Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

 

Author-illustrator Carson Ellis created this lovely image, and I secured her permission to share it here.

Happy holidays from 7-Imp (which is to say: me)!

“When they reached the top, they saw the old man hanging gold stars on a tree.
The stars twinkled in the moonlight and cast a golden glow on the bare branches and the snow beneath. Everyone stopped and stared in wonderment.”
(Click image to see spread in its entirety)

 
Christmas is upon us, so how about a holiday picture-book import? Gisela Cölle’s The Star Tree (NorthSouth, September 2021), translated by Rosemary Lanning, was originally published in Switzerland in 1997 and is now on American shelves.

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(Click spread to enlarge)

 
I’m sending you to the Horn Book’s Calling Caldecott today to read, if you’re so inclined, Monique Harris’s wonderful post on Bryan Collier’s illustrations for We Shall Overcome (Orchard Books). This is a picture book adaptation of the classic gospel / protest song, and I believe it will be on shelves at the end of this month. (It might already be on shelves, but it’s hard to tell anymore with the shipping delays we’re experiencing in this country and the ways in which that has affected book publishing.)

And because you know I like to share art, you can head back here when you’re done reading Monique’s post to see some spreads from this book. More are pictured below!

Monique’s post is here. Enjoy!

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It is a pleasure to have Ruth Chan visit 7-Imp today to share some preliminary images and final art (and neighbor photos!) from Thank You, Neighbor! (Harper, September 2021)

“Every day, we go for a walk,” the book opens. The child (who has, hands down, the best shirt) and pet dog you see pictured above take a walk through their truly diverse and inclusive neighborhood — taking their time (“even when the neighborhood is crowded”), stopping to say hello to neighbors, chatting with community workers (“our neighbors [that] keep us safe”), noticing how their neighbors take care of each other, and always saying “thank you,” even when things get busy. That’s the gist of the narrative here, and it somehow feels revolutionary in today’s world.

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Kyra Teis’s Klezmer! (Kar-Ben, November 2021) is a book bursting with joy. It features a Jewish child, the one you see above, who visits her grandparents in New York City (“Uptown, Downtown, and Lower East Side”), revels in the Jewish folk music known as klezmer, and celebrates its firm hold in both past and present: “Klezmer’s oldish, and newish, like jazz, but it’s Jewish. Yesteryear’s hits strive to jive with new riffs.”

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“Christmas tree and menorah light / Red and green and blue and white
Stronger together / Shining bright!”
(Click spread to enlarge)

 
Sometimes you set out to write about a picture book and, before you do, you read a review of it or someone else’s thoughts on the book. And then you’re utterly ruined for articulating your thoughts, because … well, that person did such a good job. That’s how I feel about author Laurel Snyder’s recent piece at the New York Times on Lee Wind’s Red and Green and Blue and White (Levine Querido, October 2021), illustrated by Paul O. Zelinsky. Laurel does a beautiful job of capturing this book’s special-ness. And she does so in such a direct way, with no word acrobatics or clichéd review-speak. (If you’re interested in reading her piece and can access it, it’s here.)

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I loooove Carter Higgins’s Circle Under Berry (Chronicle, September 2021), a book I think we’ll still be reading and talking about in 20 years. Over at the Horn Book’s Calling Caldecott, Travis Jonker pays tribute to this engaging concept book.

That is here.

 
One of my favorite nonfiction picture books in recent years is Isabel Thomas’s Moth: An Evolution Story, illustrated by Daniel Egnéus and published in 2019. I’m so pleased to see that these two have collaborated on a new book. This one is called Fox: A Circle of Life Story (Bloomsbury, November 2021), and it is a remarkably eloquent book about life, death, and what happens after death.

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“Azaria’s house is next to the park. That girl can really jump some rope! She can do Double Dutch on one leg at a time. She can turn around and touch the ground. She can jump by herself with two ropes. She can even dance, jupm, and dream of winning a shiny trophy one day, all at the same time. When she flies down the street, swinging her rope, she lifts her long brown legs as high as the sun.”
(Click to enlarge and see spread in its entirety)

 

I think that the smartest way I can tell you about Tricia Elam Walker’s Dream Street (Anne Schwartz Books, November 2021), illustrated by Ekua Holmes, is to suggest you read Dr. Michelle Martin’s review of it at the Horn Book, because she does such an eloquent job of describing it (“a stunning work of art that ­dismantles stereotypes about Black communities and portrays a place where love abounds”). The book, as another review notes, is more like a string of character studies than it is a story. It captures the lives, brief histories (in some instances), and aspirations of the members of the community on Dream Street, “the best street in the world!” Evidently, it’s based on the Roxbury neighborhood in Boston where the author and illustrator grew up together as cousins. There is even a spread featuring two young girls, one drawing and one writing: “The cousins dreams that someday they’ll create a picture book together about everyone they know and meet on Dream Street.”

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Here’s one of my favorite books from this year — Make Meatballs Sing: The Life & Art of Corita Kent, written by Matthew Burgess and illustrated by Kara Kramer. If you have missed it, by chance, Emmie Stuart writes about it today over at the Horn Book’s Calling Caldecott, so you can read more there. Here is that link.

Enjoy!