Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

“While we were speaking, a horse suddenly rose out of the waves of the sea. …”
(Click to enlarge illustration)

 
Good morning, Imps! Today I’ve got the artwork of author-illustrator and animator Rashin Kheiriyeh (here she is pictured with Lisbeth Zwerger just last month), who was born in Iran and studied graphic design at the University of Tehran, as well as the School of Visual Arts in New York, and now lives in D.C. She has illustrated more than 50 children’s books (in such countries as France, Italy, Iran, the United States, Japan, Germany, Spain, South Korea, China, and India) and has also illustrated for such newspapers as the New York Times and Le Monde diplomatique. She’s the winner of a New Horizon Award from the Bologna Children’s Book Fair and the winner of the Golden Apple Award at the Biennial of Illustration Bratislava (BIB) in Slovakia.

The illustrations featured here today are from The Seven Voyages of Sinbad the Sailor, retold by SAID and to be released by NorthSouth Books this coming week (if I have my release-date facts straight). Sinbad’s tale is part of Thousand and One Nights (or, as it’s often referred to, One Thousand and One Nights or Arabian Nights). As this book’s intro notes:

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“Yes, but how? Traveling is out of the question!
Cathy is much too weak to go on an expedition.
What to do …? What to do …?
Cathy tries to laugh and tells Eiffel with a wink,
‘You could build us a railway that takes us up to the clouds in a blink.'”
(Click to enlarge)

 
When the New York Times Best Illustrated Children’s Books of 2015 were recently announced, I noticed Alice Brière-Haquet’s Madame Eiffel: The Love Story of the Eiffel Tower, illustrated by Csil, on the list. Published for English readers this year by Little Gestalten but originally published in French, this book has been sitting in one of many giant stacks of new picture books in my home for a while now, but there’s nothing like the NYT list to make you sit up and pay attention and go pull a book out of its pile.

I can see the pull the book must have had on this year’s judges, especially since the award is given for illustration — and the artwork is elegant, graceful. It’s the story of engineer Gustave Eiffel and his wife, Cathy, “the prettiest girl in Paris.” As the sub-title tells you, it’s a love story. Cathy gets ill, and Eiffel builds the tower in her honor. “Rumor has it that sometimes at night you can see their shadow appear in the street light.”

Here’s what the judges wrote about Csil’s artwork:

With a strict palette of black and white with dabs of light rosy red, Csil’s intricate, lacy pen-and-ink illustrations convey Eiffel’s keen attention to detail, along with the allure of Paris and the high-flying ambition of his tower. The effect is romantic and utterly charming, inviting you to look and look at the pages.

Here are a couple more spreads from the book so that you can see for yourself. …

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Good morning, all. I’d initially planned on another post for today, but it will have to wait, since I wasn’t able to secure all the art for it in time.

Instead, I’ve got a review over at BookPage of Alessandro Gatti’s and Pierdomenico Baccalario’s The Story of Snowflake and Inkdrop, illustrated by Simona Mulazzani and released by Enchanted Lion Books this month. The book was originally published two years ago in Italy.

The review is here, and below is some more art from the book.

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” … only / Miss Augusta / and I / are here /
in a room / filled with magic / story / rhyme. …”
(Click image to see in detail and read the poem in its entirety)

 
I’m keeping things very brief today here at 7-Imp, though I do hope you leave your kicks from the week, because I’m traveling now. I’m in D.C. to moderate the third annual picture book panel at Politics & Prose. This will be tonight and is all about picture books for older readers with Jason Chin, Jacqueline Woodson, Christopher Myers, John Parra, and Chris Soentpiet. I’m looking forward to the discussion.

I’m sharing today my very favorite spread from Jumping Off Library Shelves: A Book of Poems (WordSong, September 2015), selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins and illustrated by Jane Manning. These are poems about libraries, blessed libraries, and I love this spread so much, as it pays tribute to the one and only Augusta Baker.

Note for any new readers: 7-Imp’s 7 Kicks is a weekly meeting ground for taking some time to reflect on Seven(ish) Exceptionally Fabulous, Beautiful, Interesting, Hilarious, or Otherwise Positive Noteworthy Things from the past week, whether book-related or not, that happened to you. New kickers are always welcome.

I do hope you leave your kicks, and it may take me a while to respond this week — but I will.

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It’s the first Sunday of the month (happy November!), so I’m featuring the artwork of a recent grad today. Her name is Amanda Moeckel, and she tells us all about herself below and shares more art, so let’s get right to it.

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It’s not the first Sunday of the month, which is when I tend to do my student-illustrator features here at 7-Imp, but I’ve been rather unorganized lately and haven’t done one in a while. So, why not today?

This morning I’ve got some artwork from Ellen Shi, who graduated in the Spring from RISD. Ellen has been an SCBWI scholarship recipient and has had work chosen for shows at the Society of Illustrators. I love the image above. Beautiful, yes? Just watch out for those wolves. Always.

Ellen tells us about herself and her work below, so let’s get to it. And I thank her for visiting.

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Remember how last week I had an older and lovely Julie-Paschkis sun? This week I’ve got a brand-new Steve-Light sun, and I thank him for letting me share it.

I’ve got just this one sun, since it’s been a busy week—my youngest daughter has turned ten and is celebrating with friends, and today we bury my father’s ashes—but I think this beautiful sun is pretty much all we need right now.

My kicks, one through seven, without any doubt: I have such kind and thoughtful friends, and I’m grateful for each of them.

What about you?

* * *

Note for any new readers: 7-Imp’s 7 Kicks is a weekly meeting ground for taking some time to reflect on Seven(ish) Exceptionally Fabulous, Beautiful, Interesting, Hilarious, or Otherwise Positive Noteworthy Things from the past week, whether book-related or not, that happened to you. New kickers are always welcome.

Hi, dear kickers. I emailed Julie Paschkis this weekend (she’s one of my very favorite illustrators), and I asked if I could post one of her cheery suns today. My father passed away this week, and I not only wanted one of her lovely suns, but I’m also not really prepared to showcase the work of anyone else today. I’ll get organized next week and perhaps back to “normal” blogging habits when life settles down a bit. I thank her for permission to share one of her sparkling suns.

p.s. Did you see here recently when Julie visited Jama Rattigan?

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Hey there, dear kickers. I had a post lined up today, saying that I’d be taking a week-long blog break. A couple months ago, I received the James Marshall Fellowship from the University of Connecticut. That means I’m going to head up there to look through the papers of author-illustrator James Marshall. (Big fan here of his work. I’m excited!) I was going to do that this week, but plans have changed. My father is actually on hospice and is, I think, nearing the end. So, I’ll do that trip another day, another time.

But that sudden change in plans left me with nothing to post today, especially since I’m out at my parents’ house. You all know it breaks my heart to put up a post without any art. I decided to ask the talented Moira Birch Swiatkowski, a regular kicker herself (and an artist previously featured here at 7-Imp), if she could share some art. She gave me permission to pick whatever image I wanted from her site, and I thought the above image was fitting. As you can read here, it’s all about breakfast and all about fathers.

Since I’m around this week after all, please do leave your kicks, if you’re so inclined.

[Note for any new readers: 7-Imp’s 7 Kicks is a weekly meeting ground for taking some time to reflect on Seven(ish) Exceptionally Fabulous, Beautiful, Interesting, Hilarious, or Otherwise Positive Noteworthy Things from the past week, whether book-related or not, that happened to you. New kickers are always welcome.]

“Ten! Ugh!”
A final spread, followed by its sketch

 
We’re going to say goodbye to summer today, dear kickers, with a book I had meant to post about during the summer months — but better late than never. We’ll use this opportunity to wave farewell to swimming outside and lounging in the sun, since this past week marked the first day of Autumn.

If you read about picture books as often as I do, you may have seen the New York Times coverage in May of Joyce Wan’s The Whale in My Swimming Pool (Farrar Straus Giroux, April 2015), where Emily Jenkins wrote, in part:

Wan is a greeting card designer and the creator of many board books. Her curvilinear and comforting style recalls Hello Kitty and other Japanese pop art in its fat dark lines and squat characters, but the hero has an antic physicality and a wide range of emotional expressions. Her world feels safe and joyful, even as the hero experiences anger and frustration.

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