Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

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Dave Eggers’s Most of the Better Natural Things in the World (Chronicle, November 2019), illustrated by Angel Chang, follows a white tiger. She carries a chair on her back, lugging it across the globe and across various landscapes — a gorge, a valley, a lagoon, an alpine lake, a chaparral, a tundra, and much more. Each spread contains the name of each geographic settting. She stops to sit and take in a breathtaking vista (pictured below) that appears in a dramatic double gatefold spread. The book closes with a four-page glossary that gives more information on each landscape.

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Nic plays the double bass and, after a performance at his school (where he pulls off an “epic solo”), he heads to his grandfather’s, the giant instrument strapped to his body like an over-sized backpack. As he wields his way through the busy city streets — managing to carry the instrument as gracefully as possible; getting past a vicious dog; overcoming the rain and disparaging comments from other children (“nice tie, chump”) — he hears music in the city noises (the “whoosh, whoosh” of windshield wipers) and the rain (“plunk, plunk, plunk”) until he’s safe and warm at granddaddy’s. Granddaddy Nic is also a musician, and waiting with him are his friends — a drummer, a saxophonist, and a trumpet player. It’s time to make music.

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I’ve a review over at BookPage of Caldecott Honoree Oge Mora’s newest picture book, Saturday (Little, Brown, November 2019). So good, this one. You can head here to read the review, and below are some spreads from the book, as well as a few preliminary images from Oge. I thank her for sharing.

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I’m happy to host Jarrett Pumphrey and his brother Jerome Pumphrey here at 7-Imp today. Their debut picture book (as both authors and illustrators), The Old Truck, will be on shelves in January (Norton Young Readers), and it’s the story of a truck that lives on a small farm and the girl who grows up with it. The story is a celebration of family, persistence, and female badassery (you will read below that this story was inspired by the strong women in Jarrett’s and Jerome’s family). You will also read on the book’s jacket flap that the two brothers created more than 250 individual stamps to make these illustrations. Fortunately, in their visit today they talk more about that and share some process images. So, let’s get right to it, and I thank them for visiting!

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The Horn Book has posted my review of A Big Bed for Little Snow (Little, Brown, October 2019), Grace Lin’s follow-up to last year’s A Big Mooncake for Little Star, which won a Caldecott Honor. That review is here, if you’d like to read more about the book.

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Over at BookPage, I’ve got a round-up of three beautiful new picture books that take readers through all four seasons. The covers are pictured above, and the feature is here.

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I had different plans for today, dear Imps, but some unexpected events in my Saturday ate up my day — and kept me from formatting the post I wanted to format. I’ll have that later this week at 7-Imp, but what I do have for you today is a reminder that over at the Horn Book’s Calling Caldecott, we are taking deep dives into some of the most outstanding picture books of the year — including, thus far, the ones pictured above. So, if you love picture books, you can head over there to see some of what our talented guest posters have had to say this year.

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See that guy on the right? That’s Reuben of Troop 73, and he’s not the most self-aware dude. He is, in fact, the king of false accusations. He’s peed his pants, blames it on everyone else, and never really comes to understand that it’s his own doing. In fact, in the end he blames his pants. (“Thanks for nothing, leaky broken pants! Making me blame all my super great friends.”)

This is the story of Bob Shea’s Who Wet My Pants? (Little, Brown, September 2019), illustrated by Zachariah OHora. Child readers looooove to be one-up on the protagonist in a story. They’ll recognize that Reuben has — heaven bless him, it happens to the best of us — had an accident yet can’t accept it. He’d rather play the blame game, which … hey, it’s a tempting thing for even the non-narcissistic among us. Read the rest of this entry �

 
Those of you who follow picture books closely may remember this 2015 publication, The Only Child. Named one of the New York Time’s Best Illustrated Children’s Books for that year, it was created by author-illustrator Guojing. She’s back with a new wordless book (Schwartz & Wade, September 2019), called Stormy, the story of a stray dog who finds a new home.

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I am happy to see a new picture book illustrated by Daniel Egnéus, who has illustrated two of my favorites this year (see here and here). This is Wendy Meddour’s Grandpa’s Top Threes (Candlewick, September 2019), and it a moving look at grief — and how it affects a child and his grandparent. It was evidently first published in the UK as Tibble and Grandpa.

“Henry was talking,” the book opens. “But Grandpa was gardening. Again.” I love this. We see young Henry on the verso; it appears that he is expounding in great detail on one topic or another, finger in the air as if to accentuate his point. On the recto, there is Grandpa. Yes, he’s gardening, but he seems lost in thought. Or maybe just lost.

Henry asks his Mom why Grandpa is always gardening, to which she tells him: “Just give him some time.” Henry fails to reach his Grandpa — until, that is, he engages him in the top three game. “What are your top three sandwiches?” he asks him one day. Grandpa’s face lights up a bit. Then they discuss their top three jellyfish, trains, and days-out. The latter is Grandpa’s idea, asking his grandson what he’d like to do that day. (“The zoo. The swimming pool. The park,” Henry exclaims.)

The life seems to be seeping back into Grandpa, thanks to his ebullient grandchild, filled with joy and a bustling energy. It is when Henry asks Grandpa who his “top three Grannies” are that it is revealed Grandpa is mourning the loss of his wife. (See the spread below.) It is a deeply felt moment, tender and restrained.

Meddour writes with a delightful specificity: Henry’s answers to the top three game are detailed, often funny, and reveal much about his personality. She succinctly captures Grandpa’s grief (“Grandpa made a little grunty noise”). Read the rest of this entry �