Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

“I’d like to know what a pelican thinks of a sandpiper …”

 
“When I visit my grandparents at the beach, we stay in a little house. It is so close to the water, you can hear the waves.” This is the voice of the protagonist of Kevin Henkes’s Little Houses (Greenwillow, May 2022), illustrated by Laura Dronzek. She runs up and down the shore, explores shells, and wonders about the ocean — its surface (“how it can be blue and gray and green and silver and white and black, all at the same time”) and what’s underneath (“fish as big as cars”). She’s particularly fascinated by the shells, what her grandmother describes as “little houses.”

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“And wait. And wait.”
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I’ve a review over at the Horn Book of Candace Fleming and Amy Hevron’s The Tide Pool Waits (Neal Porter Books/Holiday House, April 2022), an informative and appealing nonfiction picture book.

That review is here. Today here at 7-Imp are some spreads.

Enjoy! [Note: Reading this review at their site may require a subscription to the Horn Book.]

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Let’s take a look this morning at Howard Scwartz’s All You Need (Neal Porter Books/Holiday House, April 2022), illustrated by Jasu Hu. This is the picture book debut for Hu, born in China and now living in New York, and I can’t wait to see what she does next.

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“What do you call a flower that flits from bird to bird?
Cómo se llama una flor que vuela de pájaro en pájaro?”
(Click spread to enlarge and read text in its entirety)

 
Today, let’s enter the world of Pablo Neruda, as brought to us by illustrator Paloma Valdivia, translator Sara Lissa Paulson, and the team at Enchanted Lion Books. Book of Questions: Selections/Libro de las preguntas: Selecciones, on shelves this month, is presented in both English and Spanish.

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In Elaine M. Alexander’s Anglerfish (Candlewick, April 2022), illustrated by Fiona Fogg, readers meet and follow a female anglerfish. We meet her “far, far below the ocean’s surface” as she glides through the water, looking for food. Given that she swims in what is called the midnight zone, a deep black dominates these spreads, the anglerfish’s bioluminescent fishing rod lighting up the waters.

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Shannon Hale’s and Tracy Subisak’s This Book Is Not for You! (Dial, April 2022) is the story of Stanley. Poor Stanley. Excitedly, he heads to the bookmobile. You can tell he’s a kid who loves to read. Ms. Christine, the regular bookmobile worker, is not there. When Stanley tries to check out The Mysterious Sandwich, the subtitute librarian tells him it’s a book for girls, and Stanley is embarrassed for being called out about his reading choices. And when Stanley’s friend Valeria appears, the librarian gives her the book. The cat gets a book about cats, and when Stanley asks for a robot book, the old man says that only robots can read robot books. “Stanley smiled,” we read. “He had to be joking, right?” We are with you, Stanley. We. are. with. you.

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Doug Salati’s Hot Dog (Knopf), his first book as an author-illustrator, will be on shelves in May. And you’ll really want to find a copy of this brilliantly constructed story of one dog’s (and human’s) escape to the sea.

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Andrea Wang’s Luli and the Language of Tea (Neal Porter Books, May 2022), illustrated by Hyewon Yum, ushers readers into a child-care room for those learning English as a second language. As you can see pictured below, Luli enters and sees all the other children playing alone. None of the children speak English, and no one is interacting.

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I’ve a review over at BookPage of Kate Hoefler’s Courage Hats (Chronicle, March 2022), illustrated by Jessixa Bagley. That review is here.

And here today at 7-Imp are some spreads.

Enjoy!

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(Click spread to enlarge)

 
“In Ukraine,” writes Yevgenia Nayberg in her new picture book I Hate Borsch!! (Eerdmans, April 2022), “you were supposed to love borsch from the first moment you picked up the vegetables.” But as a child, Yevgenia hated borsch. In this very funny — and ultimately touching — story, she learns to appreciate it after she discovers that “there was something missing” in American food.

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