Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Today we’re happy to be featuring an interview with podcaster Mark Blevis of Just One More Book!! If you missed the interview with Andrea — his JOMB co-podcaster and his wife — last week, then here’s the link if you want to read all the reasons we here at 7-Imp enjoy the book reviews and author and illustrator interviews over there and if you want to know everything that great site has to offer.

What you might not know about Mark is that he produces a whole slew of other podcasts: Electric Sky (interviews and documentaries) and Canadian Podcast Buffet (which supports the Canadian Podcast community) are just two of them. If you visit his web site, you can read some of the others he produces (in the left sidebar under “Produces”). In fact, the “About” page at Mark’s site includes text that we think sums him up pretty well; rather, you can tell from his podcasts at JOMB that he most certainly fits the following profile he wrote about himself: Read the rest of this entry �

The Blogging for a Cure effort for Robert’s Snow: for Cancer’s Cure is complete! I think it went well. Wahoo! Yesterday was the final day of illustrator/snowflake features. Since I know of at least two more new ’07 snowflakes which were not featured by a blogger, I’m showing them to you here. These are the last snowflakes I’ll be featuring, as auctions begin today. Above is “Golden Snowflake” by Inga Poslitur (who, as I understand it, has not illustrated any children’s books, though she’s otherwise very busy), which you can bid on today in Auction 1. The bottom snowflake, “Swept Away,” is by Linda Bronson and can be bidded on in Auction 3. Linda’s most recent illustrated book is My First Nutcracker by Stephanie True Peters (Dutton Juvenile; September 2007).

I think this entire Blogging for a Cure effort has been wonderful on many levels, and it wouldn’t have been the success it was if it weren’t for all the bloggers (over 65 bloggers — not to mention all the others in the sidelines who helped promote the cause) who wrote the snowflake/illustrator features to which we’ve been treated for over a month now. Read the rest of this entry �

Jules: Many thanks to author/illustrator David Ezra Stein, who sent us a 7-Imp exclusive this weekend, an image from his forthcoming picture book, How to Be Nice. It will be released in Fall ’08 from Putnam.

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Below is today’s Robert’s Snow schedule.

Pictured here is an ’07 snowflake, entitled “Cupid and Psyche,” which was not on the initial list and so not covered by a blogger in the Blogging for a Cure effort. I’m happy to be able to feature it. It was created by Rebecca Guay and can be bidded upon in Auction 3. Guay’s most recent illustrated book, I believe, is Muti’s Necklace: The Oldest Story in the World (Houghton Mifflin, 2006), written by Louise Hawes and described by School Library Journal as “an original fairy tale about familial love and its power to thwart even the majesty of Pharaoh,” the adaptation of and expansion of an ancient Egyptian story. She also illustrated Jane Yolen and Heidi E. Y. Stemple’s The Barefoot Book of Ballet Stories, published in 2004.

And, just because I know of at least three more snowflakes that are new but not snagged by a blogger to feature, I’ll show you one more today (and can show you the other two tomorrow when I wrap up Blogging for a Cure and everyone starts bidding on snowflakes). This one (below) was created by Kathy Jakobsen, one of America’s premier folk artists. Having lived once before near D.C., I like that there’s a snowflake out there for us cherry-blossom lovers. Kathy’s most recent illustrated title is My New York: New Anniversary Edition (Little, Brown Young Readers, 2003).

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Below is today’s Robert’s Snow schedule.

Pictured here is an ’07 snowflake, entitled “Wishing,” which was not on the initial list and so not covered by a blogger in the Blogging for a Cure effort. I’m happy to be able to feature it. It was created by Jui Ishida and will be sold in Auction 3. Jui illustrated Janet Buell’s wonderful Sail Away, Little Boat (Carolrhoda Books, 2006). A web search reveals that Ishida will be illustrating Good Night, Little One: Bedtime Around the World by Chris Matsuda next year (Rising Moon) as well.

If you missed them, you can read yesterday’s features here. If you collect dolls or know someone who does, here’s a snowflake for you. Read the rest of this entry �

Congratulations to Robert Hass, winner of the 2007 National Book Award in Poetry, for his book Time and Materials.

Here’s an excerpt of a very cool poem of his, “Interrupted Meditation:”

Little green involute fronds of fern at creekside.
And the sinewy clear water rushing over creekstone
of the palest amber, veined with a darker gold,
thinnest lines of gold rivering through the amber
like—ah, now we come to it. We were not put on earth,
the old man said, he was hacking into the crust
of a sourdough half loaf in his vehement, impatient way
with an old horn-handled knife, to express ourselves.
I knew he had seen whole cities leveled: also
that there had been a time of shame for him, outskirts
of a ruined town, half Baroque, half Greek Revival,
pediments of Flora and Hygeia from a brief eighteenth-century
health spa boom lying on the streets in broken chunks
and dogs scavenging among them. His one act of courage
then had been to drop pieces of bread or chocolate,
as others did, where a fugitive family of Jews
was rumored to be hiding. I never raised my voice,
of course, none of us did. He sliced wedges of cheese
after the bread, spooned out dollops of sour jam
from some Hungarian plum, purple and faintly gingered.

Click here to read the rest.

I love the way the poem jumps around in a very stream-of-consciousness way, just like the title implies. And I love the little hidden daggers of emotional poignancy, like the image of the whitened chocolate, or the heaving his wife’s rib cage as she sobs. It’s like he keeps getting sideswiped by his own heart. Beautiful, powerful, and clever without being cloying. That’s what I like in a poem.

Congrats to the other NBA winners as well, particularly Sherman Alexie – I’m reading The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian right now, and I’m totally digging it.

Below is today’s Robert’s Snow schedule.

Pictured here is an ’07 snowflake which was not on the initial list and so not covered by a blogger in the Blogging for a Cure effort. I’m happy to be able to feature it. It was created by multi-media artist and illustrator and animator and comic book artist (whew, busy man) Brian Biggs, and it’s entitled “Ice Skater’s Waltz” (for sale in Auction 2). The auction site states: “{Brian’s} past lives include those of an art director, professor, competitive accordion player, and television personality.” Brian most recently illustrated One Beastly Beast: Two Aliens, Three Inventors, Four Fantastic Tales by Garth Nix (Eos) and Camp Out!: The Ultimate Kids’ Guide by Lynn Brunelle (Workman Publishing Company), both published this past summer. How did I miss that first one? It looks particularly interesting.

If you missed them, you can read yesterday’s features here. My fun fact for the day was learning that illustrator Mary Newell DePalma, as featured by Elaine Magliaro, used to work as a sign language interpreter, as did I. Who knew?

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I’ve got sidekicks on the mind this week and started a short picture book round-up yesterday with Mighty Max and his sidekick, Power Pinky. Here are a couple more . . .

Move over, Harold. Meet Lucy, who also has the power to create a world of her own by simply drawing it. This is one of the best picture books I’ve seen this year — not to mention the celebration-of-books that this title is makes it a perfect book to highlight during this, Children’s Book Week. What we have here is a young girl who simply can’t get to sleep: “She could not, would not, did not want to go to bed.” Deciding she wants to draw, she creates a monster with an oval body, square head, rectangle legs, circle eyes, and extra added triangular spiky scales on his back. And power to Lucy: What does she immediately say to her new creation? “You don’t scare me . . . Let’s play!” So, the playing ensues: building castles, flying airplanes (which frightens our new monster a wee bit), marching in a parade, skipping, jumping, crawling, you-name-it — which all, of course, tires Lucy out. Turning the tables on the child/caregiver relationship and the usual bedtime struggles, Wing has Lucy try every tactic she can think of to get Monster to bed and to fulfill his needs: She draws him a bed, but he refuses to go to sleep; when he screams that he’s hungry, she draws him a mountain of meatballs; and when he yells “Potty,” she draws a bathroom. Read the rest of this entry �

Below is today’s Robert’s Snow schedule.

Today’s 2007 snowflake (pictured above) — which was not assigned to a blogger, so I’m happy to feature it here — was created by Brooklyn editorial illustrator, children’s book illustrator, designer, painter, and sculptor James T. Williamson, whose blog branches off in many directions: his work as a children’s book illustrator (where he talks about some of his books); his work as designer and illustrator on CD covers and posters; and his work as a “computer painter” at Impressionist Robot. Look at his post about his ’05 snowflake, “Vincent Van Goghflake.” The back of that snowflake is pictured here. And if you click here and scroll down a bit, you can see his ’04 snowflake, “Edward Hopper Snowfake, an interpretive copy of Edward Hopper’s New York Corner, 1913 with extrapolated dendrites and snow.” Read the rest of this entry �

Ah, sidekicks. So under-appreciated. So underpaid. I’ve got a stack ‘o’ picture books I’ve been wanting to talk about for a while (I’m in catch-up mode now, so here go some picture book posts, starting today and as often as I can) that in one way or another feature a sidekick or an, uh, sidekick-esque character. And we just have to start things off with the most sidekick-y one of all, the new Max and Pinky title from Maxwell Eaton III, The Adventures of Max and Pinky: Superheroes (Knopf Books for Young Readers; October 2007; review copy).

I reviewed the first Max and Pinky title here in March of this year. This was our introduction to the duo — the bald-headed, Charlie-Brown-esque Max who loves to hang out with his best bud, Pinky, a piglet who lives for marshmallows. They love adventure, and they’re tight, y’all. As I mentioned in that review, Kirkus Reviews nailed the book’s charm: “a warm affirmation of budship.” And Eaton’s style is spare, rendered economically and with bold colors (mostly blues and greens) and thick black outlines, all colored digitally. Spare but humorous. There are lots of laughs — mostly in the form of their bubble-speak asides — in that title.

And in this new one. Read the rest of this entry �