Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Welcome to the Valentine’s Day 2012 edition of the 7-Kicks list.

One of my favorite things in all of PictureBook-dom is when Kara LaReau and Scott Magoon join forces and make books together. Today, both Scott and Kara are visiting to share images and early sketches from the two most recent books on which they collaborated, and they’re also here to say a bit about these books, their work together, and what’s next for each of them.

Their very most recent picture book, Mr. Prickles (pictured here)—what Publishers Weekly called a “tale of misfits” (aw, I have a soft spot for misfits)—was released at the tail end of last year (from Roaring Brook), and it’s the “quill-fated love story” of two porcupines. Porcupines are “very hard to get close to,” so poor Mr. Prickles has a difficult time making friends. He tries, he fails, he gets lonely, and he even gets prickly-angry. (The other woodland creatures are downright mean to him.) That is, till he meets Miss Pointypants. And then (just in time for your Valentine’s-Day read), love is in the air.

As you are wont to get with a LaReau/Magoon collaboration, there’s humor, emotion, and lots of style. It’s also got a pulsing heart at its center without being overly schmaltzy about it.

And, if you missed it last summer, don’t forget to take a look at their other collaboration, Otto: The Boy Who Loved Cars, also released by Roaring Brook (but in June of last year). Read the rest of this entry �

That’s illustrator Maja Sereda speaking up there. I’m bending the rules a bit this morning with her visit. On the first Sunday of each month, I feature student or new-to-the-field illustrators, and it’s the first Sunday of February, but Maja is not exactly new to illustrating. However, she may be new to many of us readers here in the U.S., since she is from Poland and now lives and works in South Africa.

I’ll let Maja tell you about herself, and she has some more images to share below. I thank her for visiting. Read the rest of this entry �

I’m having a McCarty Party today.

Caldecott Honor author/illustrator Peter McCarty, that is.

I love his picture books. You never quite know what he’s going to do next. (The soft-focus art of Hondo and Fabian? Or the spikier-lined art of Jeremy Draws a Monster, featured here at 7-Imp in ’09?) And he can go from quiet to funny in one second flat. The books he’s illustrated or both written and illustrated are smart, never talking down to children, and with each new book, he seems to get more inventive in his artwork. I always look forward to a new McCarty title.

So, it’s with happiness that I share art from two new McCarty picture books this morning, one out in a couple of days and the other coming out in May. Read the rest of this entry �

Look here. It’s Lyle. And he’s fifty years old now. (He can kick, he can shimmy … oh wait, it’s another annoying Saturday Night Live reference. I have one of those for everything in life.)

First off, for anyone who may be reading who is not a fellow picture book junkie, here’s a Lyle 101: Lyle, the crocodile, debuted in 1962 in author/illustrator Bernard Waber’s The House on East 88th Street. This book was followed in 1965 by Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile, probably the most famous Lyle book, and a total of eight books exist in the series.

All the books concern the Primm family, Mr. and Mrs. Joseph F. Primm and their son Joshua, who moved into this house on East 88th street only to find a crocodile in their bathtub. “The next moment found them flying off in different directions,” screaming a lot. Suddenly, an “oddly dressed man” appeared at the door with the note pictured above. Lyle is an artist? He’s gentle? Read the rest of this entry �

This morning, I’m featuring the last two 2011 titles I had planned to feature last Fall in a very short series of posts highlighting some good picture books for the wee’est of readers.

Over the years, I’ve enjoyed many of Bob Barner’s picture books for very young children. Last September, he released Animal Baths (Chronicle Books). Using cut paper, ribbons, and pastels, he very colorfully shows the various ways different animals get themselves clean. His rhymes are appealing for the youngest of listeners, and the cut paper and ribbons in his artwork make for very textured spreads, which also cover every inch, these animals ready to burst forth from the pages. It all works. Bob’s pig spread opens this post, and even more spreads are included below.

In September, Candlewick released Sue Soltis’s Nothing Like a Puffin, illustrated by Bob Kolar, which Kirkus gave a starred review. “Look, a puffin! What a marvelous creature, one of a kind and amazing,” the book opens. “Indeed, there is nothing like a puffin.” Bob’s friendly puffin is here to greet us readers at the start, and he makes his presence known to many, usually wreaking havoc. Soltis, giving readers a subtle lesson in comparisons and inferencing (all disguised in great fun), pairs this puffin up with a ladder, a house, a newspaper, a pair of jeans, a goldfish, a penguin, and just about everything in between, asking whether or not they really are that different. Barner’s digital illustrations give clues to young readers, and the energy and movement in the illustrations really propel the book along with a brisk, happy pace. There’s lots of humor here, too, given that the puffin usually leaves confusion and slight chaos in his wake.

This is a great one for teachers about to cover comparing and contrasting, making inferences, etc. It’s very fun. A spread from this one is featured above, too, and below is some more art from Bob. (Well, both Bobs. We’re seeing double here at 7-Imp today with Bob-squared.)

Enjoy. Read the rest of this entry �

Last Fall, I did a small handful of posts in which I highlighted some new picture books for the wee’est of readers, and I never quite finished. One of those books (and more are to come, as I will get to them, even if in 2012), another book geared toward your toddler-sized readers, is Angela DiTerlizzi’s Say What?, illustrated by Joey Chou and released by Beach Lane Books in July of 2011.

The illustrations Joey shares today give you a good sense of the book, which ends with a wee human child, telling his mother how much he loves her. This is always good for toddlers. (In fact, I envision this book as becoming a board book one day. Hey, good idea. Should I call the editor? “Jules WHO?” Seriously, I hope they consider it. It’d work.) This one is also good for, as the Kirkus reviewer noted, preschoolers who enjoy language play. Read the rest of this entry �

Happy 2012, everyone! Welcome to 7-Imp’s 7 Kicks, 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.

I hope you rang in the new year just the way you wanted to. It’s the first Sunday of the month, so that means I invite a student illustrator or brand-spankin’-shiny-new illustrator over to share some art and say a few words. Today, I have a new illustrator, whose name is Lia Marcoux and who graduated in 2009. Let’s get right to it. She’s here to introduce herself, and I raise my cup of coffee to her. Read the rest of this entry �

Welcome to 7-Imp’s 7 Kicks, 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.

Read the rest of this entry �

Today’s featured holiday title, The Carpenter’s Gift, is a tribute to the tradition of annually erecting a Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center. Historian David Rubel wrote this one in collaboration with Habitat for Humanity, and it’s illustrated by Jim LaMarche, whose work I’m always interested to see. (I think this one is rendered in colored pencil, but don’t quote me on that.) Read the rest of this entry �

It’s the first Sunday of the month (the last first-Sunday of 2011, GASP!), and so that means I’m shining the spotlight on a student or debut illustrator. In today’s case, I’ve got the latter. Elizabeth Zunon, who was born in Albany, New York, but grew up in West Africa, attended RISD. Jeanne Walker Harvey’s My Hands Sing the Blues: Romare Bearden’s Childhood Journey, published by Marshall Cavendish in September, marks Zunon’s debut as a picture book illustrator, which Hazel Rochman at Booklist called “handsome” and a “lively introduction to the artist for young children and for older readers, too.”

With a text “loosely based…on the concept of the blues,” as Harvey writes in her closing Author’s Note, the book is told (nearly sung) from the point-of-view of Bearden as an adult, looking back on a particular time in childhood during which he left North Carolina to take a train trip with his parents to Harlem. Having to heed Jim Crow laws, his family knows they must head North: Read the rest of this entry �