Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

“‘Ah,’ said Prince Charles. ‘I’ve often heard animals speak. Plants too. It’s all a matter of noticing, isn’t it? The richness of our lives depends on what we are willing to notice and what we are willing to believe. Of course, I get crucified in the press for talking to my plants, but it’s awfully rude not to talk back to anyone who speaks to you, isn’t it?'”

 
This morning at Kirkus, I weigh in on Claire A. Nivola’s picture book biography, Life in the Ocean: The Story of Oceanographer Sylvia Earle. The link is here.

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Last week, I wrote about Polly Horvath’s Mr. and Mrs. Bunny: Detectives Extraordinaire! (Schwartz & Wade, February 2012), illustrated by Sophie Blackall. That link is here, if you missed it and are so inclined to read it.

Today, Sophie shares a handful of interior illustrations from the book. Enjoy. Read the rest of this entry �

“Until I am older, I can only have a stick insect. ‘And Sadie and Ratz, don’t forget,’ says Dad. Sadie and Ratz aren’t animals. ‘But they behave like wild beasts,’ says Dad.”

 
This morning over at Kirkus, I write about Polly Horvath’s new novel, Mr. and Mrs. Bunny — Detectives Extraordinaire! Who else has read this very funny book? Raise your hand, please. And come talk to me about it.

That link is here today.

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Last week, I wrote about Sonya Hartnett’s new early chapter book for young readers, Sadie and Ratz, scheduled to be released by Candlewick at the end of this month. Remarkably good, this book. That link is here. I just now figured out that it was originally published in 2008 (in Australia, I’m guessing), something I had failed to notice when I penned that column. So, what we have here, lucky us, is the first U.S. Edition. (Smart Candlewick.)

And Ann James’ charcoal drawings for the book? Well, as I wrote last week, they are striking—you can see for yourself with the images I’m sharing today—and they perfectly capture the emotional impulses of Hartnett’s story. They are reminiscent to me of early Sendak art, which is fitting for what I find to be a very Sendakian tale.

Enjoy the art. Read the rest of this entry �

“‘Oh, all right. We’ll call her Pohn, then,’ Auntie Orchid sighed. ‘Pohn-Pohn!’
Tua called to the elephant. ‘Pohn,’ Auntie Orchid corrected her niece.
‘One Pohn is plenty Pohn enough.'”

In 2009, author/illustrator Taeeun Yoo visited for a cyber-breakfast, and it remains one of my favorite interviews. Not just because her response to the Pivot question about what turns her on was “Coffee. A sunny day. A stormy day, too. Music. Good conversations with friends. And cupcakes.” Mostly ’cause I love her illustration work.

Every now and then I like to check in with her, and it turns out she has at least (there could be more, for all I know) two titles out this year. And she’s here today to share some art from them.

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I’m getting ready to head out of town for a bit, but I can’t leave my 7-Imp readers hanging. This means that today I’ve got a bit of art for you; tomorrow, my Kirkus column will be up (over in Kirkus-land, of course); and Sunday, I’ll have the kicks post up, even though I won’t be around to respond. (How could I leave my kickers hanging? I’ve not once done that! Only wild aliens will keep me from posting on Sundays, I tell you.)

Tomorrow morning over at Kirkus, I shine the spotlight on Marilyn Singer’s upcoming picture book poetry collection, A Stick is an Excellent Thing, illustrated by LeUyen Pham. That link will be here first thing in the morning.

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Last week at Kirkus, I discussed Kevin Henkes’ upcoming book, which is actually his debut as a beginning-reader author/illustrator. It’s called Penny and Her Song and will be released by Greenwillow at the end of February. That column is here, if you missed it. Pictured here today are three interior illustrations from the book. Enjoy …

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It’s that time of year, dear readers. It’s when I like to look back on what happened at 7-Imp during the year and look at who graced the site with their presence—all with my buddy here, Alfred—because evidently I am slightly to moderately screwy in the head. (It’s taken me over a week just to pull all this together.) Actually, I just really enjoy end-of-the-year recaps of every kind, and—as I said in 2010’s recap post—this is my warped idea of tidy fun. Also, it satisfies the tremendous picture book junkie in me.

As my regular readers know, I am devoted here at 7-Imp to focusing on contemporary illustration (well, not always contemporary — there are some exceptions) — with a particular focus on picture books. So, even though I certainly didn’t have the time to cover every book I wanted to discuss, not to mention I didn’t read every picture book created in 2011, 7-Imp end-of-year recaps can be an awful lot like looking back at the state of picture books during a given year, which I also find really fun. That’s one way of saying: This long post is good for browsing, especially if you like to see picture book art.

If I take a look at what was new to 7-Imp in 2011—before we look at who visited, that is, and all kinds of artwork—I run the risk of actually sounding organized, which I’m not. Or as if I’m someone who blogs 40 hours a week, which I’m also not. Since blogging comes after my children, the work-that-pays, and other things that allow me to have a life, I’m kind of scattered, have no real 7-Imp Action Plans, and you should just see my system of organization (chicken-scratch-scrawled Post-it notes stuck all over my very messy desk). But let me give this a shot anyway, an attempt to ponder what was new in 2011: Read the rest of this entry �

“Then, taking the map and rule book with him, he hopped in and,
for lack of anything better to do, drove slowly up to the tollbooth.”

(Click to enlarge)

This morning over at Kirkus, I discuss A New Year’s Reunion, written by Yu Li-Qiong and illustrated by Zhu Cheng-Liang. That link is here.

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If you missed last week’s column, I weighed in on Norton Juster’s Neville, illustrated by G. Brian Karas. I’ve got some preliminary drawings/materials from that here this morning, thanks to Karas. They’re probably best viewed after seeing the video he made about the creation of the book, which I’ll use to kick things off below.

And, since I opened up that column last week by mentioning Juster’s The Phantom Tollbooth, originally published in 1961 and illustrated by Jules Feiffer, as well as Leonard Marcus’s outstanding annotated version of the book, I’ve got some illustrations from that classic children’s novel here this morning, too.

First up is Neville, followed by The Phantom Tollbooth. Enjoy. Read the rest of this entry �

(Click to enlarge)

I think I’ve had a copy of Stephanie Brockway’s and Ralph Masiello’s The Mystic Phyles: Beasts (Charlesbridge, July 2011) for nearly four months now, but sometimes I’m just slow here at 7-Imp. Better late than never, right?

Also, better to post this around Halloween anyway. Mystical beasts. Mystery letters. Goblin spiders. Black cats of doom. Really evil bunyips. Strange fires in a creepy house. Cryptic necklaces that strengthen one against attacks. Weird things all-around. Yep, it’s fitting.

This is the story of Abigail Thaddeus, who lives with her eccentric grandmother and very controlling grandfather. Abigail can count her friends on one hand—okay, one finger—and her social life at her junior high school is really difficult, to say the least. But, after a black cat delivers her a note and a key, her life changes forever, launching her on a quest for … well, research. “What I’d like you to do is research,” an anonymous letter (“Your Devoted Friend,” it is signed) says. “You will start with mythical beasts….Find as much information as you can. Educate yourself. Investigate the mysteries, then discern for yourself the fact and fiction.”

The book is designed to look like a sort of scrapbook or journal of Abigail’s: Filled with drawings, journal entries, notes, confessions, details of her days at school and home, and her research, it is composed of original illustrations from Stephanie and Ralph, as well as re-printed photographs and illustrations (i.e., the 1936 photo in Popular Science of the bull made to look like a unicorn by Dr. W. F. Dove at the University of Maine). Young Abigail notes her research findings (pictured above is part of her research on Sea Monsters, including what you don’t see in that spread, “Species of Sea Monsters”), most followed by “My Incredibly Brilliant (But Not Very Scientific) Ideas” about what each creature could actually be: Sea Monsters, as reported by sailors over the years, could in fact have been giant squids, finally discovered in the mid-1850s. Or, my favorite, Bigfoot could in fact be a “worldwide hallucination…One person sees what they think is Bigfoot and runs home to the tell the story. The story spreads. Then other people claim to see it, either because they’re dying to see it, too, or they’re afraid of it, or it’s the first thing that pops into their heads when they spy something strange. Could this really happen on a worldwide scale?” Read the rest of this entry �

I had the pleasure in early September of talking via phone with author/illustrator Brian Selznick about his latest title, Wonderstruck (Scholastic, September 2011), as well as a bit about the 2008 Caldecott winner The Invention of Hugo Cabret (Scholastic, 2007); his hybrid style, if you will, of picture book, novel, and graphic novel; and the upcoming film adaptation of The Invention of Hugo Cabret, titled simply Hugo, by Martin Scorsese.

7-Imp readers know that my interviews, particularly with illustrators, tend to consist of the same set of questions I send to everyone — and interviews I can conduct via email, too. If, in Bizarro World, 7-Imp’ing were a full-time venture, everyone would get questions customized specifically to them, but having a standard set of questions for all the folks with whom I conduct Q&As is the only way I can find time to post any interviews at all, since blogging comes after things like children and work.

However, with Selznick I had the opportunity to do a phone interview right at the release of Wonderstruck and didn’t want to pass it up. But it took a while to post, since after the interview’s completion, I had to find a transcriber to make it so that I could post it online for my readers. Finally, nearly two months later, here it is.

In a former professional life, I was a sign language interpreter. My Bachelor’s degree is actually in that very subject, and I spent years studying American Sign Language and Deaf Studies and worked in the field for a good while in East Tennessee. For that reason, several of the questions below—and a good deal of my conversation with Brian—is about his research into Wonderstruck and the deafness aspect of the novel, which I wrote about over in a September Kirkus column. That link is here.

Also, I should quickly note two things: First, my landline phone, during our conversation, decided it’d had enough of me, and when I called Brian back on my cell, he and his editor ever-so kindly recorded the latter part of the conversation on their end. This meant that my final questions and comments were not recorded, but as you can see below, I was able to piece together what I had asked him. Secondly, the transcriber did edit out things like “um”s—my own and Brian’s—but we generally left intact the casual, conversational tone that was this phone interview.

I thank Brian for his time. Fellow illustration junkies will note that I’ve laced the interview with a bit of art, with thanks to Brian and Scholastic. Enjoy. Read the rest of this entry �

This is the spellbinding opening of Chapter 4 in author/illustrator Rosalyn Schanzer’s Witches! The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem, published by National Geographic Children’s Books in September of this year. Two terrified men think they see a beast fly up into the air and turn into the spirits of three witches, while the three accused “witches” are in jail at the time.

The Society of Illustrator’s 2011 Original Art Opening Reception and Awards Presentation will be next Thursday, October 27th, in New York City, and you can bet Rosalyn will be there, as she was awarded the Gold Medal for the aforementioned nonfiction title. Though I was a jury member this year, I can’t make it to the reception, but the least I can do is feature Rosalyn here at 7-Imp right before her big night. (To be fair, I should point out that the two Silver Medal winners, Kadir Nelson and Lane Smith, have previously visited 7-Imp — here and here, respectively.)

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Would you like to hear one very possible story of smart and ballsy self-promotion before breakfast (though I’m hardly the first children’s-lit blogger to post about it)? Once upon a time, there was a talented author who believed in his manuscript, and he decided to take advantage of his robust online presence to drum up some interest in it.

Marc Tyler Nobleman is the author of more than seventy books for children—in fact, those 7-Imp readers with superb memories may recall that he chatted with me in 2008 about his picture book biography, Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman—and he’s super psyched about the subject of his latest manuscript, which has yet to be picked up by a publisher. This nonfiction book he’s written, Thirty Minutes Over Oregon, tells the story of Nobuo Fujita, who … well, let me just share here the flap copy Marc created for the book:

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