Sunday, January 26th, 2020
I’ve a feature over at BookPage that includes some new picture book selections for Black History Month, which is just around the bend. These are also books to be read and shared all year, ones that pay tribute to the lives of African Americans who have contributed to the arts, sciences, and the written word.
Sunday, January 19th, 2020
It may be 2020, but here’s one more 2019 picture book, this one released back in September — Beth Waters’s Child of St Kilda (Child’s Play). This is the detailed, 64-page story of a “lost way of life,” a book that took Waters over two years of research and was nominated for the 2020 Kate Greenaway Medal.
Sunday, November 24th, 2019
Today I’ve got some spreads from one of my very favorite 2019 books — Ashley Bryan’s Infinite Hope: A Black Artist’s Journey from World War II to Peace (Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books, October 2019). This is a 112-page picture book memoir that chronicles the award-winning author-illustrator’s (often harrowing) experiences in the segregated army of World War II (he was drafted in 1943 while an art student at Cooper Union) and, essentially, how his love of art got him through. This is the first time Bryan writes publicly of his war experiences and shares them with the wider world.
Wednesday, September 11th, 2019
Author and comics artist Lucy Knisley has written (and drawn) candidly about many stages of her life — her childhood as the daughter of a chef and gourmet (Relish, published in 2012); her trip abroad to Europe/Scandinavia as a single woman (An Age of License: A Travelogue, published in 2014); her marriage to her partner (Something New: Tales From a Makeshift Bride, published in 2016); and more. And I’m there, so totally there, for these comics memoirs; I hope she continues to document every stage of her life. (As someone there now myself, I’ll be eager to read her take on middle age’hood.)
Wednesday, September 4th, 2019
Here’s a post to highlight a book it makes me happy to see on shelves, especially given the often disparaging cultural conversations around women (in particular) and aging. But Wrinkles (Phaidon, September 2019) from the artist known as JR is supposed to be a book for children, so does it work for them? I think so.
Friday, June 14th, 2019
That is here.
Last week, I wrote here about Isabel Thomas’s Moth: An Evolution Story (Bloomsbury, June 2019), illustrated by Daniel Egnéus. Here today at 7-Imp are some spreads from the book.
Enjoy!
Friday, May 10th, 2019
That is here.
Last week, I wrote here about Shannon Bramer’s Climbing Shadows: Poems for Children (Groundwood, March 2019), illustrated by Cindy Derby. I’m following up here today with a few spreads.
Enjoy!
Friday, April 12th, 2019
That is here.
Over at Kirkus last week, I wrote here about Lorena Alvarez’s Hicotea: A Nightlights Story (Nobrow, March 2019); Mordicai Gerstein’s I Am Hermes!: Mischief-Making Messenger of the Gods (Holiday House, April 2019), and Comics: Easy as ABC!: The Essential Guide to Comics for Kids (April 2019) from TOON Books and Ivan Brunetti (and other comics artists). Today, I’ve got some art from each book.
Enjoy!
Thursday, March 28th, 2019
Last week at Kirkus, I wrote here about Laura Purdie Salas’s Lion of the Sky: Haiku for All Seasons (Millbrook, April 2019), illustrated by Mercè López.
Today here at 7-Imp, I’ve got some spreads from the book. (Tomorrow, Soyeon Kim — the illustrator of the other book mentioned in last week’s Kirkus column — will visit to talk about creating the artwork for Elin Kelsey’s You Are Never Alone.)
Enjoy!
Friday, August 31st, 2018
“The best I can describe it would be to tell you it was like the scene in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix where Professor Umbridge punishes Harry by making him write lines over and over with a Blood Quill. Every time Harry writes something on paper, the words get seared into the back of his hand. So there were moments when it was painful and difficult to make this book. My beautiful studio space would get transformed into that small kitchen in Worcester where difficult moments played out. That being said, there were also many wonderful moments to relive. Those scenes brought me great joy, and when the book was finished, I sort of had to mourn the loss of my grandparents all over again. It was truly a gift to spend that time with them again.”
Over at Kirkus today, I talk with author-illustrator Jarrett J. Krosoczka about his graphic novel memoir, Hey, Kiddo, coming to shelves in October.
That is here, and next week here at 7-Imp, I’ll follow up with some more images from the book.
Until tomorrow …
