Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

 
Kristin Roskifte’s Everybody Counts: A Counting Story from 0 to 7.5 Billion (Wide Eyed Editions, February 2020), a Norwegian import originally published in 2018, is an unusual counting book. Starting with zero (“no one”), pictured below, readers count up to 7.5 billion — with, needless to say, a few numbers skipped along the way. Readers do count 0 to 30 but then jump from there to 45, and from there things increment more arbitrarily. (And if you’re curious about the big number in the title, readers go from 1,000 to the titular 7,500,000,000, the latter number accompanied by an image of the Earth in space: “Seven and a half billion people on the same planet.”)

This book’s primary delight, though, lies not in the counting of humans, but in the stories hinted at and mysteries that lie within — and Roskifte’s reminder that all those stories count.

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This is a quick post to point you to some picture book reviews, if you’re so inclined to read them.

Over at Bookpage, I’ve a review here of Anica Mrose Rissi’s Love, Sophia on the Moon (Little, Brown, March 2020), illustrated by Mika Song.

Over at the Horn Book, I’ve a review here of Jessie Sima’s Jules vs. the Ocean (Simon & Schuster, June 2020). (This one desperately makes me wish I could wish myself away to the shore right about now.)

Also, Nashville Public Library has chosen Yuyi Morales’s Dreamers for their 2020 Nashville Reads selection, and I wrote about that at Tennessee’s wonderful Chapter 16. You can click the image below to read that at their site.

Until later …

 
It’s the first Sunday of the month, dear Imps, which means I welcome a student or otherwise relatively new-to-the-field illustrator here at 7-Imp. Today is a visit from Nan Coa, an illustrator living and working in New York City. Nan’s work has been recognized by American Illustration, the Society of Illustrators, Communication Arts, the AOI, 3×3 Magazine, and more. She tells us more about herself below and shares some artwork. I thank her for visiting. Let’s get right to it!

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