Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

I always look forward to new picture books from Polly Dunbar (who visited 7-Imp back in ’08).

Kirkus calls her newest, Arthur’s Dream Boat, released by Candlewick in February, a “real attention-getter.” In this book, Dunbar asks child readers to consider what is real and what is but a dream.

Arthur awakes one morning to recall an amazing dream. He’s got a sailboat on the mind — in more ways than one. He’s dreamt of one, not to mention there is a tiny sailboat perched on his head. (“A few years ago,” Dunbar notes in the book’s back-flap bio, “I was sitting on Brighton beach, looking out to sea. There was a small boy in the water and a boat far away on the horizon. For one magic moment, the boat looked as though it was perched on the boy’s head. I remember thinking, I’m the only one who can see that boat on his head; it must be a dream boat. And I drew a quick sketch.”)

He sets out to tell family members about his “amazing” dream, but no one is quite listening. Observant readers will notice that the boat is increasingly embellished with features he sees on or near his own family members—the rainbow-colored fish food his mother is tossing into the aquarium becomes the “polka-dotted sails,” and the baby food his sister is flinging around the kitchen becomes the “golden flag”—as well as other nautical clues, including a message in a bottle on the family’s kitchen table. Read the rest of this entry �

Do you know those really funny picture books that don’t get in the way of their own humor, that perhaps don’t even get how very funny they are, much like that wicked funny friend you have, who cracks you up yet doesn’t realize how wicked sharp her own wit is? Or perhaps doesn’t even know the power of her own goofy and how extremely entertaining it is to everyone around her?

Or, better yet, here are the words of the late, great James Marshall on the matter:

“[H]umor, which I do—comedy—is very tricky. You can’t show how hard you work. You can’t call attention to yourself. You can’t show the wheels turning. It’s got to be like a balloon that floats up into the air. You don’t make the reader, the viewer aware of anything but the story.”

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Happy Easter / Passover to one and all … Since I have children who do the Easter thing (egg hunts and such), I have bunnies for you all this morning.

To be exact, I’ve got Jan Thomas’s Easter bunny (plus one eager skunk) and Caldecott Honor winner Anita Lobel’s bunnies-plural. Read the rest of this entry �

Okay, I’m gonna be straight-up honest with you right off the bat this morning: No stealthy April Fool’s joke is hiding ’round the corner here at 7-Imp today. I know of other bloggers with sneaky, winky plans, but … well, since blogging comes after things like my children and work, I’m lucky to produce normal, non-jokey posts on a fairly consistent basis. My co-author, Peter D. Sieruta, even had a great idea for me. But, while I consider myself a mildly to moderately clever human (who really appreciated his funny suggestion), I have a terrible poker face, y’all, and I always ruin the punch line anyway.

Glad we got that out of the way.

So, no kidding, my post today is one of those where I feature a student or debut illustrator, since it’s the first Sunday of the month. (March, WHERE’D YOU GO anyway? That March. So zippy-quick and tricky.) Today it’s the latter, a self-taught debut author/illustrator, who lives in Michigan. His name is Kenneth Kraegel, and he’s visiting today to say a bit about his first book. Now, this picture book, King Arthur’s Very Great Grandson, comes out in July of this year (Candlewick), so I apologize for showing you art from a book you can’t quite yet purchase or find on library shelves, but July will be here before you know it. Moving on then … Read the rest of this entry �

I’m happy to have Piggy Bunny, the star of this book (Feiwel and Friends, February 2012), visiting today — and his creators, author Rachel Vail and “authorstrator” Jeremy Tankard. (Jeremy was the first-EVER subject of my 7-Imp breakfast interviews years ago.)

So, I’m going to do something kind of unusual for me here. I’m not going to say much right now in this intro to today’s post. Rachel and Jeremy do such a great job of talking about the genesis of and creation of this book that for me to go on about it—try to summarize it, that is—would be redundant. I’m grateful that they’re so forthcoming with their thoughts below.

As you’ll see, this is the story of Liam, a piglet who wants to be a bunny, and it all stemmed from a piece in Jeremy Tankard’s portfolio. Rachel decided she wanted to eschew writing yet another just-be-yourself tale in children’s lit and finds it the most subversive book she’s ever written. “Though the believe-in-yourself theme has been told in many ways,” writes Kirkus, “Liam holds his own with his quiet determination. Who can resist a piglet who introduces himself with ‘Hello, my name is Liam and I’ll be your Easter Bunny’?”

Indeed. So, let’s get right to it … I thank Rachel and Jeremy for sharing. Read the rest of this entry �

Anyone else seen Jeanette Winter’s newest picture book? My, it’s lovely.

Kali’s Song, released by Schwartz & Wade Books just last week (and already met with starred reviews from Kirkus and Publishers Weekly), is rendered in acrylics and pen and ink, using handmade paper. As always, I’ve got more art from it to share with you below, since the art says it all.

I don’t want to give too much away about this minimalist story, but I’ll summarize by saying that it’s about a boy, who lived “thousands and thousands and thousands of years ago,” who grows up to be a shaman. His mother is an artist, painting on the cave walls. But, seeing as how our characters here are cave people, she’s also a hunter, along with his father.

After being told to go practice shooting arrows, Kali heads out to do so, but at night, when resting, he plucks the strings on his bows to create music. “That night, the sounds from Kali’s bow filled his dreams with peace.”

And, again, I don’t want to give it all away, but what I’ve summarized so far captures the book’s major themes — peace and the power of art to bring it about. Read the rest of this entry �

Here’s a picture book I’ve been enjoying for a while and am finally featuring here at 7-Imp. Ashley Wolff’s Baby Bear Sees Blue was released in February by Beach Lane Books. Have you seen it yet? Heavens, it’s cozy and wake-you-right-up beautiful is what it is. This morning, Ashley (who has written and illustrated more than sixty books for children) is sharing some images and early thumbnails from the book.

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It’s the first Sunday of the month when I shine the spotlight on a student or debut illustrator, and this morning I bring you the latter.

Mississipian Sarah Frances Hardy will see her first picture book published this Spring. I haven’t seen a copy, but she’s here today to introduce herself and tell us a bit about it. And there’s even more information about her here at her site.

Without further ado, here’s Sarah Frances… Read the rest of this entry �

Today, I shine the spotlight on a nonfiction picture book, called Brothers at Bat: The True Story of an Amazing All-Brother Baseball Team (Clarion Books), written by Audrey Vernick and illustrated by Steven Salerno. It’ll be released in early April.

Baseball is not a sport that I play (though I enjoy it), and it’s not a sport that I watch either. (We’ve been over how you don’t want me in a room when I’m rooting for a team, right?) But I love this book, because it’s really not only about baseball. It’s about brotherhood (literally and figuratively, I might add).

I love the opening:

When winter’s chill melts into spring, back doors swing open and slap shut as kids just home from school run outside—mitts, bats, and balls in hand.

In one New Jersey town near the ocean, back in the 1920s and ’30s, you could hear the same door slam over and over. Three brothers raced out. Out went three more. And more … And still more.

Yup, the Acerra family had “twelve baseball-playing brothers,” as well as four sisters. (In the spread where Vernick notes that “most people thought sports were just for boys” back then, Salerno depicts the sisters playing determinedly at their own game of ball with a broom and ball of yarn. I like that.) Read the rest of this entry �

I know that tomorrow we celebrate President’s Day and that Martin Luther King, Jr. Day has already passed, so forgive my blatant disregard of the calendar here. But I wanted to show a few illustrations from a book I meant to highlight in January. (Not to mention we should celebrate King any day of the year. For a more presidential post, should that be your desire today, see my Kirkus column from yesterday.)

Shane W. Evans’ We March, released last month by Neal Porter/Roaring Brook, is the simple and elegantly-told account of one family’s march in the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Filled with just nine short sentences (and I mean some as short as “We sing”), Evans lets the focus here be on the people involved, shining a spotlight on their determination and spirit. I love what Evans does with lines (what the Publishers Weekly review calls his “angular characters”) and how you can see his very brushstrokes on the characters’ faces — and even in the textured backgrounds. (The art I’ve got here today, though not a lot and not full spreads, speaks way better than I, so be sure to take a look.)

With a palette getting progressively warmer as the story unfolds, it culminates in a luminescent spread of King himself giving his historic speech, the sun rising in shimmering yellows behind his head. It’s lovely. Read the rest of this entry �