Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Welcome to my third picture-book roundtable discussion, in which the author, illustrator, editor, and art director/book designer are on deck to give me and 7-Imp readers varying perspectives on one picture book title. Today’s picture book is The Adventures of Granny Clearwater & Little Critter (Henry Holt/Christy Ottaviano Books, October 2010), which means that today I welcome author Kimberly Willis Holt (whom I once interviewed back in 2007, during the era in which images at 7-Imp were tragically small) and illustrator Laura Huliska-Beith, as well as the book’s editor, Christy Ottaviano, the Editorial Director of Henry Holt’s Christy Ottaviano Books, and the book’s designer April Ward. (Throw in some illustrations from Kyrsten Brooker, and you’ve got all of the ladies Granny Clearwater has, in one way or another, lured here to 7-Imp today. Granny’s sneaky like that. Sharp as a tack, that one.)

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It’s the first Sunday of the month and, therefore, time to welcome a student of illustration or someone otherwise brand-new to the field. Today, I welcome Fabiola Garza Villalobos. Pictured above is her depiction of Joseph with baby Jesus, rendered digitally and via graphite. Fabiola is a recent graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, and I’m happy she’s stopped by (with special thanks to Mary Jane Begin). I’ll let Fabiola tell you more about herself:

Fabiola: Hello! My name is Fabiola Garza, and I’m currently head of the Concepts & Props team at 38 Studios, a video game company presently situated in Maynard, better known as Curt Schilling’s company. My general title is Environment Artist, but that doesn’t really detail all the wonderful things I get to do on a day-to-day basis. So, let’s begin at the beginning, before this professional life began.

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I know, I know. I often say “this post will be short and sweet,” and I then I start ramble typing. But it’s been a long week, and this truly will be brief.

The blog is being graced today with illustrations from Sean Qualls (who did one of my favorite 7-Imp interviews ever back in ’09, and that would be because he sent precisely one skerjillion images, and that’s the way I like to do ’em up, my friends — with a metric ton of art) and Bryan Collier. Sean is sharing over in Facebook land an illustration-a-day in honor of Black History Month, and I secured his permission to share Langston Hughes here:

The back cover (and one of the interior illustrations) from Laban Carrick Hill’s Dave the Potter: Artist, Poet, Slave, illustrated by Bryan Collier, is at the top of this post. You may remember that this biography of American artist Dave the potter received a 2011 Caldecott Honor, and I’ve yet to feature it here at the ‘ol blawg. If you’ve yet to see this book, what Tony Horwitz at the New York Times called a “restrained and respectful treatment of the historical facts {of his life}” and School Library Journal called “{o}utstanding in every way,” you’re in for a treat.

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As I type this on Monday evening, it’s late, and I’m preparing for a presentation I’ll be making to a class at Vanderbilt tomorrow — a presentation about both 7-Imp and the book Betsy Bird, Peter D. Sieruta, and I are writing for Candlewick. All that’s to say that I hope I’m mildly to moderately coherent in this post. But I can’t not show you some illustrations from the newly-illustrated The Secret River, written by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (who received the 1939 Pulitzer for The Yearling). The original publication, illustrated by Leonard Weisgard, received a 1956 Newbery Honor and was actually published after Rawlings’ death. It’s been re-printed this month by Atheneum Books with illustrations by two-time Caldecott medalists Leo & Diane Dillon.

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