Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

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I don’t want to tell you too much about the plot of Ethan Aldridge’s graphic novel Estranged (Harper, August 2018), because should you find a copy to read yourself, I don’t want to have ruined the plot for you. Regular 7-Imp readers may remember that Ethan’s artwork was featured here at 7-Imp when he was but a student. (EXCITING! to see his debut book be released.)

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Are you all up for some magical doors this morning? Who isn’t up for a magical door, right?

If you read and enjoyed JiHyeon Lee’s Pool (which I blogged about here in 2015), you may be happy to know she has a new book, also wordless, coming to shelves next month, called Door (Chronicle Books). It’s the story of a boy who finds a key, walks through a door, and encounters a fantastical world of creatures alien, but friendly, to him.

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“And the ash of those dying stars gathered into planets, and the planets circled other stars. But still … no bluebirds, no butterflies, still no snails, no giraffes,
still no you, no me.”
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Are you all ready to get cosmic? I’ve a review over at BookPage of Marion Dane Bauer’s The Stuff of Stars (Candlewick, September 2018), illustrated by Ekua Holmes. That is here.

Today here at 7-Imp, I’ve a bit of art from the book.

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” … is me and my brothers’ bike.”
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I’ve a bit of art today from Maxine Beneba Clarke’s The Patchwork Bike (Candlewick, September 2018), illustrated by Van Thanh Rudd. First published in Australia and New Zealand in 2016, this is the story of a young girl, her “crazy brothers,” their “fed-up mum,” and their desert “mud-for-walls” home in a third-world country. The “best thing of all in our village,” the girl tells us, “is me and my brothers’ bike.” It is, as the title says, a patchwork bike made of spare parts — tin-can handles, wood-cut wheels, branches for handlebars, and the like. Read the rest of this entry �

“Kingfisher: the colour-giver, fire-bringer, flame-flicker, river’s quiver. …”
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The restoration of the missing words of nature via a spellbook. That’s what I have for you today, dear Imps.

Though Robert Macfarlane’s The Lost Words, illustrated by Jackie Morris — originally published last year in the UK but coming to American shelves in October from House of Anansi Press — makes no mention of the Oxford Junior Dictionary, it has a lot to do with the book’s very genesis. Here’s how Katharine Norbury explains it in this 2017 article at the Guardian:

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— From Chapter 16, “Angelus”: “I pressed into a corner as the hounds, desperate to attack, bayed round me. ‘Back,’ cried a huntsman striding in, whip in hand.”

 
I’m doing something a little bit different today. I’ve not got a picture book for you this morning, dear Imps. I have a novel.

This is one of my favorite books this year, Catherine Gilbert Murdock’s The Book of Boy (Greenwillow, February 2018). I like it so much that I’m reading it a second time — this time, I’m reading it out loud to my daughters.

“This story, like another, begins with an apple,” the book begins. This is the tale, set in Europe in 1350, of a boy who can talk to animals. His name is merely Boy. He is physically disfigured and mercilessly mocked for it. He is called a hunchback, and when he meets a mysterious pilgrim, named Secundus, in the medieval town of France where he lives, his life changes forever. In fact, when Boy leaves with Secundus (Secundus is impressed with his ability to jump and climb) to help the pilgrim find the seven relics of Saint Peter — rib, tooth, thumb, toe, dust, skull, tomb — it’s the first time Boy ever leaves the only home he’s ever known. He pilgrims to the city of Rome with Secundus in the hopes that Saint Peter can remove his hump and make him a real boy.

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“Lula says: ‘This is hard work, Daddy.’ ‘It is,’ Daddy says.
‘But see what we’ve done already, even without Akaraka.’
‘Daddy!’ Lula laughs. ‘Akaraka can’t sweep.’ ‘Oh?’
‘She’s an imaginary girl.'”
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Has anyone else noticed how many superb picture books former editor and now-author Richard Jackson has been penning? I tell you what, they have been some of my favorite picture book texts in the last couple of years. Last year’s This Beautiful Day, illustrated by Suzy Lee; last year’s All Ears, All Eyes, illustrated by Katherine Tillotson; and 2016’s In Plain Sight, illustrated by Jerry Pinkney, are but a few examples. The legendary editor retired in 2005 and has taken up picture book-writing. Here is a great PW piece about him, published two years ago.

His newest picture book — A Kiss for Akaraka (Greenwillow), illustrated by E. B. Goodale — will be on shelves in late September. This is the story of a father and daughter (Lula) outdoors, raking leaves and discussing the girl’s imaginary friend, Akaraka. I just read the Kirkus review for the book, where the reviewer writes: “Questions about what we see and what we don’t see, what we know and what we don’t know ripple through this beguiling book like a playful October wind.” Ah, yes. Well-said. Read the rest of this entry �

 
Good morning, one and all. It’s the first Sunday of the month (August already? WHUT), and that means I have a student or newly-graduated illustrator visiting today. In this case, it’s the latter. I welcome Amber Ma today. I love to pore over her detailed, beguiling artwork, and since she tells you about it below, as well as generously shares lots of art, let’s get right to it.

Thanks again to Amber for stopping by today. …

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” … Thingummy muttered, ‘Flazing blame.’
Bob said, ‘It’s hed hed rot!
Smorld up in woke — a sheadful drame,
When smorld is all we’ve got!'”
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Here’s a picture book that arrived on shelves in April but was created in 1970 and is publishing for the first time in North America. The Dangerous Journey was the last picture book completed by the legendary Finnish author-illustrator Tove Jansson. This new edition, published by Drawn & Quarterly, was translated by Sophie Hannah.

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I’m doing something a little bit different today and sending you over to the Horn Book. I reviewed Grace Lin’s A Big Mooncake for Little Star (Little, Brown, August 2018), one of my very tip-top favorite picture books thus far this year. (I said that on Friday, too, about this book, but they are both top-five favorites for me.)

The review is up at their site here.

And how about that cover art up there?

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