Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

 
I’m always excited to see a picture book with a story concept conceived by JonArno Lawson. Lawson’s newest, A Day for Sandcastles (Candlewick, May 2022), is illustrated by Qin Leng. Even better.

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I’ve a review over at BookPage of Lindsay Moore’s Yoshi and the Ocean: A Sea Turtle’s Incredible Journey Home (Greenwillow, May 2022).

That is here — it’s a remarkable story, this tale of Yoshi — and below are some spreads.

Enjoy!

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I’m sending you to the Horn Book today to read, if you’re so inclined, my review of Philip Stead’s Every Dog in the Neighborhood (Neal Porter Books/Holiday House), illustrated by Matthew Cordell and arriving on shelves in June. Here’s the review. This is, hands down, one of my favorite picture books thus far this year.

And then, if you’re so inclined again, you can look below to see some spreads.

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A color sketch
(Click image to enlarge)

 
When I was a child, I read Margery Williams’s The Velveteen Rabbit (or How Toys Become Real), originally published in 1922, over and over again — so often that I can still recite the book’s first paragraph by memory. I remember feeling chilled by the description of Nana, who “ruled the nursery.” I remember her “swooping about like a great wind” and being short-tempered and careless with the toys. It was my first lesson in how an author can depict so much about a character via their actions alone. I remember the Skin Horse’s words. And I was mesmerized by the fairy.

A reader can certainly have a nostalgic longing for a book they read as a child, but is the book good? I am all the time talking to my picture book grad students about this — about not letting that kind of thing get in the way of evaluating a book on its merits. For me, this book endures. This is why I was excited to see that Erin Stead has illustrated the 100th anniversary edition of the book, released in April by Doubleday. Erin put it well in this NPR piece: “The part that we all remember about talking about what’s real – that really carries with you for the rest of your life with all of the relationships you have, all the friendships that you’ll make, and all the times that people aren’t necessarily kind to you. There’s a lot of insecurities. There’s a lot of figuring out how you belong. It’s hard to shake a story that’s that honest.”

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“Matin is five. He is from Afghanistan. His waiting place is a field of shipping crates turned into homes, just below a misty mountain where ordinary people picnic and hike. …”
(Click spread to enlarge and read text in its entirety)

 
You’d be hard-pressed to find a children’s book this year as driving, urgent, passionate, and deeply felt as The Waiting Place: When Home Is Lost and a New One Not Yet Found (Candlewick, May 2022), which comes from author Dina Nayeri and photographer Anna Bosch Miralpeix. The book chronicles Nayeri’s and Miralpeix’s 2018 visit to Katsikas, a refugee camp near Ioannina, Greece.

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Martin and Alice Provensen
(Click image to enlarge)

 
I’m goin’ vintage today, you all. If you are fond of reading about picture books, illustration, the history of children’s literature, and (especially) the work of illustrators Alice and Martin Provensen (pictured above), I have two books here at 7-Imp today that will certainly pique your interest — each superb, spectacularly detailed, and lovingly designed.

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” … he woke to find a cold nose in his hand! Beside him was a big dog with a beautiful curve in its tail. The dog looked at him kindly and then
laid its heavy head on his shoulder.”

 
Barbro Lindgren’s The Tale of the Tiny Man, illustrated by Eva Erikkson, is evidently a classic Swedish picture book. Lindgren wrote it in 1979, and it’s been read and loved for nearly 45 years and has even been adapted to the stage. Last month Gecko Press released a new edition, translated by Julia Marshall.

And o! The drama! The pathos! The desolation! The joy! It’s ALL THE FEELINGS. And if the children in your life ask you to read it to them over and over and then some more, don’t be surprised.

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I’ve got a review over at the Horn Book of Mac Barnett’s spectacular The Great Zapfino (Beach Lane, April 2022), illustrated by Marla Frazee.

That review is here. And Marla visits today to talk about creating the illustrations for the book. Fortunately for all of us, she shares lots of images.

Let’s get right to it, and I thank her for sharing.

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“It’s spring! Every day, nature calls to us to come outside and play. Birds chirp in the garden. Trees rustle in the sunlight. It’s as if the entire countryside were waiting impatiently for us to wander through it. ‘Hey, guys! Want to go to the fort?’
‘Yes! To the fort!'”
(Click spread to enlarge)

 
If you saw last year’s exquisite Night Walk (named a 2021 New York Times/New York Public Library Best Illustrated Children’s Book) from Marie Dorléans, you might be very happy to know she has a new picture book. Our Fort (The New York Review Children’s Collection) — translated from the French by Alyson Waters and, like The Night Walk, originally published in 2020 — will be on shelves in early May.

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It’s been 17 years since the publication of Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell’s And Tango Makes Three, illustrated by Henry Cole. It tells the warmhearted true story of two male Emperor Penguins, Roy and Silo, at the Central Park Zoo. The two pair-bond, build a nest, and eventually hatch an egg (thanks to help from a zookeeper). Since its publication, this picture book has been one of the most challenged books in America. (Listing all its many challenges would find me slumped over my keyboard into my old age, so I’ll just send you here at Tango’s Wikipedia entry if you’re so inclined to read about the frequent challenges to the book.)

Justin and Peter have had well over a decade to acclimate to book challenges but have some thoughts about Florida’s House Bill 1557, otherwise known as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, even putting some of those thoughts into this Washington Post piece, addressed to K-3 teachers of Florida. (My favorite thing of 2022 thus far is when they write: “Probably best to give a wide berth to all books featuring gendered heavy machinery, at least until we can figure out what’s what.”)

Justin and Peter join me today to talk about Florida’s new law — and much more. I thank them for their time!

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