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7-Imp’s 7 Kicks #422: Featuring Kristof Devos

h1 March 8th, 2015 by jules

This morning, I’ve got some spreads from Pimm van Hest’s Weatherboy, illustrated by Kristof Devos. The book was first published last year in Belgium and Holland and has been translated from the Dutch by Clavis Publishing. It is on shelves this month, and pictured above is the cover art.

It’s the story of a boy whose moods dictate the weather: “When he was happy, the sun shone, and when he was sad, the clouds cried too.” Everyone starts to call him “Weatherboy” and make terrible demands upon him. When folks want warm weather for the beach, they hope for illness to beset him so that he’ll have a fever. If their sunflowers need rain, they ask him to cry. This makes him sad, which casts his village into a dark fog.

Feeling alone, even among his family, he leaves town. He finds a small house in a tree and lives there, alone. A boy who loves frost and snow heads out onto the ice one day and later meets Weatherboy. His presence makes Weatherboy happy. They have so much fun that “they didn’t even notice that the world was slowly thawing.” Afraid that his friend might leave, Weatherboy opens the refrigerator door to let cold fill their small house again. In the end, Weatherboy comes to the conclusion that he must tell his friend—and, really, all the world—to accept him just as he is. “This is who I am!” he says triumphantly as he floats along “golden rays of sunshine.”


“The little boy grew older and changed. And every day, the weather changed along with him. When he was happy, the sun shone, and when he was sad, the clouds cried too.
If he had an outburst of anger there was thunder and lightning, and when he sneezed suddenly the trees bent over and people were blown off their bikes.
Before long, everyone started calling him ‘Weatherboy.'”
(Click to enlarge)

And that’s the end of the story. It’s abrupt, and it remains to be seen how his friend will respond. But Weatherboy has done what he must do to find his own happiness. It’s a story that works on more than one level, and I’ve been thinking about it all week.

Below are some more of Kristof Devos’ beguiling spreads from the book (without the text). …


“At first, Weatherboy liked being able to influence the weather. But slowly that changed. Because everyone around him wanted something from him. ‘Can you make Weatherboy cry?’ someone would ask. ‘My sunflowers could use some rain.’ Or …
‘Does Weatherboy have a fever? It’ll be a perfect beach day!’ This made Weatherboy very sad and when that happened, the village disappeared into a dark and gloomy fog.”
(Click to enlarge)


 


“One afternoon Weatherboy was having lunch with his mother and father. ‘Darling, you are so quiet,’ his mother said. ‘Is something the matter?’ ‘Well…’ the boy said, and suddenly there were tears in his eyes. ‘Oh, darling! Can’t you hold your tears for just a little bit longer?’ Our clothes are drying outside!’ She left the table and ran into the garden. This made his father laugh out loud. Weatherboy’s tears of sadness became tears of anger. Through the kitchen window his father saw big hailstones falling on his vegetable garden. ‘Look what you did!’ he shouted angrily, and he ran out too. Weatherboy felt sadder and more alone than he ever had before.”
(Click to enlarge)


 


“That night in bed, Weatherboy made a decision. He didn’t want to stay a moment longer. The next morning, before the rooster crowed, he left home. He met a lot of people on his way. And it didn’t take long before they all were asking something of him. ‘I want sun!’ ‘I want cold!’ ‘I want snow!’ I want, I want, I want… Heat waves, rainbows, thunder, lightning, hail, storm, fog…. Everyone wanted something from him and they all wanted something different. After every disappointment he walked farther.
Farther and farther.”
(Click to enlarge)


 



“Day by day, Weatherboy became more unhappy and lonely. At first you could only tell by the snowflakes that whirled down around him. But eventually it affected the whole world. The temperature dropped below freezing, and it stayed there. Ditches, canals and rivers turned into ice, and even lakes and seas froze over. Weatherboy saw it happen, but he didn’t know what to do about it. He found a little house and lived there all by himself. At night he dreamed of sun and warmth.”
(Click either image to see spread in its entirety)


 


“Far away there lived a boy who just loved the frost and snow. Every morning when he opened the curtains his face lit up. He could do what he loved doing the most —
ice skating! Every day! He was on the ice from early morning till late at night.
But soon that wasn’t enough. He wanted to skate farther. Farther and farther.”
(Click to enlarge)


 

WEATHERBOY. Text copyright © 2014 by Pimm van Hest. Illustrations copyright © 2014 by Kristof Devos. Published by Clavis Publishing, New York. Illustrations reproduced by permission of Krisof Devos.

Note for any new readers: 7-Imp’s 7 Kicks is a weekly meeting ground for taking some time to reflect on Seven(ish) Exceptionally Fabulous, Beautiful, Interesting, Hilarious, or Otherwise Positive Noteworthy Things from the past week, whether book-related or not, that happened to you. New kickers are always welcome.

* * * Jules’ Kicks * * *

My big kick is that I’m in beautiful Asheville, North Carolina, right now to visit friends and talk about Wild Things at Malaprop’s Bookstore/Cafe. But do tell me …

What are YOUR kicks this week?





13 comments to “7-Imp’s 7 Kicks #422: Featuring Kristof Devos”

  1. Thanks Jules,

    for paying attention/reviewing our book.
    Warm greetings from Eindhoven, the Netherlands from me, PiMM, a.k.a. ‘the real Weatherboy’ 🙂

    PiMM

         by Pimm van Hest March 8th, 2015 at 6:54 am

  2. Weatherboy, wow, I can see how this book would stay with you. There is a poignancy about it.

    Jules, enjoy your weekend.
    Pimm, so glad your book has been brought to the U.S.

    My kicks:
    1. Going to the Owl Fest at Tryon Creek State Park. Saw a great horned owl and a northern spotted owl that are in the care of the Audobon Society.
    2. Cat in the Hat Library Night.
    3. Time with friends.
    4. Reconnecting with someone I’ve know since second grade.
    5. Writing.
    6. Participating in the annual Slice of Life Story Challenge for March.
    7. Sunshine.
    Have a great week.

         by Jone March 8th, 2015 at 8:58 am

  3. Good morning, Imps and Kristof!

    Have fun, Jules! 🙂

    Kicks from the past week:
    1) Rehearsals
    2) Auditions
    3) Songs
    4) Staying warm
    5) Seeing is believing
    6) Balancing
    7) Control

         by Little Willow March 8th, 2015 at 10:08 am

  4. Love the stark beauty of some of these spreads, the emotion of Weatherboy really comes through in a haunting way. Lovely.

    Hope your talk at Malaprop went great Jules!

    Jone – I love Tryon Creek, the Owl Festival sounds fun!

    LW – yay for rehearsals, and your kick #5 makes me curious – what did you see?

    My kicks this week:
    1) More winter sunshine.
    2) Very busy work week.
    3) A special training class with Daisy – very proud of my smart girl.
    4) This struck a chord with me – The Museum of 4 in the Morning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0byYFXjRJM
    5) A visit from a friend who lives far away. Daisy was kind enough to sleep with him in the guest room in case he missed his dog.
    6) Dinner with same friend and another mutual friend – good food, good wine, and good company are some of my favorite things.
    7) Spring! All the possibilities of the new!

    Have a lovely bloom-filled week!

         by Rachel March 8th, 2015 at 11:26 am

  5. My kicks:

    1. featured on 7imp 😉
    2. sunshine and eyelashes on my cheek.

         by Kristof Devos March 8th, 2015 at 1:19 pm

  6. Rachel: As someone whose life is filled with synchronicity, I liked that TED Talk a lot. Thanks for sharing! 🙂 To answer your question, something I filmed.

         by Little Willow March 8th, 2015 at 1:34 pm

  7. Kristof: Make a wish! (on the eyelashes…)

         by Little Willow March 8th, 2015 at 1:34 pm

  8. My Kicks:

    1. my boyfriend returning from Vienna after 6 days of not seeing each other
    2. our daughter returning home from Amsterdam after a two-days-sleep-over with my brother, my sister-in-law and their 2-year-old daughter Zoë
    3. being able to tell the whole world that we’ve been featured on 7imp
    4. the first 20 degrees Celsius this winter/spring after a horrible ‘warm’ winter
    5. seeing our hairdresser after 6 hopeless bay-hairday-weeks
    6. seeing our 2 dogs, Splinter and Zorro, go out of their mind after being reunited with my boyfriend Eduard after 6 days (they haven’t eaten since he left)
    7. making our own kitchen garden this week

    🙂 Love from MMe, PiMM from The Netherlands

         by Pimm van Hest March 8th, 2015 at 1:44 pm

  9. I’ll be back tomorrow! I got back from Asheville LATE. More soon.

         by jules March 8th, 2015 at 8:42 pm

  10. Here I am.

    Pimm, waving to you from Tennessee. Glad the whole family is reunited again.

    Jone, I love the very idea of an OwlFest and so would my oldest daughter.

    Little Willow, have you all actually had chilly weather? Or did you get to travel?

    Rachel, I love kick #5. Thoughtful dog. Thanks for the link, which I”ll watch in a second here.

    Hi, Kristof!

    Have a good week, all …

         by jules March 9th, 2015 at 7:30 am

  11. I don’t have the time or stamina to think of 7 (it’s after 2am), but I’ll mention one!…

    On Saturday I attended the Grand Re-Opening of the Bank Street Bookstore and had a fanTASTic time! I met some wonderful people (including Betsy Bird, your pal) and got to hear a friend read her debut book. What a day 😀

    AND, this book is so fresh and imaginative, I can’t wait to see and hear all about Weatherboy 🙂 Thanks for the review, Julie 🙂

         by :Donna March 10th, 2015 at 12:21 am

  12. Hello. I love your site. I wish you had a subscribe by email feature. If you do. I couldn’t find it.

    Your blog is wonderful, but I’m afraid it will get lost in my see of book marks if I don’t get an email. And my rss is unreliable at best.

    Thanks anyway.

    Lynetta

         by Constance March 20th, 2015 at 1:29 am

  13. I can always ask about a subscribe feature, Constance. I’ll try to do that soon. Thanks!

         by jules March 22nd, 2015 at 3:50 pm

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