Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Meet Socksquatch, the orange creature on the right . . .

He’s finally located a sock. He’s been lurching around and searching for one, you see, in an October release from Henry Holt and Company, Socksquatch, by elementary art teacher by day and author/illustrator by night, Frank W. Dormer (pictured left — half-man, half-illustration). Not only do I like this book—and think the children in your life will most likely enjoy it, too—but I have to say that I also have a special spot in my squishy heart for this title, and here’s why: As Frank mentions below, a children’s book editor saw his art work featured here at 7-Imp (that would probably be this post from ’07, though Frank also visited me for a breakfast interview in 2008), and she contacted him about doing a book for Henry Holt. And that book would be the book you’re reading about today, Socksquatch. I cannot emphasize enough how happy this all makes me — not in a vain it-was-seen-at-my-blog kind of way. Not at all. But in an I-love-to-connect-such-talented-people kind of way. Truly.

Frank tells us a bit below about how he came up with the Socksquatch monster, so I won’t go on and on about that, but let me just say it’s a fun read-aloud. You have to be willing, mind you, to don your best old, B-movie monster voice when reading it — for maximum effect, that is. Read the rest of this entry �

I’m very smitten with this morning’s featured illustrations, and not just because of My Thing I Have for Sun Images (as mentioned previously at 7-Imp with Carin Berger’s gorgeous image). The way illustrator Sylvie Daigneault depicts the sun in these images is particularly beautiful to me, but so is everything else about her work in this book, The Good Garden: How One Family Went from Hunger to Having Enough (Kids Can Press, September 2010), written by Katie Smith Milway. Read the rest of this entry �

Pictured here is a sneak-peek from author/illustrator/graphic novelist Paul Hoppe. In Spring 2011, Chronicle will release The Woods, which Paul describes as his second self-authored children’s book. It’s about a boy who goes into the woods to look for his stuffed bunny. “This is very much based on stories and fairy tales from Poland, Germany, and all over Europe,” Paul told me, “in which the forest was a magical, mysterious place.”

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It’s the first Sunday of the month, when I normally bring my readers an introduction to a student illustrator or someone otherwise new to children’s book illustration, but I’m breaking the rules today. And that would be because my favorite “best of” list of the whole year, no matter what year, came out this week — the New York Times Best Illustrated Children’s Books list. Here’s the wonderful (very short) round-up for 2010. Ten titles from thousands published during the year that three esteemed judges (including my writing partner-in-crime this year, Betsy Bird) deem the best in illustration. Since I’ve covered quite a few of those books here at the blog this year—and since I only cover what I really like—it may not come as a surprise that I give seven enthusiastic thumbs-ups to the list. Er, I would if, I had seven thumbs, that is.

Now, y’all know I’m a Suzy Lee fan something fierce (as evidenced by this ’08 interview, this post, this post, this post, this post, and … shoot, I give up looking, but there are probably more). You will see on the NYT list that her newest title, Shadow, is on there. I’ve had this book a while and have been marvelling over it. Just when I thought I couldn’t like her work anymore, she up and does a book like this. I finally got around to requesting some spreads from it, just in time for this list’s release. So, that’s what I’m celebrating today — instead of what I normally do the first Sunday of each month. I’m breakin’ the law.

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I’ve got quite a bit of art to share today, so I’m not going to linger here in the introduction to this post, other than to say happy Halloween to everyone, and I hope it greets you with lots of peanut-butter-and-chocolate delights.

Calef Brown (hiding behind his book here to the left) brings us that opening illustration there, one of the endpaper tests, he told me, for his latest poetry collection, Hallowilloween: Nefarious Silliness from Calef Brown (Houghton Mifflin, September 2010). I think celebrating Halloween with Calef makes all the sense in the world, as he’s the Reigning Children’s Poet of Weird (that’s a compliment) and so convincing at having us see the world a different way (not unlike Halloween), so I invited him to share today some of the illustrations and poems from this title. The book celebrates the holiday with the Grim Reaper (and what his suppers might be like), the Poltergeyser (in a certain national park), a scarecrow and his epitaph (seven guesses as to what it might be), Jack (the rare wolf), a vumpire (who only works night games), and many more, some of which can be seen below. School Library Journal writes, “Brown’s acrylic illustrations add to the creepy silliness: an artful mix of naive and stylized, whimsical details and vibrant color.”

Since Calef sent quite a few spreads and even some sketches, which I’m always pleased to share with 7-Imp readers, we’ll get back to him in a second. There are two other visitors this morning, as well…

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I have so many picture books I want to post about here lately and not enough hours in the day. And I’m sitting on lots of art and several interviews and lots of features and such, but I simply have to post about Laurie Keller’s newest title today in celebration of the fact that she’ll be at a local bookstore tomorrow, and I’ll get to meet her. In person, that is. I cyber-met her in early 2009, and I immediately liked her. I knew I liked her books, but then she had to up and tell me about her adoration for Waiting for Guffman, what is quite possibly The Funniest Movie of All Time in my book (but maybe only tied with This Is Spinal Tap), so there you go. I liked her even more.

Good thing I love her new picture book title, too, so that I had a great excuse to ask her to visit again. Now, let me just say: As has probably already been made clear before here at 7-Imp (repeatedly), I have a somewhat dark sense of humor and I’m also just a contrarian at heart. Can’t help it. So, a book about smiling? Well, it’d normally want to make me punch something. Most likely. But only Laurie Keller could make one that would make me laugh outloud. And fall hard and fast for.

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I love the (as I’ve once described it) funky, free-form, Chagall-esque, kaleidoscopic mixed-media illustrations of Australian author and illustrator Chris McKimmie. His art is probably not for everyone, but it’s definitely for me.

Back in 2008, I covered another of McKimmie’s titles. If you want to read that here, you might get a good sense of what his art is like. (Let me tell you that about 99.9999998% of the time when I’m blogging, writing, etc., I am beating myself up over my words—not sufficient enough, I think to myself, to describe what I’m thinking or feeling, and self-deprecation is my good friend—but, dang, I like that little 2008 review I wrote, as I re-read it now. I think it nails that book, if I may say so myself. I guess maybe occasionally I make sense.)

This new title from McKimmie, Two Peas in a Pod (from Allen & Unwin in Australia, and I’m not clear on the publication date, though I think it was published in May over the pond) tells us the story of two good friends, Marvin, a.k.a. “Marvellous,” and Violet, who have “lived together in Raven Street since dinosaur time. Almost.”

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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.

As you regular readers know, normally I feature an illustrator every Sunday, but this week has been devoted to some straight-up chillaxin’, as the young ‘uns would say. Or Chillaxin To D Maxin, as the severely hip young ‘uns might say.

So, knowing I’d be at Disney World this week, I just took off altogether and didn’t even get an illustrator lined up for today. My apologies. Instead, you’re being greeted this morning with a photo of me and the girls at Epcot. I try to limit photos of my children at the blog, which are probably only interesting to me and the grandparental units, as I’ve said here before, but I GOTTA have at least one image this morning, don’t I? That’s right. Thanks for agreeing.

This trip was my first Disney visit, or what I now like to call The Land of Sanitized Children’s Lit. I don’t mean to sound as if I’m being snarky about an actual vacation, ’cause I got to ride some coasters and see my girls nearly explode from happiness upon meeting Marie from The Aristocats, which pretty much was their ultimate goal.

Looks like while I was gone, I missed this from The New York Times. Since I blog about picture books and illustration, am I panicking? Nope. I think I’ll keep on keepin’ on. If the NYT is right, it’s all the more reason to keep shining the spotlight on contemporary picture books.

Oh and kicks? It’s late on Saturday as I type this, and we just got home and unpacked, but I’d say, quickly: The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror at Hollywood Studios; visiting the countries of the world at Epcot, which is a nice break from mouse ears (mostly); getting to take a break from work and writing; the actual brewed coffee I’ll have this morning after a week of coffee-from-machines; reading the work-in-progress chapters of my writing partners-in-crime, Betsy and Peter; and the fact that I’m, as you read this, at the Southern Festival of Books to see friends, hear authors, and volunteer. I missed this yesterday but heard it went very well, and I got to see the documentary in advance, which was a treat.

Note: Don’t forget that nominations for The Cybils 2010 are open!

What are YOUR kicks this week?

Well, I finally followed up on something I promised I’d try to do in my Caldecott-ramblings post, and that would be contact illustrator Sophie Blackall to see if she wanted to share some images and possibly some sketches from her latest illustrated picture book titles, Jacqueline Woodson’s Pecan Pie Baby and Rukhsana Khan’s Big Red Lollipop. In fact, as you all know, I like to feature student illustrators or those brand-spankin’-new to the field on the first Sunday of each month, but I’m breakin’ the rules today, since I promised this a couple weeks ago and can finally deliver.

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Today, I’m featuring illustrations from the tiny, square, and perfect Last Song, illustrated by Eric Rohmann (Roaring Brook, September 2010). This is a picture book adaptation of Scottish poet James Guthrie’s “spare ode to the heavens” (Publishers Weekly), which very simply goes like this:

To the sun
Who has shone
All day,
To the moon
Who has gone
Away,
To the milk-white
Silk-white
Lily-white star,
A fond goodnight
Wherever you are.

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