Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

“When she became an adult, Kip practiced the lessons
she learned in her grandmother’s kitchen. …”
(Click spread to enlarge and read text in its entirety)

 
Growing up during the Great Depression, Kip Tiernan lived with her grandmother and watched as she gave food to whoever knocked on her kitchen door, despite having plenty of people to feed in her own home. “I don’t have to know them to know that they’re hungry,” she told Kip. “We’re a lot better off than the people who come to our door.” Kip, as an adult, carried these lessons with her and opened the first homeless shelter for women in the U.S., Rosie’s Place. Author Christine McDonell and illustrator Victoria Tentler-Krylov bring Kip’s story to life in Sanctuary: Kip Tiernan and Rosie’s Place, the Nation’s First Shelter for Women (Candlewick, March 2022).

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“First Dat sailed on a boat, then flew on a plane, and today Dat will be on a school bus.” Dat’s world on this spread is a monochromatic one, save for him and his mother. They hold hands in front of the bus and are the only color on this, the first spread. They are also depicted realistically, though everything else on the spread is stylistically over-the-top, as if we are seeing an old animated cartoon still. This is the world of Young Vo’s Gibberish (Levine Querido, March 2022), the story of one boy’s experience navigating a new language in a new country.

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E.B. Goodale’s new picture book, Also (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, February 2022), is a gentle, tender meditation on memory. On the first spread, a child looks at readers, saying: “Today, I am at my gramma’s house, high on the hill, amongst the blueberry bushes. And also …” On the next spread, she remembers being small, camping with her mother and wandering away from her tent.

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(Click spread to enlarge)

 
I’ve a review over at BookPage of Mac Barnett’s John’s Turn (Candlewick, March 2022), illustrated by Kate Berube. This one soars (bad pun not intended).

Here’s the review, and below are some spreads.

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It is a pleasure to welcome Italian illustrator Bruno Zocca to 7-Imp today. Bruno discusses his illustrations for Davide Calì’s Mio nonno gigante, published in 2018; illustrating for The New York Times; the artistic collective he created with two illustrator friends; and more. We haven’t seen Bruno’s work published here in the States, but I hope we do one day.

Let’s get right to it. Here is Bruno — in his own words. I thank him for visiting and sharing so much art.

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This morning, Mary Ann Cappiello, Professor of Language and Literacy at Lesley University, and Xenia Hadjioannou, Associate Professor of Language and Literacy Education at the Harrisburg campus of Penn State University, sent the letter below to The New York Times, requesting that the paper add three children’s nonfiction bestseller lists to parallel the existing picture book, middle grade, and young adult lists, which focus on fiction.

This change will align the children’s lists with the adult bestseller lists, which separate nonfiction and fiction. It will also acknowledge the incredible vibrancy of children’s nonfiction available today and support the substantial body of research showing that many children prefer nonfiction and still others enjoy fiction and nonfiction equally.

If you support this request, please follow the signature collection form link to add your name and affiliation to the more than 200 educators and librarians who have already endorsed the effort. Your information will be added to the letter, but your email address will remain private.

Here is the letter to The New York Times. … Read the rest of this entry �

 
Alain Serge Dzotap, the award-winning author of The Gift (Eerdmans, February 2022), is a Cameroonian children’s book author and poet with a publishing house called Les Bruits de l’encre. Born in Bafoussam, he regularly promotes literacy in Cameroon by visiting schools and conducting workshops. This book, originally published in France and illustrated by French illustrator and graphic designer Delphine Renon, is Dzotap’s first book published in English.

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Back in January, I had the distinct pleasure of chatting via phone with activist, author, and educator Michelle Duster, the author of Ida B. Wells, Voice of Truth (Henry Holt, January 2022), illustrated by Laura Freeman. I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation and wanted to talk to her all day.

Subtitled Educator, Feminist, and Anti-Lynching Civil Rights Leader, this picture book biography profiles the life and work of Michelle’s great-grandmother, none other than educator, journalist, and civil rights advocate Ida B. Wells.

My chat with Michelle is captured over at Tennessee’s Chapter 16 today.

That link is here.

 
Did you all know that author-illustrator Barbara McClintock is working on illustrating a picture book about Randolph Caldecott, written by the very talented Michelle Markel? (Well, you know this if you follow Barbara on Instagram, which — if social media is your jam — I highly recommend.) It’s called Tomfoolery! Randolph Caldecott and the Rambunctious Coming of Age of Children’s Books, and it’s coming in Spring 2023 from Chronicle Books.

I secured permission from Barbara to share a cover sketch here today, as well as a few images of her drawing table. Bonus: One photo features beautiful Pia, who merely tolerates the camera.

Enjoy!

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“ONCE UPON A TIME … on the shortest street with the longest name
in the biggest palace with the HUGEST throne …”
(Click spread to enlarge)

 
Just look at this castle, which can only come from the singular paintbrush of Rowboat Watkins. It is the first spread of Sally Lloyd-Jones’s Tiny Cedric (Anne Schwartz Books, February 2022).

This palace is the home of the “tiniest king,” whose name is Cedric, King ME the First. It’s the biggest possible palace with the “HUGEST throne,” and it sits on “the shortest street with the longest name.” (And since it’s hard to see the name of this road, given the size of that image, it’s: Don’t Even Think of Turning Here Because You Are So Absolutely Not Invited Boulevard.)

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