Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

 
If you are a fan of Edward Gorey’s books, you may be interested in Lori Mortensen’s new picture book biography, Nonsense! The Curious Story of Edward Gorey (Versify), illustrated by Chloe Bristol and coming to shelves in March. Evidently, Gorey would have turned 95 this year.

Mortensen writes in a chummy tone — “Greetings, Dear Reader!” the book opens — with hints of (and tributes to) Gorey’s writing style throughout. She kicks things off in 1925 with Gorey as a child, a “dandy boy who looked out his window, drew sausage-shaped pictures of city-bound trains, and taught himself to read.” She marks his introduction to the books that would eventually change his life — such “quaint and curious” and “dark and disturbing” books as Dracula and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

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“And some don’t have a clue yet that one day they’ll be president.”

I reviewed Kate Messner’s The Next President: The Unexpected Beginnings and Unwritten Future of America’s Presidents (Chronicle), illustrated by Adam Rex and coming to shelves in March, for the Horn Book. And that review has been posted over there. As I wrote in my review, there are picture books aplenty about U.S. presidents, but I recommend you make way for this breath of fresh air. To read the entire review, head here.

Today here at 7-Imp, I have some spreads from the book, and Adam also shares some early sketches. I thank him for sharing.

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I’m breaking my own rules again here at 7-Imp. Normally, I feature illustration students on the first Sunday of each month, but hey, I feel like featuring one day. So I am.

Meet Mel Valentine Vargas! They are, as they will tell you at their site, a Chicago-based Latinx illustrator and comics-creator. Mel, as explained below, is currently attending Columbia College Chicago, studying illustration and animation. Mel likes inking illustrations with brush pen work, and they also enjoy exploring new ways to detail and texture their work digitally.

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“Inshallah you plant gardens filled with sweet fruits.”
(Click spread to enlarge)

 
Want to see some spreads today from Like the Moon Loves the Sky (Chronicle), written by Hena Khan and illustrated by Saffa Khan? Saffa — a printmaker, as well as an illustrator — was born in Pakistan and now lives in Scotland, and I’ve a few of her vividly colored spreads to show off here at 7-Imp today. The book will be on shelves in early March.

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“I wrote Just Like a Mama to celebrate and affirm adopted children. I also wrote it to acknowledge the aunts, grandmothers, and
big sisters who cheerfully care for children not their own.”

Over at Tennessee’s Chapter 16, I talk to author Alice Faye Duncan about her newest picture book, Just Like a Mama (Denene Millner Books, January 2020), illustrated by Charnelle Pinkney Barlow.

My chat with Duncan is here. (Note: Barlow actually visited 7-Imp last year to talk about making the illustrations for this, her debut picture book. That post is here.)

Enjoy!

“…Flory played the songs of her Nona, and they helped her feel closer to home.”

 
I’m happy to be a part of the Association of Jewish Libraries’ 2020 Sydney Taylor Book Award Blog Tour with a visit today from author Debbie Levy. Levy won a Sydney Taylor Honor Book in the Picture Book Category for The Key from Spain (Kar-Ben, August 2019), illustrated by Sonja Wimmer.

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“Suffragists didn’t / Give up on the fight,
And the Nineteenth Amendment / Gave women the right.”

 
Today, illustrator Magdalena Mora visits to talk a bit about creating the illustrations for Equality’s Call: The Story of Voting Rights in America (Beach Lane, February 2020), written by Deborah Diesen, as well as share some early sketches and final art. This is Mora’s debut as a picture book illustrator.

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“She grows thinner and slower. She loses her hair. Her wings fray and tatter. Summertime bees do not live long. And Apis is now thirty-five days old. She has flown back and forth between nest and blossoms, five hundred miles in all.”
(Click to enlarge and see spread, including the text, in its entirety)

 
Bzz. Bzz. Today, I’ve got some spreads from Candace Fleming’s and Eric Rohmann’s newest book for young readers, Honeybee: The Busy Life of Apis Mellifera (Neal Porter/Holiday House, February 2020). Eric also shares some preliminary images and shows us how to un-angry a bee.

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(Click spread to enlarge)

 
Pictured above are the opening endpapers of Anne Hunter’s Where’s Baby? (Tundra, January 2020). These endpapers make me happy, proof as they are of the book’s understated, droll humor. As you can see, Papa Fox is looking for Baby Fox and, though he searches in earnest, his baby is never out of readers’ sight. Children love to be one up on a protagonist, so expect consistent squeals of delight from this one.

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It’s the first Sunday of the month, which means I have the work of a student or otherwise debut illustrator. Today, I welcome Dani Choi. Dani is an illustrator based in New York, who graduated with a BFA in Communication Design from Washington University in St. Louis and is now getting her MFA in Illustration as Visual Essay at the School of Visual Arts. I thank her for sharing art today, and I’m going to turn 7-Imp over to her so that we can learn more about her and her work.

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