7-Imp’s 7 Kicks #569: Featuring Júlia Sardà
January 14th, 2018 by jules
I’ve some spreads today from Kathleen Krull’s One Fun Day with Lewis Carroll: A Celebration of Wordplay and a Girl Named Alice (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, January 2018), illustrated by Júlia Sardà. In this book, which puts a fine-tune focus on Carroll’s creative abilities with language and his sense of adventure, we meet him as a young man, his ten brothers and sisters in tow. They adored him, Krull writes, and he led them on outings, played games with them, and made up stories for them. Krull emphasizes his sense of fun, even after he grew “into a prim and proper Victorian gentleman.”
“Then came one fine, famous Friday in July,” we read, during which Carroll spun a story we still read to this day. While rowing in a boat with a friend and the three children of another friend, including a girl named Alice, Carroll launches into the story of a girl, also named Alice, who falls down a rabbit hole. All the while, Carroll plays with words. Four spreads are devoted here to what came to be the iconic Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland — and all of its glorious wordplay. All throughout Krull’s book, many of the imaginative words that Carroll coined are worked into the text — in a larger red font.
Sardà’s illustrations are beguiling. Remember Kyo Maclear’s The Liszts from 2016? (You can see some illustrations here at this 7-Imp post.) Sardà also illustrated that. In one of my Kirkus columns, I described Sardà’s illustrations for that as “a lot like Edward Gorey meeting Charles Addams in a bar and the two buy [Wes] Anderson a drink.” I love Sardà’s offbeat characters and sly sense of mischief, which are on display here. She’s a fitting choice for capturing the mad, surreal lunacy of Alice (I see she’s done it before), and she reverently depicts Carroll with an impish sort of charm.
Because art can say so much more than I can, here are a few spreads. …
A day with Lewis was always fabulous and joyous — as he would say, frabjous. …”
(Click to enlarge and read text in its entirety)
(Click to enlarge and read text in its entirety)
ONE FUN DAY WITH LEWIS CARROLL: A CELEBRATION OF WORDPLAY AND A GIRL NAMED ALICE. Text copyright © 2018 by Kathleen Krull. Illustrations copyright © 2018 by Júlia Sardà and reproduced by permission of the publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston.
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.
1) This week, Jacqueline Woodson became the new National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature! Her wonderful speech is here:
2) On Tuesday of this week, Matt de la Peña noted here in Time magazine that we shouldn’t shield children from darkness. Then, on Friday Kate DiCamillo responded here that it’s also okay for children’s books to be sad, that sometimes in a sad book children find out that they can bear it. Such good pieces of writing, both of them.
3) “In Creative Battle,” the latest New Yorker cover.
4) I heard this song below early in the week. It’s called “Solitary Daughter.” The artist goes by Bedouine, and her real name is Azniv Korkejian. I was taken by this, especially the lyrics:
5) Gaby Moreno sings a beautiful Spanish version of “Sister Rosetta Goes Before Us,” one of my favorite songs by my very favorite musician (Sam Phillips):
I’ll share Sam’s version here, since it truly is one of the world’s best songs:
6) A snow day.
7) There’s nothing kicky at all about our current President and his constant stream of disgraceful comments, but I found it strangely comforting that, after this week’s hateful remarks, Roxane Gay spoke truth here in the New York Times. Nailed it. If you read anything today, read that.
What are YOUR kicks this week?
Thank you for introducing One Fun Day with Lewis Carroll. Must get.
Jules, snow day and kick 7. She is so spot on. When are we going to take action?
My kicks:
1. New Year Postcard Project.
2. Reading.
3. Going to Portland Art Museum today.
4. Clear blue skies.
5. A student thanking me for the book Sweet Miss Honeywell’s Revenge.
6. A 3rd grader let ne know she didnt have her book because it was in the bathroom at home for her to read.
7. Sweet puupy (albeit 7 YO) on my lap.
7.5 Twenty eighy years ago tpday I met Chuck.
Have a great week.
Good morning, Imps! Happy Sunday!
Hello, Júlia Sardà! Thank you (and Jules!) for sharing your lovely artwork. I love Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and I love wordplay!
Jules: Here’s to truth. Here’s to good music.
Jone: Happy meeting-anniversary!
My kicks from the past week:
1) Auditions
2) Offers
3) Communication
4) Preparation
5) Organization
6) Writing
7) Rehearsals
Jone, happy meeting-anniversary from me, too! What’d you see at the museum today?
LW: BREAK A LEG, as always. I’m yelling that for emphasis.
Thank you, Jules! 🙂 🙂 🙂
Jules, look on FB, Laika studios.
LW, break leg.
Jone, I ditched Facebook, though I left the ability to still post on the Niblings page. But I see what you mean here: http://www.laika.com/. NEAT.