Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

“If I had a horse, we would be brave together.”
(Click to enlarge)

 
I’ve got a review over at BookPage of Gianna Marino’s If I Had a Horse (Neal Porter/Roaring Brook, January 2018).

That is here (and I’ve got a certain song from this classic album of my childhood in my head today).

Here at 7-Imp, I’ve got a few spreads from the book.

Enjoy!

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City Hidden Behind Clouds — Baucis
— From Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities
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It’s a pleasure to have a visit today from New York-based illustrator Shreya Gupta. As you will read below, she is has done a great deal of editorial illustration but is also currently working on her first children’s book.

I’m going to hand 7-Imp over to her so that she can share more of her art and tell us more about herself.

I thank her for visiting. . . .

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“‘Hello, my name is Simon.
I am a cat. Just like you!'”– From Galia Bernstein’s I Am a Cat

 

” … and he tumbled into the river as well!”
— From Mem Fox’s Ducks Away!, illustrated by Judy Horacek

 

“‘Hello, Little Tiger,’ said Elephant. ‘Did I scare you?’ asked Little Tiger.
‘Oh, no. You’re much too small.’ ‘Drat!’ said Little Tiger,
and he set off again to find someone else to scare.”
— From Philippa Leathers’ The Tiptoeing Tiger
(Click spread to enlarge)

 
Last week at Kirkus, I wrote here about three new picture books perfect for the toddler and preschool set — Mem Fox’s Ducks Away! (Scholastic, January 2018), illustrated by Judy Horacek; Galia Bernstein’s I am a Cat (Abrams, February 2018), and Philippa Leathers’ The Tiptoeing Tiger (Candlewick, February 2018).

Today, I’ve got a bit of art from each book.

Enjoy!

(Note: See an interview with Galia Bernstein here at Mel Schuit’s wonderful blog.)

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“I started thinking about illustrating [Richard Wright’s] haiku back in 2006 after I came across a few of them in a poetry anthology. I had read Native Son and The Outsider in my twenties and had more or less dismissed his work as too polemical for my tastes. I was surprised and delighted by the poems. A quick search online led me to a posthumously published collection of over 800 of his haiku, Haiku: This Other World.

In addition to hundreds of wonderful poems, this book included a terrific introduction that gave me a new perspective on Wright and backmatter that gave me a deeper understanding of this poetic form. Creating this book was an opportunity for me to reconsider my feelings about Wright’s work. I am now a fan.”

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Over at Kirkus today, I talk with author-illustrator Nina Crews, pictured here, about her new picture book, Seeing into Tomorrow: Haiku by Richard Wright (Millbrook Press, February 2018), which features her photo-collage illustrations.

The Q&A is here. Next week, I’ll follow up here at 7-Imp with some art from the book.

Until tomorrow …

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Photo of Nina Crews taken by Matthew Septimus.