Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

It’s been a bit since I’ve done a post on an illustrated novel, but to be doing the first one in a while on Julie Sternberg’s Like Pickle Juice on a Cookie (Amulet, March 2011), illustrated by Matthew Cordell, is good. And that’s because I asked them if they wanted to stop by and talk about the book, and hoo boy, they ran with it. Julie addressed specifically what it was like to see Matt’s illustrations for the book, and Matt gives us a detailed description of the stages in the life of his illustrations for this title.

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Ben Hatke, that is. He juggles, breathes fire, plays the Irish whistle, and attends to a growing family, as well as twelve chickens. He even homeschools them. The children. Not so much the chickens.

That’s according to his bio. But I’m glad he doesn’t stop there and that he’s turned his attention toward children’s lit. As a Virginia-based writer, artist, and graphic novelist (who studied for some time in Florence, Italy, which he addresses below), Ben has brought readers a new bad-ass female protagonist of children’s lit (even if she’s the only xx chromosome on the planet), and her name is Zita. Well, she’s but a wee girl, so somehow “bad-ass” is a bit much. Do-over: She’s super cool, quite clever, and very brave. And she’s the hero of Ben’s Zita the Spacegirl, a graphic novel for young children, published by First Second this past February. Read the rest of this entry �

I have only one illustration for you all today, but it’s a whopper of an illustration and positively terrifying, which—-given the book’s subject matter—is a compliment:

Don’t you love that? Wait, there’s a monitor between me and you, so I can’t hear you, but if you love it as much as I, you can always comment below.

This comes from illustrator, painter, and printmaker Sarah Young, who lives in England. It is one of the many arresting illustrations from Greek Myths by Ann Turnbull (also British), published by Candlewick. Now, I had thought this was a brand-new title, but it just so happens that every link I see online, including the book’s very home on the Candlewick site itself, is saying it was released in November of 2010. The copyright info also states 2010. Color me confused. And slightly behind. Could it be that this one got lost in the stacks of books all over my home and I assumed it was slightly newer than it is? Yes, it could be. Either way, it’s a book I like. I happen to have an emerging seven-year-old who is downright obsessed with myths, particularly if they involve monsters and particularly if they’re Greek, and we’ve been enjoying this one. (Shh. Don’t tell on me, given that the suggested age range for this one is “grade 6 and up.”)

What’s particularly effective here is how Turnbull links the stories together. Here’s what she wrote in the book’s intro: Read the rest of this entry �

In anticipation of Poetry Friday tomorrow, this post celebrates not only poetry but some good, new nonfiction. The poem featured above, “Food Chain,” comes from the above spread (left-side illustration) and is one of the many poems in What’s for Dinner?: Quirky, Squirmy Poems from the Animal World (Charlesbridge, February 2011), written by Katherine B. Hauth and illustrated by David Clark. As I scan reviews for this post, seeing as how I’m a review nerd, I see that Publishers Weekly calls this one a “satisfying mix of tutelage and repartee.” But my favorite of all? Kirkus writes that this is “an enriching overview of the natural world spiced with a Dorothy Parker–esque sense of the macabre that children will absolutely relish.” And, as you can see by the cover alone (below), Clark’s ink and watercolor illustrations are, indeed, macabre, over-the-top fun.

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Alfred and I are here to look back on What Happened at 7-Imp in 2010. I’ve done this for the past two years every December, and—as I explained last year—I question my own sanity when I pull together posts like this, since it’s not a trivial thing to do and takes quite a bit of time I could use, say, sleeping instead. Well, this is way more fun than napping, I say, not to mention that, for some inexplicable reason, I find strangely beguiling at the end of every year those retrospective round-ups and best-of lists of all sorts that one sees everywhere—both online and in print—about entertainment and literature and politics and on and on. Ill say it again: Creating one of my own, looking back at who visited the 7-Imp salon in 2010, is my warped idea of fun, tidy fun. And these recaps are crazy long, yes. But they’re for browsing. Good-times browsing.

I know Alfred looks slightly sinister and surly, but he really enjoys these, too. He just takes it very seriously.

So, what was new to 7-Imp in 2010? This is how I see it: Read the rest of this entry �

“Hansel and Gretel came together like two magnets meeting, like meteors that have been screaming through space toward this one moment of collision. They met in the middle with a bang, and instantly their feet went out from under them on the slick roadway. They landed, hard, in a puddle of icy mud.

They stared at each other, sitting in the puddle.

Lost and then found.

Dead and then alive.

Covered in mud.

Sitting on their behinds in three inches of filthy water.

And they began to laugh. They threw their arms around each other and laughed until tears streamed down their faces. They sat, freezing, muddy, in a puddle in the middle of the road, with the gray sky overhead, and their parents’ castle waiting just a few miles away. They sat there and held each other until their arms ached.

‘Where have you been?’ Hansel asked as they pulled themselves out of the puddle.

‘How are you alive?’ Gretel asked at just the same moment.

So they climbed up on an oxcart and told each other about every single thing that had happened since the day of the hunt in the Lebenwald—and some things twice.

And as they talked and laughed and gasped and talked some more, Ivy and Betty {the oxen} drew them closer and closer to home.

Hansel and Gretel are coming to the hardest part now.

It’s true that they’ve been nearly eaten by a cannibalistic baker woman; and they’ve talked to the fiery sun and to the child-eating moon and to the kind stars; and they’ve journeyed to the Crystal Mountain; and that Gretel has cut off her own finger, and caused somebody to be boiled alive; and that Hansel has been turned into a beast and been shot and skinned and gambled away; and that he went to Hell and dressed up like the Devil’s grandmother; and that he’s been chased by the Devil himself and has held an old man’s hand as he died.

It’s true they’ve done all those things.

But sometimes, coming home is the hardest thing of all.“

“{R}ocker turned colorist turned animator turned cartoonist” is how one of my guests this afternoon has been described. Illustrator Mike Cavallaro, pictured below, is visiting the 7-Imp cyber-salon, joining me for some impossibly strong coffee way after breakfast (believe me, I’m usually good for an afternoon cup), along with author Jane Yolen (who visited 7-Imp in ’08 for an extensive interview), to discuss Foiled, their YA graphic novel release from this year. (April, to be exact. Sometimes I’m just slow on the uptake. Or, okay, busy. I get busy. Anyway.)

Foiled, released by First Second Books, is an urban fantasy (described by Kirkus as “an absolute must-read” for fantasy lovers), which introduces us to the spunky Aliera, a New York City tenth-grader who is a talented fencer, not to mention color-blind, a bit of an outcast, and very much an introvert. When she’s not fencing, she’s playing role-playing games with her wheelchair-bound cousin. When the Lank-Thompson-esque new boy, Avery Castle, shows up at school—cute, charming, and quite the flirt—Aliera finds herself falling for him, despite her better judgment. Turns out Avery is interested in her, after all — or, really, her new (though used) ruby-handled foil. It’s on a planned date that leads her to Grand Central Station that the high fantasy begins (involving mysterious, unseen dimensions, some faeries, Cavallaro’s switch from two-toned illustrations to vibrant color, and much more), and Aliera learns that her world is more than what it appears to be on the surface — and that she has an important role in it all. As Publishers Weekly wrote, it’s a story of “romance, mystery, adventure, fantasy, and drama, all rolled into a strong narrative.” Read the rest of this entry �

At his web site, children’s book author David Elliott writes, “Books are…about language: its rhythms and its music; its stops and its starts; its noises and its silences; its unending layers of meaning. I’m not always as successful as I’d like to be. Still trying to get it right.” I’d say David has gotten it right more than a few times. He has penned several picture books, as well as middle-grade novels for kids, many of which I have enjoyed over the years as a librarian and with my own children. (Here is a comprehensive list of his titles at his site.)

And there are many reasons I enjoyed this interview with David—I was quite enamored with his thought-provoking responses to several of these questions, for one—but the best thing that came out of it was re-discovering my love for his two poetry picture book titles, On the Farm and In the Wild, both illustrated by Holly Meade. The latter was released this August (Candlewick), and as I formatted this interview, I fell in love all over again with the poems in the book, as well as with Holly’s luminous woodcut and watercolor illustrations. The above spread is from this collection of verses. School Library Journal writes, “Elliott’s spare verses vary in length and form with bits of humor {and} some lovely use of language and imagery.” Elizabeth Ward wrote about the first collection of poems (The Washington Post), “Elliott’s little verses pack a deceptive punch.”

David’s here for a breakfast interview. I’ve got the cyber-coffee on, and we’re ready to chat. I thank him for stopping by to talk about a little bit of everything regarding his work as a children’s book author and poet — humor in children’s books, the joy of having a good editor, the art of listening, not undervaluing children, the challenges of writing picture books for the very young, the “imposter syndrome” of a writer, how prose picture books are like eggs, what is most liberating to him in his writing, and (my favorite part of all) still feeling as scared and awed by the world as he did as a kid. Oh, and lots more . . .

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Meet Flora. Here she is, about to disappoint a sparrow who has asked for her baby brother, Crispin. Just a little while ago, Crispin had very much turned Flora’s day upside down, and let’s say she wasn’t feeling too sisterly. But, after a strong gust of wind blows Flora and Crispin away and all kinds of forces of nature (an eagle, the clouds, the moon, a rainbow) ask for Crispin’s hand, Flora discovers that she’s not quite that ready to give him up for good after all, as tempting as it might be — and even though little brothers can do things like spill your paints and altogether ruin your artistic process. Yeesh.

Flora’s Very Windy Day (Clarion, August 2010) sprung from the pen of Jeanne Birdsall, pictured left, and the paintbrush of Matt Phelan. Just as this beautiful picture book will, Jeanne’s previous novels on the Penderwick family will blow you away. I know. Ouch. Excuse my terrible pun. But it’s true. The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy, published in 2005 by Random House/Yearling, is—if you haven’t already read it and its 2008 sequel yourself—wonderful and funny, and it was Jeanne’s first novel, no less. The superb writing therein was acknowledged by The National Book Foundation as a 2005 National Book Awards Winner in the category of Young People’s Literature. The reviews for The Penderwicks on Gardam Street were nothin’ to sneeze at either. My favorite, which really nails the charm of both Penderwick titles, comes from School Library Journal’s starred review: “This is a book to cherish and to hold close like a warm, cuddly blanket that you draw around yourself to keep out the cold.”

And Flora? I already mentioned this book is beautiful. I mean to tell you BREATHTAKING. Read the rest of this entry �

Ahoy, buckos! It’s National Talk Like a Pirate Day. Now, I’m not going to talk pirate in this entire post. I’m not aye I can even pull that off. (See what I mean? Probably even that is wrong.) But what better way is there to celebrate than to showcase some art from Aaron Renier, seeing as how his latest title, The Unsinkable Walker Bean (First Second, August 2010 — colorist on this title is cartoonist and illustrator Alec Longstreth), involves adventure on the high seas — fearsome pirates, wicked sea-witches, a cursed skull, and CERTAIN PERIL. The swashbucklin’ kind. The image above comes from one of Aaron’s earlier sketches for this title. Aaron is not only a picture-book illustrator, but he is also a cartoonist who won the Eisner award for cartoonist deserving wider recognition for his first graphic novel, Spiral-Bound.

AND Renier was also recently named a recipient of the inaugural Sendak Fellowship. I had to do a web search on this fascinating-sounding thing, and I found more info here at this interview with Renier. Chris Mautner over at Manga Studio wrote on Friday:

At SPX {Small Press Expo} this past weekend, First Second’s Gina Gagliano told me that cartoonist Aaron Renier was headed up to Maurice Sendak’s home after the convention, as he was one of four young illustrators who won a grant from the brand-new Sendak Fellowship, which, if I understood it correctly, gives aspiring artists the chance to meet, workshop and work on various projects for several weeks at Sendak’s house, as well as soak up wisdom from the author of In the Night Kitchen.

HOLY WOW. He gets to hang out with The Great One himself. HE IS DOING SO AS WE SPEAK. Just wow. Read the rest of this entry �