Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Jules: Mwahahahahahaha. Happy Halloween to everyone! This week’s illustration is by LeUyen Pham (who, apparently, goes by “Uyen” and says it’s pronounced “win”), and let me just say that I love her illustrations but it wasn’t ’til I saw this post in July at Chicken Spaghetti, in which Susan talked about Once Around the Sun by Bobbi Katz and illustrated by LeUyen, that I became familiar with her books. Whoa, she’s talented. Go visit her great web site, too, where you can see all kinds of her illustrations in her gallery. Eisha, I think, was already in love with her art work, and I thank Susan for posting about one of her books so that I could discover her awesome-ness myself.

And many thanks to LeUyen for giving us permission to use this Halloween illustration, which is on her web site — especially since she just gave birth and yet still managed to take the time to correspond with us about this. She also sent many other illustrations, some never seen before (as in, slotted for upcoming publications), and told us all about them. Woot! So, here’s the deal: If you’re a LeUyen fan, you’re in luck. If you’re not, we hope to convert you. If you really just visit every Sunday to merely read and list kicks and don’t care about the illustrator features (my New Favorite Thing Ever at 7-Imp), then scroll down to the kicks, by all means.

We’re just going to post these beautiful things and include her commentary about them right next to them:

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{Note: Please see the post below this one for today’s Robert’s Snow schedule}

Jules: It’s almost Halloween, and here’s a festive illustration for you all from Leslie McGuirk’s new title, Tucker’s Spooky Halloween. This one’s about a very determined and rather risk-taking dog who wants to scare the pants off you already this Halloween instead of being dressed up all cutesy-like, as his devoted owner would have it. My wee daughters are drawn to this book like they are drawn to their safety scissors and cutting up the closest piece of paper they can find into tiny, miniscule, barely-perceptible bits of paper that are then strewn all over the kitchen floor and that are infuriatingly difficult to find and then they start over with the next available piece of paper in their vicinity and . . . wait. Where was I? Yes, they really like this book.

Here’s what Leslie had to say about the book:

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Wooooooo! It’s getting close to Halloween, and we’re in a spooky mood here at 7-Imp. So we’re pleased to be featuring art by Jeremy Caniglia. Back in August, we co-reviewed Margo Lanagan’s Red Spikes, for which Caniglia did the cover art. As Eisha put it in the co-review, the cover painting is lovely in a slightly creepy way, and we thought that Jeremy could send us some slightly creepy-spooky Halloween-esque art (we’d like to do that for each Sunday in October, leading up to Halloween — did you see Frank Dormer’s mummy last week?). If you visit Jeremy’s site, you’ll see he’s capable of creepy and creepy-verging-on-disturbing (he does a lot of art for Adult Fantasy and Horror titles, as he explains below), and no matter the tone, he possesses much talent with the paintbrush.

But then he went and sent us these not-so-creepy and more eloquent, more whimsical paintings instead. And we’re still just as pleased that he did so, even though they’re not Halloween-esque spooky in tone. Here’s what Jeremy had to say about these works: Read the rest of this entry �

Hi, everyone! Eisha and I are at the 1st Annual Kidlitosphere Conference this weekend. Woo! So, we’re not around today to leave our kicks, but you’re still welcome to leave some if we aren’t already getting to know you in Chicago.

Frank Dormer, whom we’ve featured before and who created our wonderful Mad Tea Party image (just for us!), sent us this mummy for this week’s kicks list (it actually is on the front page of his site). For the record, Frank knows a lot of us aren’t around right now, reading blogs, but if you are here, please do leave your kicks — and we hope that everyone who is in Chicago this weekend visits 7-Imp later this week to see this fabulous mummy.

Today is the first Sunday in October, so we’re gearing up for Halloween with this spooky (and lovable) guy.

By way of explanation for any new folks (who we hope will leave their lists), our weekly 7 Kicks list is the meeting ground for listing 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.

So, let’s hear your kicks, even though we’re not able to leave ours. We’re actually both flying back to our respective homes today, so we can read the lists a bit later. We can try to leave our own, too, which will probably both be . . .

1. Going
2. to
3. the
4. First
5. Annual
6. Kidlitosphere
7. Conference!

Until then . . .

Jules: Eisha and I are excited to be featuring Boris Kulikov this week. We are huge fans of his illustrations, and he has sent us one this week from his upcoming illustrated title, The Castle On Hester Street by Linda Heller (originally published in 1982, but re-illustrated by Kulikov and to be published by Simon & Schuster in late October 2007). We have yet to see the book but were really thrilled that Mr. Kulikov decided to share with us an illustration which cannot be seen on his site yet. Here’s a description of the book from its home on Simon & Schuster’s site:

“A flying goat, buttons the size of sleds, and a castle on Hester Street are some of the widely imaginative stories Julie’s grandpa tells her about his journey from Russia to New York many years ago. But Grandma’s no-nonsense memories are far different from Grandpa’s tall tales.

This classic story, which reveals the immigrant experience with wit and warmth, won the Sydney Taylor Book Award when it was originally published with Linda Heller’s own illustrations. Now, on its twenty-fifth anniversary, The Castle on Hester Street is given new life with Boris Kulikov’s vibrant paintings.”

We can’t wait to see the book, and here’s one more illustration from it off Kulikov’s web site, which he has given up permission to share . . . Read the rest of this entry �

Jules: ARE YOU READY TO ROCK, Y’ALL?!!! Okay, that was nerdy, but we’ve already established I’m a punk-hole. Moving right along then . . .

We’re ready to rock here at 7-Imp, because author/illustrator Jarrett J. Krosoczka has stopped by for our kicks this week, and he brought along some illustrations from his new book. You may have seen our co-review from this week of the Punk Farm sequel, Punk Farm on Tour (to be released in October by Knopf Books for Young Readers). In that co-review we also announced Jarrett’s creation of the new Punk Farm Space site, which you must go see if you’re also a Punk Farm fan.

Eisha and I have made it clear many times before here at 7-Imp (such as here, here, here, here, here, and here — whew) that we’re fans of Punk Farm and Krosoczka’s other books as well, so needless to say, we’re excited and it’s been rather like Punk Farm Week here at our site.

The illustration at the top is Punk Farm backstage at their recent concert in Maine (Sheep has just figured out what song to perform first for the eager crowd, having been inspired by their tour van), and the illustration below it is right after the show. The gang’s ready to roll and head out to their next gig in Florida, but Pig asks them to hold up just a bit. (Fame is getting to Pig just a bit in this new title). There are two more illustrations from the book at our co-review. Here’s what Jarrett had to say about the illustrations and the new book: Read the rest of this entry �

Jules: This week we’re pleased to feature Australian illustrator Trudy White, who is probably best known for the internal illustrations she did in Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief (Alfred A. Knopf, 2006). Trudy’s latest book is called Could You? Would You?, first published in Australia in 2006 but just released in the U.S. by Kane/Miller (yes, we know we featured a Kane/Miller book last week as well as an Australian illustrator, and we try to mix things up here at 7-Imp, but how can we pass up the opportunity to feature both Julie Vivas and Trudy White, even if one after the other?). Could You? Would You? is a book of questions that, as Mindy pointed out in her review at propernoun.net, is a great title to use as a prompt for encouraging children to write — or to just explore and wonder about the world around them. Pictured above is the first illustration from the book, the “Could you fall asleep with all these animals? Would you wake up early or sleep in late?” page. Pictured below is a spread from the book, both sent from Trudy.

I have played with this book with my 3.5 year old, and — while some questions were a bit too sophisticated for her age — most of them really made her stop and think, and even older children will likely jump to answer each question with curiosity and enthusiasm. It’s that kind of book. And this is definitely one of those books that transcends the children’s lit label; a lot of adults, particularly of the meditative, I-wonder-if slant, would enjoy this one. Trudy’s spare drawings are both graceful and sprightly and possess her signature whimsical, relaxed style . . . As her site states, “Trudy White likes to work with pencils, watercolour, ink, nib pens, brushes, biro, computer graphics programs, collage, acrylic paint, oil paint, and textas, in books, on small pages, on large rolls of paper, on canvas and on wood. She also likes to make things out of clay and plasticine. She writes in longhand and on a computer. At the moment she is interested in owls, typography, languages and strawberries.”

Trudy suggested that we include a selection of questions from Could You? Would You? and let kicks-listers — any of you who are perhaps inclined to do so — post responses to any or all of them this week (as well as list your kicks, too, we hope). I love that excellent idea. And if you answer the questions, your name will also get put into a virtual hat, and SEVEN OF YOU CAN WIN A COPY OF THE BOOK!!! (courtesy of Kane/Miller). It really is a fun, thought-provoking (by its very nature) title, and I particularly recommend it for teachers and school librarians (who work with students of any age, in fact, from elementary to high school).

Here are Trudy’s selected questions from the book (hey, this all makes me think of this recent-ish post over at Read Write Believe): Read the rest of this entry �

Jules: Many thanks to Julie Vivas, one of Australia’s foremost children’s book illustrators, and Kane/Miller Books for our illustration this week. This is a spread from Helen Manos’ Samsara Dog, originally published in Australia in 2006 and published this year by Kane/Miller in its First American Edition.

It’s not often that you come across a picture book, geared at young children, which addresses the subject of reincarnation. Manos, a practicing Buddhist, wanted to show this subject matter in as natural a way as possible and wrote this story of a dog who lives many lives — as a wild dog on the streets; with a biker gang; as a sniffer dog; with a street juggler; as a rescue dog; and more — “{moving} through a tunnel of light into his next life” each time. In the spread above, Read the rest of this entry �

Jules: Many thanks this week to Jonathan Bean for contributing an illustration from the seven-kinds-of-wonderful The Apple Pie That Papa Baked by Lauren Thompson (Simon & Schuster; July 2007) for our kicks list today. Here we see the young girl in the book just waking and spotting her farmer father trotting off to that apple tree to start plucking apples in order to bake his daughter that scrumptuous apple pie, “warm and sweet,” which she and her papa eventually share with the farm animals who live there with them and who have their eyes set squarely on that delicious concoction throughout most of the book. If you haven’t seen this picture book yet, you’re in for a treat (excuse the bad pun). The illustrations are most beautiful. In an illustrator’s note in the book, Jonathan explains that each illustration is composed of three separate drawings, done on separate sheets of vellum paper, with only the colors red, yellow, and black, having scanned the colors into his computer. You really just have to see this lovely creation.

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Here are my 7 Kicks for this week, my Part Two, if you will, to today’s 7 Kicks post. These are seven picture books that I read this week that made me happy in one way or another, all in the name of kicking off Picture Book Week here at 7-Imp . . .

May I pretty please just send you to Betsy Bird’s wonderfully detailed review of this title (parts one and two)? She covers the all-around brilliance of this picture book, Lauren Thompson’s original cumulative tale about a young girl’s delight in the apple pie (“warm and sweet”) her farmer father has baked for her — starting with the apples, “juicy and sweet,” that he plucks from the tree on their farm — with the little girl’s help after she wakes in the morning and sees him trotting off with a ladder and a basket for the apples. As Betsy pointed out:

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