Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

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. Not a single blogger flaked out (lame pun intended) and dropped the ball. I was warned about perhaps having to scramble for someone, to pull a last-minute illustrator feature out of the air, but everyone pulled through and did a bang-up job. That right there is seven kinds of awesome, my friends. Thank you to all the participating bloggers — and all the ones who emailed and lent support and posted about it and talked up the auctions. You all rock. And rawk.

And remember that, as a result of this fundraising effort, we now have a handy-dandy, informative resource for picture book lovers everywhere — this page, which lists all the features, many of them interviews with children’s book illustrators.

Note that Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect has a list of the illustrators whose snowflakes can be bidded on today (in the order they appear at the Robert’s Snow auction site) at her blog (in her sidebar). Their names are all linked to their Blogging for a Cure feature or to their own web site.

I feel a bit awkward or, I dunno, goofy saying this, as if I’m at the Oscars or something, but I just want to quickly say (since this was not a small undertaking): Thanks to Dana-Farber (particularly, Lauren Nash) and Grace Lin for letting us do this; thanks to Elaine Magliaro for all her help and support; thanks to Eisha for letting me possess the blog for over one month with snowflake posts; and thanks to Jen Robinson and Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect for sharing their HTML codes for the weekly snowflake-feature schedules with participating bloggers. They stepped up to the plate and offered to do that, which made posting about the daily schedules very easy for everyone.

The last thing I want to say is this: It’s very likely that each person reading this and even every participating blogger in this effort knows someone who has been affected by cancer in some way. That’s one reason we all banded together to do this. We wanted to drive traffic to the auctions and raise more money for cancer research. I really, really hope we have done that — that more people will know about the auctions now and go bid. But the primary reason I wanted to do this was for Grace Lin and for the memory of her husband, which might sound a bit melodramatic or corny coming from me, someone who never met Robert and who hasn’t even met Grace in person. But many of us know how devastating it is to lose someone dear to us at way-too-young an age. So this was in honor of Robert and for Grace, too. I’m sure I speak for all the participating bloggers when I say we hope it gave her a much-needed boost during a difficult time.

Now go buy snowflakes! To borrow Cheryl Klein’s repeated mantra at Brooklyn Arden, “FIGHT CANCER! BUY SNOWFLAKES! YEAH!”

Late-Morning Addendum: Because these snowflakes are just that interesting, I’m going to show you one more, which can be bidded on in Auction 3. This is “Meet Jack Frost” by illustrator Derek Anderson, the illustrator of the Little Quack books (written by Lauren Thompson) and a number of other titles, including his most recent illustrated title, Romeo and Lou Blast Off (Simon & Schuster; November ’07), which he also wrote.

Brrrrr. I’m gettin’ cold just looking at Jack Frost and his ice goatee.