Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

“The crowds at the Hartford jail were even greater than those in New Haven.
Evidently Africans like ourselves were a novelty, and so people streamed into the jail, often traveling long distances, to see what we looked like.”
(Click image to see spread in its entirety, including the text)

 
Just the other day at Kirkus, I wrote about some 2013 Picture Books That Got Away — that is, those books that during the year I had planned to write about here at 7-Imp or over at Kirkus, yet for one reason or another I didn’t get to them.

One book I wanted to include in that list, yet I knew I’d be writing about it today, is Monica Edinger’s Africa Is My Home: A Child of the Amistad (Candlewick, October 2013), illustrated by Robert Byrd. This is a lengthier picture book, geared (if you heed such labels) at slightly older readers. (“10 to 14 years old” is how the publisher thinks of it.) This is the fictionalized story of the real-life child named Margru, who later became known as Sarah Kinson, taken from her home by slave traders in Mendeland, West Africa, “one of the greenest places on earth,” in 1839. At the age of nine, Margru’s father decided she would go as a pawn to work for the family of a man in her village. This would occur in exchange for rice, given that the village in which Margru and her family lived was suffering greatly from drought and famine. “At the next harvest,” her father told her, “I will return what I owe and you will come home.” Margru did as she was told, only to find soon after that she was “in a line of captives headed for the coast.” Slave traders transported Margru and many other West Africans, including three other children, to Cuba and later to the U.S. on the Spanish slave ship called the Amistad.

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“And Jacob said to Rebekah, his mother, ‘But Esau is a hairy man and I am a smooth man. If my father touches me, he will think me a thief and I will bring upon myself his curse and not his blessing.’ His mother said, ‘Your curse, my son, will be upon me. Now, listen and go; bring them to me.'”
(Click to see spread in its entirety)

“Flamingoes obtain their color from the shrimp and algae they eat.”
(Click to enlarge)

 
Today at Kirkus, I write about Amy Schwartz’s newest picture book, Dee Dee and Me. Regular 7-Imp-goers will know I really like Amy’s picture books, and with this new one she, once again, doesn’t disappoint. That link is here.

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Last week at Kirkus, I chatted here with Asheville artist Daniel Nevins about creating the artwork for Amy Ehrlich’s With a Mighty Hand (Candlewick, August 2013). Today, I’ve got a little bit of art from the book, including the image at the very top of this post.

And I also wrote here about Jumping Penguins, an international import written by Jesse Goossens and illustrated by Marije Tolman. Featured here today is some art from that book, too. (Please note that some of the spreads featured here from this book are different from the English-language version — both art, in some instances, and text. The cover is also slightly different.)

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From “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” an English tale; Art by Graham Annable

 
This morning at Kirkus, I write about an intriguing international import called Laughing Penguins, written by Jesse Goossens and illustrated by Marije Tolman. That link is here.

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Last week, I wrote about a handful of story collections (of one sort or another). That’s here, and this morning I have art from each book. For each one, you’ll see some art, followed by its cover.

Enjoy. Read the rest of this entry �

This morning over at Kirkus, I chat with Asheville artist Daniel Nevins about creating the artwork for Amy Ehrlich’s With a Mighty Hand (Candlewick, August 2013), which consists of Ehrlich’s adaptation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, told as a single narrative. Sub-titled The Story in the Torah, it’s one of the most beautifully designed books I’ve seen this year.

That link is here, and next week here at 7-Imp I’ll have a bit of art from it.

Until tomorrow …

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Photo of Daniel Nevins used with his permission.

From “Sleep Charm”: “This bed is the perfect bed. / Sink into its healing /
cloud-softness, / cheek against cool pillow-white. /
Forget anything you ever wanted, / hoped, or feared. …”

 
Last week, I chatted here at Kirkus with author and poet Joyce Sidman about her newest poetry collection, What the Heart Knows: Chants, Charms & Blessings (Houghton Mifflin), to be released in early October. The book is illustrated by two-time Caldecott Honor recipient Pamela Zagarenski.

Today here at 7-Imp, I’ve got two spreads from the book (including the poems), as well as some details from some of Pamela’s paintings. I thank Pamela for sharing them.

Also below is one question for Joyce I didn’t have room for in last week’s column, as well as a trailer for the book, which features even more of Pamela’s artwork.

*[This post’s title comes from “Song of Bravery,” one of my favorite poems in the collection: “…But here I go— / bones clicking quietly together, / blood flowing dutifully / from heart to hands and back again— / here I go, stepping out / through the door / of my own shadow: / into the glare of the arena / to face the lions.”]

Enjoy. Read the rest of this entry �

“My Name Is Santiago … I am Dominican. I live in Detroit. I am Latino.”

Well, there’s always art here at 7-Imp, but it’s I who am taking a break in my work today to post some art from David Díaz.

Last week over at Kirkus, I chatted (here) with Alma Flor Ada and F. Isabel Campoy, both pictured below in this post, about Yes! We Are Latinos (Charlesbridge, August 2013), illustrated by Díaz, a series of narrative poems about the various ways Latinos and Latinas in this country celebrate their heritage. So, today I’ve got some art from the book.

I also didn’t have room in last week’s column for one final question I had for Ms. Ada and Ms. Campoy, so that question is also included below.

Enjoy the art. Read the rest of this entry �

This morning at 7-Imp, I welcome illustrator Antoine Revoy. Antoine was born in France and grew up in Tokyo, Japan, as well as Mexico City, Mexico, and Barcelona, Spain. He received a B.F.A. in Film/Animation/Video from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1999, and after that, moved to China, followed by some time in Dublin, Ireland (as well as Paris again), working as a visual and interaction designer. All the while, he worked as a freelance illustrator as well. He now works full-time as an illustrator, including editorial work.

And, as you can read below, he also now teaches art and illustration. (Fun fact: He is married to illustrator Kelly Murphy.)

As you’ll see below, Antoine has a very stripped-down style in his pen-and-ink drawings, often with a compelling use of line and occasional bursts of color. Surreal and mind-bending, his illustrations take us to new places.

Let’s get to it then so that we can see some art. As for breakfast, Antoine tells me, “I used to have a preference for the medically questionable combination of coffee and cigarettes (referred to by some as ‘French breakfast’). I no longer smoke nor drink coffee, and my current breakfast-of-choice would be bread and cheese (which sounds rather French as well).”

Oh, but you see, that’s very good with me. I think we’re set.

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Over at Kirkus today, I chat with Alma Flor Ada and F. Isabel Campoy about Yes! We Are Latinos (Charlesbridge, August 2013), illustrated by David Diaz, a series of narrative poems about the various ways Latinos and Latinas in this country celebrate their heritage.

Next week here at 7-Imp, I’ll have some illustrations from the book.

The Q&A is here.

“The dragon, on hearing the approaching footsteps, made the beginning of a courteous effort to rise. But when he saw it was a Boy, he set his eyebrows severely.
‘Now don’t you hit me,’ he said, ‘or bung stones,
or squirt water, or anything. I won’t have it, I tell you!'”
(Click to enlarge)

Here’s a quick art stop to say that this year marks the 75th anniversary of Kenneth Grahame’s The Reluctant Dragon, illustrated by Ernest H. Shepard. Holiday House is marking this occasion with an anniversary edition of the book, complete with an introduction from Leonard S. Marcus. If you’ve never read this, Grahame’s most famous short story, it’s the tale of a young boy and a peaceful, sonnet-loving dragon. The dragon is hiding out near the boy’s home, which is “half-way between an English village and the shoulder of the Downs.” The boy and dragon become friends, but when St. George arrives, summoned by the town to destroy the dragon, the boy steps in. Instead, a fake joust is staged, and … well, I won’t tell you the entire story, should you want to read it on your own.

As Marcus explains in this edition, Helen Gentry, the cofounder of Holiday House, discovered this story in Grahame’s Dream Days, published in 1898, a series of what Marcus calls “wistful, late-Romantic essays about childhood.” Gentry then decided to seek publication for this story — with its own illustrations. She first offered the assignment of illustrating the book to Francis D. Bedford, the illustrator of J.M. Barrie’s Peter and Wendy from 1911. When Bedford turned down the job, Gentry then turned to Shepard. The story was then published in 1938. Read the rest of this entry �

Spread from Jean E. Pendziwol’s Once Upon a Northern Night,
illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault:
“Once upon a northern night / I sent the frost / to dance on your window /
and make a frame. / It twirled and twisted, / curled and coiled, / spiraled and spun, / climbing around the edges of the glass / but leaving the middle /
as smooth and clear as the frozen pond.”
(Click to see spread in its entirety)

Spread from Fanny Britt’s Jane, The Fox & Me,
also illustrated by Arsenault
(Click to enlarge)

This morning over at Kirkus, I write about Bruce Eric Kaplan’s Cousin Irv from Mars, which makes me laugh. That link is here.

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Last week, I wrote here about Jean E. Pendziwol’s Once Upon a Northern Night, illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault and released this month from Groundwood Books.

Pictured above is an illustration from this beautiful picture book, but also pictured there is a spread from Fanny Britt’s new graphic novel, Jane, The Fox & Me, also illustrated by Arsenault, translated by Christelle Morelli and Susan Ouriou, and to be released next month from Groundwood. This is the tenderly-wrought story, originally published in French in 2012, of a girl named Hélène, who doesn’t fit in at school and whose former friends now shun her. Hélène finds solace in her copy of Jane Eyre, as well as her Kate and Anna McGarrigle records. Hélène is none too pleased to find out she’ll have to attend a required nature camp with her classmates, “four nights, forty students, our whole class.”

Betsy Bird has a detailed review here of this deeply-felt story of despair and loneliness, which turns toward the light at its close and ends on a note of hope and friendship.

Below is one more spread from each book. Enjoy. Read the rest of this entry �