Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

“I could get in some laughs with inside toys —
cars and games that bring much joy.”
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I know I’ve said here before at 7-Imp that my favorite thing about Instagram is the feed of artist and illustrator Charly Palmer (whom I got to interview back in 2017). If you missed his recent cover art for Time, see it here. Magnificent.

So, I was happy to see he’d illustrated a new picture book that, somehow, I missed back in May but finally read this past week. My Rainy Day Rocket Ship, written by Markette Sheppard, is the story of a boy who must play inside on a rainy day — and decides to take his imaginative play to the next level.

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Today’s featured picture book is from Estonian author Piret Raud, a book first published in France in 2016. Coming to shelves this August, Ellie’s Voice: or Trööömmmpffff was translated from Estonian by Adam Cullen and comes from Yonder, an imprint of Restless Books.

Ellie the bird is puzzled and sad to have no voice, especially when everyone and everything around her does: “The trees rustle. The waves crash. Even the rain sings when it falls.” When a trumpet washes ashore, Ellie is thrilled to create sounds with it, even if those sounds are awfully strange.

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“Your big dark eyes take in the world.
Will you be curious, like your uncle …”
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Today, I’ve got some spreads from Andrea Pippins’s Who Will You Be?, released back in April by Schwartz & Wade, in which a parent wonders who her child will grow up to be.

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This image was created just this past week by author-illustrator Elise Gravel.

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You all may remember this deferred-hug art from illustrator Susanna Chapman back in late March. Susanna visits 7-Imp again today to talk about creating the illustrations for Laurie Ann Thompson’s Elizabeth Warren’s Big, Bold Plans (Atheneum, May 2020).

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“… you are what I like the very, very most in the world.”
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Today, I’ve some illustrations from Mary Murphy’s new picture book, What I Like Most (Candlewick, April 2020), illustrated by Zhu Cheng-Liang. This terrifically child-friendly story is told from the point of view of a young girl, who tells readers about her world and what she values in it.

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It’s the first Sunday of the month, dear Imps, which means I welcome a student or otherwise relatively new-to-the-field illustrator here at 7-Imp. Today is a visit from Nan Coa, an illustrator living and working in New York City. Nan’s work has been recognized by American Illustration, the Society of Illustrators, Communication Arts, the AOI, 3×3 Magazine, and more. She tells us more about herself below and shares some artwork. I thank her for visiting. Let’s get right to it!

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Today, author-illustrator Lisa Brown visits to share some process images from the creation of her newest book, a graphic novel called The Phanton Twin (First Second, March 2020). It’s the story of conjoined twins — the Peabody Sisters, Isabel and Jane — raised, since the age of three, in a carnival sideshow.

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“Hello Bird, I’m the first one up. I found a carpet of strawberries and vines
close to the hole where I dozed off. …”
(Click image to see spread — and read text — in its entirety)

 
I’m greeting this Sunday with a Belgian import, Gauthier David’s Letters from Bear (Eerdmans, March 2020), illustrated by Marie Caudry. This is the sweet epistolary tale of one bear’s strange and slightly surreal journey to find a beloved friend — and the adventures had along the way.

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Have you seen Henry Cole’s Nesting (Katherine Tegen Books, March 2020) yet? The story follows a robin, whom we meet on a spring morning when the ground is covered in frost. The robin sings, calling forth a female robin — and the two birds build a nest. Once they have finished creating the nest, the mother robins settles in and lays “smooth and blue” eggs. When they hatch, the parents feed their babies and protect them from storms and predators. (There is a satisfying and dramatic encounter with a snake.) Eventually, the baby birds take flight and “grow strong and can feed themselves. Their wings take them anywhere they want to go.” The close of the story, the nest now covered in snow, brings us to winter with the promise of spring arriving again, which is how we readers began this adventure.

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