Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Today we celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the first manned mission, Apollo 11, to land on the Moon. Launched on July 16, 1969, it landed on July 20, and Mission Commander Neil Alden Armstrong and Lunar Module Pilot Edwin Eugene “Buzz” Aldrin, Jr., became the first men to walk on the moon, while Command Module Pilot Michael Collins orbited above.

If you haven’t already seen a copy of Brian Floca’s Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11 (Atheneum/Richard Jackson Books, April 2009), you’re in for a big treat. And I’m going to give you a bit of a peek into the book today, since Brian indulged my over-enthusiastic request for some of the watercolor spreads from the book.

I’m stubbornly holding on to my library copy—I’m probably already in Overdues Territory—because it’s an excellent picture book. As in, I hope it sees some awards. As in, it would be just wrong if it didn’t. Yes, I’m a fan of Floca’s work, but this is a book that’s already been met with all kinds of wide acclaim: Kirkus, Booklist, The Horn Book, The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, and School Library Journal have all given it starred reviews. Publishers Weekly wrote that Brian’s rendition of the flight is “as poetic as it is historically resonant.” And, in the Washington Post, Kristi Jemtegaard wrote: Read the rest of this entry �

I’m shining a spotlight today on someone who is not new to children’s lit but who has just released the first title he’s both written and illustrated. And that would be Jason Chin. You may have read about Redwoods (Flashpoint, March 2009) in Betsy Bird’s early-June review (“you have kids that think non-fiction is dull as dishwater? Meet the cure”); in the Horn Book (“the book is…a contagious celebration of the relationship between information and imagination, the pure joy of learning”); in Booklist (“the first book Chin has written as well as illustrated is a real eye-opener”); in Kirkus (“an inventive, eye-opening adventure”); in School Library Journal (“this remarkable picture book delivers a mix of fantasy and fiction through beautifully detailed watercolors”); or Publisher’s Weekly (“Playing with the notion of just how immersive a book can be, illustrator Chin…makes his authorial debut with a clever exploration of coast redwoods”). Most of those are starred reviews, I might add. I hope, however, that you have actually read it — and not just read about it. And that’s because it’s every bit as good as the reviewers say.

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Jules: Happy Sunday to all, and welcome to 7-Imp’s 7 Kicks #121, featuring illustrator Tony Persiani and author Chris Barton, who has—in the past—joined us for some kickin’ here on a few Sundays (Chris, that is). It’s a pleasure today to have both Tony and Chris here to say a few words and show us some art from their new title, The Day-Glo Brothers: The True Story of Bob and Joe Switzer’s Bright Ideas and Brand-New Colors, to be released by Charlesbridge in July. The Day-Glo Brothers, which is both the author’s and illustrator’s picture book debut, tells the story of Joe and Bob Switzer, who were born at the turn of the last century, who were opposites in many ways, and who—“by accident”—invented totally new fluorescent colors: Fire Orange and other glowing reds, yellows, greens, and more, which they came to call “Day-Glo” colors.

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Jules: Happy first-Sunday-of-the-month to one and all. First Sundays here at 7-Imp means a student illustrator or artist otherwise new to the field of children’s lit will get the spotlight. This morning we have illustrator, designer, and art instructor (inspiring children, thank goodness, to “think conceptually as well as independently”) Duane Smith, who studied at Pratt Insitute and currently lives in Brooklyn. This morning, I’ve got some of his art work from Janet Halfmann’s Seven Miles to Freedom: The Robert Smalls Story, published by Lee & Low Books last year. Janet is also here this morning to say a bit about the book.

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Jules: We have an author and illustrator duo visiting us this morning, shining a light on some nonfiction today: The creators of Bubble Homes and Fish Farts (released by Charlesbridge in February of this year), author Fiona Bayrock, who has written many science books for children, and author/illustrator Carolyn Conahan. Yeah, I said fish farts. In her March review of this book, Jen Robinson, one of our pretty regular kickers here on Sundays, wrote: “Fiona Bayrock has taken a unique premise, researched it to find lots of interesting, factual examples, and then added (with Carolyn Conahan’s help) both humor and heart.” Well, I say she nailed it with that statement. Just when you thought you understood all there was to know about bubbles and their purpose in this world, along comes Fiona. PSYCHE! Or “paradigm shift,” in the words of The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books. (Can I yell “PARADIGM SHIFT!” like someone would yell “PSYCHE!” Nah. Doesn’t flow well.) Yes, where was I? Fiona shows us the varied, weird, wild, wonderful, and all-around funky ways animals use bubbles. Sixteen different ways, to be precise, from the star-nosed mole’s bubble-blowing from its sniffer (note: that is not a rigorous scientific term) in order to find food to the the rattlebox moth’s “glob of yellow bubbles” that seep from its head as a warning to predators — and lots of other bubble action in between.

I want to say you’ll be blown away by this title, but then Andrea and Mark, the dynamic duo over at Just One More Book, beat me to that very necessary pun.

I asked both Fiona and Carolyn to talk a bit about the book today, and Carolyn is also here to share some watercolors from it, as well as a few sneak peeks at some of her other projects.

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You guys! Do you know that there is a newly-illustrated version of Daniel Pennac’s perfectly perfect book, The Rights of the Reader? I originally read this text of Pennac’s, first published in France as Comme un roman in 1992, as Better Than Life, published by Stenhouse Publishers in 1999, I believe it was. Yes, you school librarians and teachers probably know this text well. And, if you don’t, you likely are familiar with—or have at least heard of—Pennac’s beloved Reader’s Bill of Rights. Perhaps, it just occurred to me, it’s even one of those love-it or hate-it-type books, as what Pennac is suggesting for education is quite radical, going against the grain of the way reading is generally taught in schools today. But put me squarely in the love-it camp. And, as I’m having a busier-than-normal week, I can’t go into all the reasons why, my Ode to This Book, so to speak. But consider this my brief barbaric yawp on the 7-Imp roof-top about Pennac’s book.

Most importantly, I haven’t even said yet: This new edition—released by Candlewick at the end of last year, I believe it was—is illustrated by Quentin Blake. Be still my heart. I guess I was slow in getting to it, but I’m happy I eventually found it. And it has been translated fearlessly by Sarah Adams.

What I do have time to share is this wonderful excerpt, which has an all-new meaning to me, now that I’m a parent:

“…{T}he ritual of reading every evening at the end of the bed when they were little—set time, set gestures—was like a prayer. A sudden truce after the battle of the day, a reunion lifted out of the ordinary. We savored the brief moment of silence before the storytelling began, then our voice, sounding like itself again, the liturgy of chapters. . . . Yes, reading a story every evening fulfilled the most beautiful, least selfish, and least speculative function of prayer: that of having our sins forgiven. We didn’t confess, we weren’t looking for a piece of eternity, but it was a moment of communion between us, of textual absolution, a return to the only paradise that matters: intimacy. Without realizing it, we were discovering one of the crucial functions of storytelling and, more broadly speaking, of art in general, which is to offer a respite from human struggle.

Love wore a new skin.

And it was free.

Ah. Beautiful. Enough said.

Except…Amen.

Here’s swimmer, film star, fashion trend-setter, and the first woman to attempt to swim the English Channel, Annette Kellerman, “slicing through the water—winning races and setting records.” Have you all seen the fabulous new picture book biography about Kellerman and her derring-do? Perhaps you read Betsy Bird’s review of it last week. I love this book, and I’m here on this Nonfiction Monday to welcome the author, Shana Corey, who is going to talk a bit about the book and her work. Shana, as she writes in the book’s Author’s Note, has “always been interested in women and girls brave enough to make waves.” And I’ve got some fabulous art from the title to show as well — with fingers crossed that illustrator Edwin Fotheringham will soon be sending me his responses to my illustrator-interview questionnaire and then we can hear more from him, too. If you saw his work in last year’s What to Do About Alice?: How Alice Roosevelt Broke the Rules, Charmed the World, and Drove Her Father Teddy Crazy! by Barbara Kerley, then you know how exuberant Fotheringham’s highly stylized illustrations are. (If you’re like me and haven’t had your seven impossible cups of coffee before breakfast yet, Edwin’s art will wake up DIRECTLY.)

Corey’s Mermaid Queen (Scholastic, April 2009) is the story of Kellerman, born in 1886 in Sydney, Australia. Annette, as a child, had to wear leg braces (probably from rickets, Shana writes), but later she learned to swim and, as noted above, set many records. She began her swimming career at a time when women athletes were far from respected. But, believing swimming was the most superior sport, Annette kept at it and also spoke out against the constraining (to say the very least) ladies’ bathing costumes of that time. Once, when wearing a boy’s swimsuit at London’s Bath Club, she caused quite the stir and eventually sewed stockings onto the suit, a moment from her life included in Mermaid Queen — and done so dramatically and to great effect. Also included is the scene at Boston Harbor in the summer of 1908, which you can see here, in which Annette was arrested for indecency for not wearing a dress-and-pantaloon swimsuit, popular during that time.

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Jules: Welcome to 7-Imp’s 7 Kicks on this Mother’s Day 2009! In honor of the special day, we’ve got some Mother’s Day photography and a bit of art. (That quote above comes from Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees, and I just wanted to share it. It’s my favorite thought-on-mamahood ever.)

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I invited author/illustrator Anna Alter over for some 7-Imp coffee this morning (remember, too, when she stopped by way back in ’07 when our images were tragically small?) to celebrate Earth Day with some ideas for re-using your old red shoe, as well as your bits of old crayons, used wrapping paper, excess toys, ripped shower curtain, and even more. What Can You Do with an Old Red Shoe?: A Green Activity Book About Reuse is Anna’s newest title, just in time for Earth Day, and released in March by Henry Holt.

This is a craft book, and it works on every level, seeing as how it has 1) Anna’s appealing menagerie of anthropomorphized animal characters (you know you can’t resist bunnies in swimming trunks and shades), 2) practical ideas for reuse (with precise instructions for projects, step-by-step instructions that also don’t manage to condescend to the child reader), 3) rhythmic, buoyant narrative poetry included at the opening of each spread, and 4) Anna’s cozy, warm, oh-so-inviting, and detailed acrylic artwork. Why am I ennumerating my points this morning? I dunno. Not enough coffee yet? Onwards and upwards, though…

In other words, it makes the idea of recycling and reusing fun for children. And, I’m sorry, but HOLY CRAP and oh chirren (as Haven Kimmel would say), I get scared when I think about the state of our planet and all our bloomin’ JUNK, and it’s way past time to be casual about taking better care of it. (My apologies to the probably ever-so-eloquent Anna Alter for that moment of INeloquence on my part). The book makes a great addition to school units on environmentalism, as well as for homes in which parents are eager to teach their children about their carbon footprint. (Well, we’re not talking specifically about greenhouse gases here, but you know what I mean.)

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I’ve posted here at 7-Imp about author/illustrator Steve Jenkins and his torn- and cut-paper collages several times before, including this interview from over a year ago. I’ve made my fondness for his books quite clear. When I asked him recently if he could share some spreads from his new title, he said yes. Lucky me, because I love this book. It’s called Down Down Down: A Journey to the Bottom of the Sea (to be released in early May by Houghton Mifflin), and just when I thought that Steve’s books couldn’t possibly get any better or more interesting…

Viewed from space, the earth looks like a watery blue ball. Oceans cover more than two-thirds of the globe’s surface, and well over half the planet lies beneath water more than a mile…deep. We have explored only a fraction of the oceans. In fact, more humans have walked on the moon than have visited the deepest spot in the sea.

This is how Jenkins opens the book, then telling us we’ll be descending from the surface of the ocean to the sea floor, travelling through “one of the most extreme environments on earth.” In fact, in the next spread we see that he actually begins above the surface, showing us that sometimes, “without warning, the creatures of this hidden world burst into our own…sea creatures sometimes leap from the water into the air…” (great white shark, flying squid, spinner dolphin, etc.) Indeed, he eventually takes us to the deepest spot in the sea, in which almost seven miles of water rest above our heads, to the Challenger Deep. In between, he puts to use his usual charms on each and every spread: His richly-textured images and detailed visual data, as well as his ability to lay out sea-life facts in an engaging manner, appealing to a wide variety of ages. (My own very young children, who are drawn to Jenkins’ titles like candy, actually use the book as a toy—though we’ve read it precisely seven bajillion times, too—putting their small dinosaur creatures on the book’s sea spreads to interact with the ogrefish, goblin sharks, deep-sea jellyfish, and giant squids.) My favorite fun fact? Bioluminescence—when animals can produce their own light, as most of the sea life that live below the sunlit layer of the ocean do—is the most common form of animal communication on earth. Who knew.

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