Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

This week at Kirkus, I write about Cynthia Rylant’s Brownie & Pearl series for very young readers, illustrated by Brian Biggs. (As in: I did not even know about this great series, so I contribute my own little barbaric yawp about it to help introduce it to others who also may not know about it. I also acknowledge, however, that I am often just VERY SLOW.) The link will be here on Friday.

Last week, I wrote about the very beautifully-designed and -illustrated Outside Your Window: A First Book of Nature (Candlewick, February), written by Nicola Davies and illustrated by Mark Hearld. You can go read all about the book—and me gushing—at this link from last week, but today I share a couple of spreads.

And I just stumbled upon this video (which makes me so happy that I’m going to paste it here RIGHT NOW), which showcases LOTS of Hearld’s art. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m visiting this week (as a “special guest”) at a Highlights Foundation workshop in Honesdale, Pennsylvania. Last night at dinner, my former career as a sign language interpreter came up, and before I knew it, the ever-effusive Katie Davis—who could probably talk a cat into a long, leisurely bath—had convinced me to interpret her latest picture book, Little Chicken’s Big Day, into American Sign Language, while she read it — all in the name of World Read-Aloud Day 2012, which is being celebrated today, in fact.

I haven’t interpreted in—gulp—nearly eight years (with the wonderful exception of having the opportunity to interpret for Walter Dean Myers’ 2009 Arbuthnot Honor Lecture at the Alex Haley Farm in East Tennessee). This is far from a perfect interpretation. There are even mistakes. I feel like I should point this out to any Deaf folks or interpreters watching. Did I mention it was very impromptu?

 

I hope to be back tomorrow with actual picture book art. Until then …

I’m away this week, speaking at this workshop in Pennsylvania, but here’s a quick post to mention two quick things…

Pictured above is illustrator R. Gregory Christie. That image comes from my 2009 breakfast interview with him. Greg has a wonderful and worthwhile new idea for which he needs financial backing from those so inclined to provide some support. Here’s all the information you need to know (don’t miss the video linked there at the top), but bottom line is that Greg has a children’s and young teens’ bookstore (in a mall) in Decatur, Georgia, that “needs a new look.” He writes at that link: Read the rest of this entry »

It’s the first Sunday of the month when I shine the spotlight on a student or debut illustrator, and this morning I bring you the latter.

Mississipian Sarah Frances Hardy will see her first picture book published this Spring. I haven’t seen a copy, but she’s here today to introduce herself and tell us a bit about it. And there’s even more information about her here at her site.

Without further ado, here’s Sarah Frances… Read the rest of this entry »

This morning over at my Kirkus column, I write about Nicola Davies’ Outside Your Window: A First Book of Nature, illustrated by Mark Hearld. Heavens. It’s a beautiful book. That link is here. I hope to have art from it next week to share with you here at 7-Imp.

If you missed last week’s column, I wrote about the BolognaRagazzi Awards. That link is here.

I don’t have any art for my readers this morning, but here’s what I want to do, fingers crossed. Cristiana Clerici and I think it’d be super neato-skeeto (to put it all professional-like) to post all the book covers from the winning titles (and Mentions), along with at least one spread from each book. This is not a trivial task, though, given that many of these books are published in other countries, but we are going to try (after I get back in town next week from some more blogging-related travel).

So, we hope to have that for you one day in the near future — if we have our way, we’ll be sharing some international illustrations with you.

Until then …

In 2009, author/illustrator Taeeun Yoo visited for a cyber-breakfast, and it remains one of my favorite interviews. Not just because her response to the Pivot question about what turns her on was “Coffee. A sunny day. A stormy day, too. Music. Good conversations with friends. And cupcakes.” Mostly ’cause I love her illustration work.

Every now and then I like to check in with her, and it turns out she has at least (there could be more, for all I know) two titles out this year. And she’s here today to share some art from them.

Read the rest of this entry »

Yes. Me grunt. No time talk. Me knee-deep in manuscript edits.

No, really. I can try to be a bit more eloquent. AHEM. [Straightening my spine, clearing my throat here, generally pulling myself up from my slump over my keyboard] …

Right. Before I get back to manuscript edits, here’s a quick post to say that, when it is released in March (not long from now), I highly recommend finding a copy, by hook or by crook, of Julie Paschkis’ Mooshka: A Quilt Story (Peachtree). What a beauty this picture book is. And Julie is here today to share some images and a few early sketches from it, as well as talk a bit about it. Read the rest of this entry »

Today, I shine the spotlight on a nonfiction picture book, called Brothers at Bat: The True Story of an Amazing All-Brother Baseball Team (Clarion Books), written by Audrey Vernick and illustrated by Steven Salerno. It’ll be released in early April.

Baseball is not a sport that I play (though I enjoy it), and it’s not a sport that I watch either. (We’ve been over how you don’t want me in a room when I’m rooting for a team, right?) But I love this book, because it’s really not only about baseball. It’s about brotherhood (literally and figuratively, I might add).

I love the opening:

When winter’s chill melts into spring, back doors swing open and slap shut as kids just home from school run outside—mitts, bats, and balls in hand.

In one New Jersey town near the ocean, back in the 1920s and ’30s, you could hear the same door slam over and over. Three brothers raced out. Out went three more. And more … And still more.

Yup, the Acerra family had “twelve baseball-playing brothers,” as well as four sisters. (In the spread where Vernick notes that “most people thought sports were just for boys” back then, Salerno depicts the sisters playing determinedly at their own game of ball with a broom and ball of yarn. I like that.) Read the rest of this entry »

Hi, dear 7-Imp’ers. I’m starin’ down some manuscript edits this week. How are you all? Once this round of manuscript edits is done, I hope to post a bit more on a weekly basis here in the land of 7-Imp.

But for now …

Tomorrow morning over at Kirkus, I give a brief run-down of the BolognaRagazzi Awards, since the 2012 winners were announced just this week. But I also step back to describe what in the hubba-what the Bologna Children’s Book Fair is all about (as well as the four categories in the Ragazzi Awards), since I realize that to even the most hard-core children’s lit aficionado in this country, it might be a bit of a mystery.

For those interested in seeing the 2012 winners, they are as follows (note three American titles make Mentions this year in two different categories!) —

• Fiction winner and two Mentions
• Nonfiction winner and three Mentions
• New Horizons winner and two Mentions
• Opera Prima winner and three Mentions

That Kirkus column will be here tomorrow.

For last week’s column, which is here, I wrote about Maira Kalman’s Looking for Lincoln. You can read about it at that link, and today I share some art from it. Enjoy. Read the rest of this entry »

This isn’t the first time illustrator Erin Stead has visited 7-Imp. About a year prior to the release of her Caldecott-winning A Sick Day for Amos McGree, written by Philip C. Stead (who happens to be her husband), she visited to share some early art and the tools she used to make the illustrations for the book. I have to say, when it won the 2011 Caldecott, you would have heard me screaming, had you been standing outside my home (yeah, I screamed that loudly in happiness and enthusiasm, but wait … why are you standing outside my home?), because back then, in 2009, my smart readers (who possess such good taste) and I all recognized it as the special picture book that it is. (To boot, she visited again in 2010, the year the book was actually released, to share even more.)

Read the rest of this entry »