File to thank for first making me want to go out and find a copy. Here’s what so funny: Grumpy Bird just wakes up pissed off. I love it. There are some of us for whom the phrase “woke up on the wrong side of the bed” simply has no meaning. There can be “a” wrong side? Both sides are always glaringly wrong and we wake up feeling as if the center of gravity were directly under our bed and need about, oh, at least one hour and several cups of coffee to facilitate actually speaking to anyone without grumbling and cursing and swearing. Read the rest of this entry �

Bah-dum-ching. Awful pun. Sorry. Yup, more from my huge stack of new picture book titles that please me for one reason or another, and I grouped some of the ones about bears together here in this post, ’cause, uh, I’m a dork. And ’cause I have such a huge pile of great books about various topics and with all kinds of protagonists — animal or not — that I can.

This picture book is a gem, a little sparkly, shinybright gem. At the Thank You Bear site, you’ll see that someone has said, “It’s the new Emperor’s New Clothes” (actually, that someone who said that is Karl Lagerfeld. Yes, the fashion designer. The Thank You Bear site has all kinds of celebrity endorsements — from David Bowie to David Byrne to Michael Stipe — if you care about that kind of thing). I get the Emperor vibe, but I think it has more of a Carrot Seed sensibility about it . . . “Early one morning, a little bear found a box,” the book opens. We, as the reader, aren’t sure what is in the box, if anything, but we do know that the little bear looked inside and said, “‘Why, it’s the greatest thing ever! Mouse will love this.'” But when he shows the box to the monkey, the owl, the fox, the elephant, the squirrel, and the bunny, they all — in one way or another — rain on his parade. Read the rest of this entry �

If I were a cheerleader (shudder), I’d be doing one of those thrust-my-arms-up-and-forward-and-wave-my-fingers-in-the-air thingies for the return of Hondo and Fabian. If you’re familiar with McCarty’s first book (from 2002) featuring this dear duo (and if you’re not, oheavensgoreaditrightnow!), you know that Hondo got to have the adventure. Well, now it’s Fabian’s turn. And it’s perfect and so spot-on funny, I tell ya, and with the same understated humor that graced Hondo and Fabian. Opening in the same way as the previous title (sweet, sweet words to read if you’re a Hondo and Fabian fan) — “Fabian on the windowsill, Hondo on the floor — two sleepy pets in their favorite places” — we see that Hondo gets to go out for his walk, but he immediately returns and “Fabian escapes out the window. Fabian will have an adventure.” Right on, Fabian! Way to make things happen. McCarty juxtaposes the two adventures (who says you can’t have some fun inside, too?): Fabian’s outside eating flowers, while Hondo’s in the kitchen eating a stick of butter; Fabian “meets the neighbors” (that aforementioned wonderfully understated humor, as Fabian’s staring at a row of dogs, we see in the illustration), while it’s Hondo’s turn to get mildly tortured by the baby! Poor Fabian; those friendly neighbors “are happy to play chase with their new friend.” And poor Hondo; the baby wants to play dress-up. When it’s all said and done, Fabian’s welcomed home, just as Hondo was in the last adventure. McCarty scores once again with his minimalist text; detailed, texturized pencil art and soft, muted colors in his sophisticated yet welcoming style; and his subtle humor. He’s a class act, once again showing us that when the pleasures are simple, life is good.

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{Note: Today’s Poetry Friday round-up is being handled here by the honorable Ms. Herold at Big A, little a} . . .

Don’t you just love illustrator Margaret Chodos-Irvine? I do. She just gets better and better with each book, too.

Her newest illustrated title, Only You, just came out (April ’07; Harcourt Children’s Books; my source: library copy), and it’s my Poetry Friday entry for today, because it’s a lyrical, rhymed picture book text about parental love, written by Robin Cruise (who also authored last year’s Little Mamá Forgets, reviewed here by Yours Truly). As Booklist put it so well, “There’s no shortage of lyrical books that recount the way parents feel about their children. This one has the advantage of illustrations by Chodos-Irvine.”

As for the rhyming text, it’s lilting and comforting, as an effective bed-time story should be (it doesn’t set out to be a bed-timer, but the book shows all the ways a parent and child show love for one another, thus making it a great, soothing, quiet way to end a child’s day). This could also be one of those bestsellers that gets passed around from parent to new parent, what with the very subject’s built-in sentimentality. Read the rest of this entry �