Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Jules: Many thanks to Michael Foreman and Candlewick for this illustration today. Just look at this lovely image from Nicola Davies’ and Michael Foreman’s White Owl, Barn Owl (released this past April and reviewed here this week by Jules). This is a beautiful book — well-written, well-designed, and including both a fiction narrative and non-fiction facts about the common barn owl, these things merged together with eloquence and ease. And Michael Foreman’s illustrations are almost breathtaking, especially the ones showing the owl in flight. Have you ever really stopped to consider how seven-kinds-of-prolific this man is? Go here and scroll down a bit. My oh my, I bet he’s capable of way more than seven impossible things before breakfast.

A huge heapin’ thanks to the honorable Mr. Foreman for letting us feature this gorgeous illustration today, the moment in which the young girl and her grandpa first spot the barn owl’s pale face in the nest box they have created for him.

On to our kicks then . . . 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.

Oh lordamercy, what oh what did I do to deserve such a fabulous, kicks-worthy week? Here we go:

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Welcome to our weekly 7 Kicks list, 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. (If you’re new, please know that everyone is welcome to leave their lists).

This week we have Mo Willems to thank for our illustration: It’s Trixie and her daddy! They’re back in Knuffle Bunny Too: A Case of Mistaken Identity, which we co-reviewed here at 7-Imp this week. If you didn’t read that review or don’t have time now, here’s our official analysis: It completely delivers in every way, and we pretty much thought it was flawless. I believe it has a September release date (Hyperion), so people won’t have much longer to wait to find out what the pre-school-aged Trixie and her beloved bunny are up to this time.

In this image, Trixie and her daddy — who was initially reluctant to head out and retrieve Trixie’s rightful bunny (“Trixie’s daddy tried to explain what ‘2:30 a.m.’ means”) — are on a mission to right a wrong. Our review has much more info if you’re interested in hearing more about this great book. We thank Mo Willems most kindly for sharing an ilustration with us and our readers this week.

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Jules: Can someone just pick me up off the floor please, because I love our image for this Sunday, sent to us by G. Brian Karas, who just so happens to be one of our favorite illustrators here at 7-Imp. Doesn’t that illustration just make your day? I’m telling you what . . . we love it, and we thank Brian for sending it. This image comes from Today and Today, the anthology of haiku by Kobayashi Issa, which Karas illustrated (released this March by Scholastic, and reviewed here by Yours Truly). In fact, this illustration is, hands down, my favorite from the book (which is a bold statement, as the entire book is beautiful), so extra big thanks to Brian for sending it just for our 7 Kicks lists today. And, really, if you haven’t experienced Today and Today yet, well . . . go treat yourself. Karas divided the haiku — and the story that those verses and his illustrations tell — into seasons, and this illustration is from the summer spread. I wish I could make it even bigger for you, but that’s probably the best we can do here with our blog’s template. Just look at that yellow and the texture to that image . . . it’s even more beautiful up close, so don’t miss the book, one of the best poetry anthologies I’ve seen this year. (And, P.S., Elaine — this pic’s for you!).

Brian also sent this cover image from his next illustrated book, Big Bad Bunny (a Richard Jackson book for Atheneum Books), written by Franny Billingsley, author of The Folk Keeper (which I have always wanted to read; I’m just eight years behind). Big Bad Bunny will be published in ’08. Now, that’s a funny cover. We’re looking forward to this book, ’cause did I mention that Eisha and I love G. Brian Karas’ illustrations? (And — as I said in my reviews of Today and Today and Tippy-Tippy-Tippy, Hide! — we think the “G” must stand for “ginormously talented”).

Many thanks to Brian!

Now, on to our kicks . . . For any new folks: Welcome to our weekly 7 Kicks list, 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. If you’re new, please know that everyone is welcome to leave their lists.

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Many thanks to our featured illustrator for this week, Taeeun Yoo. She is sharing with us two illustrations from her picture book title from this year, The Little Red Fish. This book is beautiful and so well-designed, and if you haven’t read it and are interested, Jules’ review of it from this past May is here. In the illustration above, JeJe — who is visiting his grandfather’s strange, rather mysterious little library in the forest — has finally found his pet fish (after falling asleep in the darkness of the library). This illustration depicts what happens when he picks up an old, dusty book next to which he thought he saw his pet’s tail flicker.

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We’ve been tagged! It’s Nancy’s (aka Journey Woman’s) birthday; she’s 39 and asked us to consider thirty-nine reasons to be happy today. Consider it an early
7-(plus some)-Kicks list, but fear not! We’ll still be here on Sunday with our featured illustrator of the week and will be looking forward, as always, to reading your kicks this week.

We’ll divide our 39 reasons amongst the two of us. Here goes:

Jules’ Reasons:

1). It’s Nancy’s birthday!

2). The Alice image that illustrator Frank Dormer did just for us, which we’ll add to our site soon.

3). Corresponding with author/illustrator G. Brian Karas all week and lining up an interview and 7-Kicks-featured illustration with him.

4). Ditto for Mo Willems! (And Eisha and I anxiously awaiting the arrival of Knuffle Bunny, Too at our respective doorsteps).

5). Having a huge stack of Karas books to pore over in preparation for the interview.

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Happy Sunday, and welcome to our weekly 7 Kicks list, 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. (If you’re new, please know that everyone is welcome) . . .

Have you noticed that we’ve gotten into this fun, new tradition of featuring a different illustrator every Sunday? Check out this week’s!

Back at the end of June, Adrienne over at WATAT did up a wonderful post on beginning readers, actually in two parts: Beginning Readers that Don’t Make Me Want Me to Fall Into a Stupor, Parts One and Two. And, as I (Jules, that is) mentioned over at her site, that got me to thinking about the wonderful Aggie and Ben beginning reader (Charlesbridge, 2006), written by Lori Ries and illustrated by Frank Dormer. And good news: There will be a sequel to those three Aggie and Ben stories. So says our featured illustrator this week, Frank W. Dormer, who this week is sharing with us an illustration from — not the upcoming Aggie and Ben title (but we still had to explain how it is that we came to think of Frank Dormer this week!) — but an upcoming picture book title, Not So Tall for Six, written by Dianna Hutts Aston (An Egg is Quiet), coming in ’08 from Charlesbridge. Isn’t that illustration great? Here’s what Frank had to say about it: Read the rest of this entry �

Welcome once again to our Sunday 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. If you’re new, please know that everyone is welcome.

Jules: Normally, we feature a children’s book illustrator here at our lists every Sunday. But this week we are featuring an artist and singer/songwriter musician named Karen Peris. Those of you who read this post of mine from early July may remember who she is. If you missed that, let me briefly explain that Karen is one of three members of one most remarkably wonderful band, entitled The Innocence Mission. And, when Karen kindly allowed me to post the lyrics in their entirety to one of her songs (in the post I mention above), I took the opportunity to ask her if we could feature the beautiful art work from the cover of their children’s lullaby CD, Now the Day is Over, released in 2004. Fans of well-crafted children’s CDs may want to know that this is a most excellent collection of standard and traditional lullabies as well as a few song choices not typically considered lullabies that they play and that Karen sings as lullabies (such as, “Once Upon a Summertime,” “What a Wonderful World,” and “Moon River,” which I can promise you is the most gorgeous version of “Moon River” you’ll ever hear). I also must add that there is an original lullaby on this collection of songs (“My Love Goes With You”), written by Karen, that absolutely slays me with its transcendent beauty and includes such nuanced and peaceful and flat-out gorgeous piano-playing by Karen herself (really, it has this perfectly-placed piano note in it that almost makes me weep every time) . . . I could talk lullabies forever. They fascinate me (traditional, contemporary, world lullabies — you name it), and this is one of my favorite lullaby CDs ever ever ever (and I had always hoped they’d do a lullaby CD, when lo and behold! They released one the very year my first daughter was born).

I thought the cover art was very fitting for our blog’s purposes, and Karen sent that image as well as another image from the CD, both sprung from her mind and created by her hands. Aren’t they lovely? (And, as Eisha pointed out, the cover image — while still totally Karen’s creation — has a real Georg Hallensleben feel, does it not? Which is a good thing, in our book) . . .

Thanks so much to Karen. We are thrilled that she was willing to share her art work. Be sure to visit their site if you want some good, new music in your life. The information about the lullaby CD is here (you might want to hear it, whether or not you have children or even if yours are grown. It’s a lovely, peaceful way to end — and start — one’s day). A portion of the proceeds benefits children’s charities.

Next week we’ll get back to another children’s book illustrator, and we’re excited, but you’ll have to come back then, won’t you, to see who it is?

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Happy Sunday to all! Just look at that beautiful illustration this week, compliments of Matt Phelan. The latest issue of The Horn Book includes Susan Patron’s Newbery Medal acceptance speech, and she talked briefly in that speech about having chosen Matt as the illustrator for The Higher Power of Lucky (lauding “his thoughtful, tender, and delicate pictures”). And we here at 7-Imp were reminded how much we like his art work and illustrations, so we contacted him and he agreed to share the above image from his upcoming book, Very Hairy Bear by Alice Schertle (to be published in September by Harcourt).

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Look, everyone, it’s Kate and Rosy and Dave and the whole family there for our
7 Kicks list this week! There’s Kate’s dad, who has relinquished — for Dave’s sake — his favorite, sunniest spot for sitting and reading. And there’s Dave, jumping up exuberantly for a kiss. We are able to bring you this Bob Graham illustration this week (*), thanks to Candlewick. This happens to be the title page spread from Graham’s sequel to “Let’s Get a Pup!” Said Kate, which is entitled “The Trouble with Dogs
. . .” Said Dad — just released by Candlewick in June and reviewed here a couple weeks ago by Jules. We are huge fans of Kate and her family and were excited to see them return. And there seems to be a lot of shared love out there in the kidlitosphere for Kate and Rosy and Dave, so we worked with Candlewick to get permission to share an image from Mr. Graham. We thank him (and Candlewick) kindly, and here’s what he had to say about the new book and some of his other titles, as well (for the record, we decided to link the book titles he mentioned here; it’s not that he instructed us to do so):

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Hello, everybody! Welcome to this week’s edition of 7-Imp’s 7 Kicks, our weekly tradition of listing Seven(ish) Exceptionally Fabulous, Beautiful, Interesting, Hilarious, or Otherwise Positive Noteworthy Things from the past week. We’re continuing our recent habit of featuring the work of a different illustrator each week as our post image, with two works from the delightful and talented Jamie Hogan.

You may remember Jamie as the illustrator of Rickshaw Girl by Mitali Perkins, and the creator of the gorgeous portrait included in our interview with Mitali for the SBBT. She’s also not the person one should sit behind when one is attending a drawing lesson given by Ralph Masiello at the Charlesbridge Open House, even if she is very charming and kind in person.

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