Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Jules: Welcome to 7-Imp’s 7 Kicks, our 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.

Featured this Sunday morning is Firefighter Ted, who sprung from the mind of one of my favorite picture book authors, Andrea Beaty (who, as I’ve said before, has this keen ability to get smack-dab into the center of a child’s way of thinking), and who is illustrated by Pascal Lemaitre, who stopped by and had breakfast with me last month, you may remember. You also may remember that, during April of ’08, our imaginative protagonist, Ted, decided to be a doctor:

Read the rest of this entry �

Jules: Blogger, illustrator, and first-time author/illustrator Elizabeth O. Dulemba is here this morning to tell us about the picture book she’s just written and illustrated, a bilingual title called Soap, Soap, Soap ~ Jabón, Jabón, Jabón. She’s very psyched about this and has embarked on a blog tour to talk about her excitement. The book, available as all-English or bilingual, takes this classic Appalachian Jack tale and gives it a new, contemporary, Spanish twist. The story now takes place in a small town with a protagonist named Hugo. I’ve got a bilingual copy and some spreads to share from it today. If these colors don’t wake you all up this morning, I don’t know what will.

Read the rest of this entry �

Jules: This is from one of Aaron Zenz’s stories-looking-for-a-home, and I hope it settles down in just the right place one day, because I’d like to know more about these characters. How ’bout you?

And this below is the cover art for Aaron’s latest picture book title, The Hiccupotamus, which I’m here to tell you is a hoot, a powerful good hoot, to read aloud to your children or, shoot, the nearest children you can find: Read the rest of this entry �

Jules: Welcome to our kicks on this holiday weekend! We hope folks are around to kick with us.

I suppose this is the moment at the Mad Tea Party just after Alice “got up in great disgust, and walked off” and the Dormouse has fallen asleep instantly — just prior to being stuffed into a teapot, that is. This Mad Tea Party comes to us from freelance illustrator Kevin Tseng.

Kevin, who studied Biology and Fine Art at Washington University, has just written and illustrated his first book, Ned’s New Home (Tricycle Press, August 2009), about a friendly worm named Ned, looking for some new digs. He does live in an apple, so I figure decomposition is a harsh reality. I haven’t had the chance to read the book yet, but I invited Kevin to come share some of his art here on the first Sunday of the month when I like to highlight student or new-to-the-field illustrators.

Kevin says he’s a fan of the Alice books, and these images are from a few years ago — from his portfolio. Score. You know we love our Alice art. I love how the Caterpillar below can multi-task, what with his ability to cross his arms sternly at Alice and hold on to his hookah:

Read the rest of this entry �

Jules: Welcome to 7-Imp’s 7 Kicks, our 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.

Today, I’m pleased to welcome novelist and poet and photographer and biographer Charles R. Smith, Jr. As you can see here, Charles has written books for just about every age, including Twelve Rounds to Glory: The Story of Muhammad Ali, which received a 2008 Coretta Scott King Author Honor Award, and which was illustrated by the very talented Bryan Collier (Candlewick, 2007). He also wrote last year’s The Mighty 12: Superheroes of Greek Myth, illustrated by P. Craig Russell, which I covered last year at Guys Lit Wire.

I picked up a copy of Charles’ latest illustrated title, My People, about a month ago; it sat on the “new books” shelf at my local library and gleamed at me from afar, calling me across the room. This is one gorgeous book. Released by Ginee Seo Books in January of this year, My People is Charles’ picture book adaptation of Langston Hughes’ famous 1923 poem of the same name: Read the rest of this entry �

Happy Sunday, everyone! Those are coffee bean cupcakes that I’m cyber-giving to Eisha today, because Monday is her birthday! I got her blessing to take over today’s post and celebrate it one day early with our kicker-friends. She graciously agreed to type her kicks in the comments later, like everyone else, so that I CAN EMBARRASS HER on her birthday. Mwahaha. You know we do this every year, and I don’t know about Eisha, but I actually find it challenging each year to find new and creative ways to humiliate her. So . . .

Read the rest of this entry �

Jules: You want to know what I’ve noticed lately here at 7-Imp? I’ve noticed that I’ve been posting quite a bit of art from illustrators or author/illustrators whom I’ve already interviewed or in some way featured previously. Robert Neubecker. Adam Rex. Grace Lin. Jeremy Tankard. Ed Young. Dan Santat. Jarrett J. Krosoczka. Whew. The list goes on. I wouldn’t feature them in the first place if I didn’t love their work, and I always end my correspondence with them (on, say, interviews) by inviting them to stop by any time, since I like to keep up with what they’re doing (and since I also otherwise try to do what I can to feature new artists). Well, Dave McKean is no exception. You may remember that he stopped by this year in March — with quite possibly the Most Art Ever in a 7-Imp Interview, as in you can just take your time in going to get yourself a cup of coffee or pipin’ hot tea while that interview LOADS. (And his art is so beloved all over the world that the 7-Imp McKean-interview gets linked to from places like this on a pretty consistent basis. Man, I wish I could read ’em.)

Read the rest of this entry �

Jules: These are artist Emilio Santoyo’s boys of summer. Emilio, a freelance illustrator and designer from California, is visiting this morning, as it’s the first Sunday of the month when I like to shine the spotlight on student illustrators or illustrators just moving beyond student-dom.

There is a certain manic energy and seeming spontaneity to Emilio’s work that drew my eye. And with such bright, happy colors, too, which kind of wink at us beneath his edgier pieces. Emilio graduated from the Art Center College of Design in 2007. Since then, he has been doing freelance illustration and design for small and big clients.

“Projects I take on,” Emilio told me, “can be as small as contributing a weekly comic for a newspaper, new product for my online store, to working on a full-blown commercial for a bank. I love new challenges, and that’s what keeps me moving.” Check out Emilio’s derby: Read the rest of this entry �

Jules: Welcome to 7-Imp’s 7 Kicks, our 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.

Today, 7-Imp welcomes author/illustrator Lita Judge, who is here to share a bit of sneak-peek art from her forthcoming title, as well as some spreads from her most recent picture book (and the second title she’s both written and illustrated), Pennies for Elephants (Hyperion, June 2009). Pennies, based on actual events of the turn of the last century, tells the story of two young siblings, living in Boston in 1914, named Henry and Dorothy. They had only seen elephants “once in real life, when Grams took Henry and me to the circus. They were my favorites. Henry’s too,” says Dorothy when she sees a newspaper boy one winter afternoon on a street corner, yellling, “Pennies for elephants! Pennies for elephants! Send in your pennies, your nickels, and dimes!” It turns out that the Orfords, noted animal trainers there in Boston, were retiring from show business, yet the city of Boston couldn’t afford to buy the pachyderms—the performing elephants, named Mollie, Tony, and Waddy—for the zoo. Mr. and Mrs. Orford, however, were going to give the children of the city two months to collect $6,000 so that they could visit the animals at the zoo one day. Henry, then, gets a bright idea, and
“{w}hen Henry got an idea in his head, it was like fuel to a Studebaker.” Thus begins the tale of how the children in Boston saved their nickels, pennies, and dimes to purchase the elephants for the city — beginning with Henry and Dorothy’s “entire life savings combined,” one dollar and fourteen cents.

Read the rest of this entry �

Jules: Welcome to 7-Imp’s 7 Kicks, our 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.

Do you see that above? Raccoon and Rabbit are sneaking some COOKIES. Sneaky sneakers. And they’re here because today 7-Imp welcomes back authorstrator Jeremy Tankard, who’s here to share some art, including that spread above, from Boo Hoo Bird (cover below), released by Scholastic in April. Regular readers know of my deep and abiding love for Jeremy’s debut picture book, Grumpy Bird (2007). I also have a special place in the 7-Imp portion of my heart for Jeremy, since he was the first-ever taker in my seven-questions-over-breakfast interview series, started back here in 2008.

Bird, of Grumpy Bird fame, is back in Boo Hoo Bird! Yes, he’s returned and has made a noun of the word “bonk.” This I love, because—no kidding—we do that in our house. I wish I could say that Jeremy called and got that tip from me, that I get all the credit for the “BONK” usage in Boo Hoo Bird, but that’s okay. I was happy to see it. I am also happy that Jeremy, who says a bit about the book below, includes a synopsis (well, the kind that doesn’t give away the ending), since it’s been a while since I turned in my library copy of Boo Hoo Bird. But I do remember this: The book is great. It’s very funny (what with Bird’s flair for histrionics). And I still get great pleasure out of soaking in Jeremy’s art. I still say: He’s one of my favorite new illustrators.

Let’s get right to it. Thanks to Jeremy for stopping by for a brief visit and for the art. (We’re even being treated to some art from early dummies of the book today.)

Read the rest of this entry �