Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

I love it when illustrator John Manders visits 7-Imp. Actually, “illustrator” isn’t technically correct anymore, as his latest release is his debut title as both author and illustrator. It’s called The Really Awful Musicians (Clarion) and was just released this month.

“Once upon a time, in a kingdom amazingly far away,” the book opens, “music sounded incredibly . . . well, bad. The king couldn’t even stand to listen to his own royal musicians. One at a time they weren’t so awful, but together they sounded horrible.” Reaching his limit, he throws them all out, orders some mimes, and declares that anyone caught playing music will be fed to the royal crocodiles. (“The king’s men-at-arms were everywhere, rounding up musicians. The royal crocodiles never had it better.”)

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My visitor this morning, illustrator (and soon-to-be-author) Don Tate, has been in this field for a while now, having illustrated over forty trade and educational books for children. He likes to stress that he’s not an artist with a trademark style — and that first and foremost he’s a commercial artist, not a fine artist. And, to give us an idea of this, today he purposely includes many of his “looks,” if you will, in this breakfast Q & A.

I managed to pull off this interview right when I wanted to — right before Christmas. Those of you who celebrate it may be interested in seeing Don’s latest illustrated title, Anna Harwell Celenza’s Duke Ellington’s Nutcracker Suite, released by Charlesbridge in November and which, I must add, is accompanied by a CD of Ellington’s Suite. (A spread from the book opens this post.) This picture book highlights the 1960 collaboration between Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn to create Ellington’s swingin’ version of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite. Using India ink, acrylic watercolors, and chalk, Tate renders the composition of this piece with spunk and high energy. “The brilliant music cues Tate’s full-bleed mixed-media pictures,” writes Kirkus. “Bold ink strokes outline and define figures—Duke’s quizzical forehead and Strays’ distinctive cheekbones are expressive squiggles—and create movement across paint-spattered spreads studded with stars, snowflakes and musical notes. The palette marries rich violet-blues with hot, harmonious yellows, sepia and crimson.”

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Today’s featured holiday title, The Carpenter’s Gift, is a tribute to the tradition of annually erecting a Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center. Historian David Rubel wrote this one in collaboration with Habitat for Humanity, and it’s illustrated by Jim LaMarche, whose work I’m always interested to see. (I think this one is rendered in colored pencil, but don’t quote me on that.) Read the rest of this entry »

This morning over at Kirkus, I write about one of my favorite 2011 holiday titles, Olivier Dunrea’s A Christmas Tree for Pyn. That link is here.

For last week’s column, I wrote about Inga Moore’s A House in the Woods (Candlewick, November 2011). That link is here, if you missed it.

Opening this post is an illustration from the book, and here are some more below. Enjoy. Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s another short and sweet holiday illustration for 7-Imp readers. This one comes from Douglas Wood’s Franklin and Winston: A Christmas That Changed the World (Candlewick, September 2011), illustrated by Barry Moser. (Moser, incidentally, holds the record for my favorite Pearly-Gates Pivot response of all time thus far here at 7-Imp. When he stopped by in 2009, his response to the final Pivot question—“If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?”—was “Mornin’, Bubba.”)

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Often, when I do these illustrator interviews, I think I’m super familiar with the work as a whole of the artist I’m Q-&-A’ing, but then I make the good discovery that there’s a title or two I’ve missed, which sends me running to my local library or bookstore to find them. In the case of today’s interview, though, I’ve read every book author/illustrator Jonathan Bean has illustrated and have followed his career with great interest. He’s done only a handful of books and he took a bit of a break as well. But I’m so happy he’s back with a new illustrated title, One Starry Night, released by Margaret K. McElderry Books in October of this year — the second picture book by the talented Lauren Thompson that he has illustrated. I happen to think it’s beautiful—just take a look at one of the spreads, pictured here (I love that palette)—and I’m really drawn in general to his work.

That was a rather long-ish way of saying I’m extra pleased he’s visiting for breakfast this morning and sharing sketches and artwork. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to 7-Imp’s 7 Kicks, 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.

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This week at Kirkus, I take a look at Inga Moore’s A House in the Woods. That link is here this morning.

If you missed last week’s column, I wrote about Lita Judge’s Red Sled. My breakfast interview with Lita was yesterday, and it includes several spreads from this beautiful picture book.

In keeping with my promise this month to post some 2011 holiday illustrations, this morning I’ve got my favorite spread (above) from John Harris’s Jingle Bells: How the Holiday Classic Came to Be (Peachtree, October 2011), illustrated by Adam Gustavson. This fictionalized picture book tells the story of James Lord Pierpont, a Unitarian music director in Savannah, Georgia, in the 1850s, whose church was being harassed for allowing former slaves to attend services. Pierpont, originally from Boston and also struggling with the sweltering Georgia heat, composed the song for his daughter, Lillie, who had never seen snow. Read the rest of this entry »

In her career as an author/illustrator—not her first, by any means, since she once dug dinosaur bones, as well as worked as a geologist for the Forest Service—Lita Judge (pictured above, making curtains with help from her cat, Pu) has brought readers a handful of insightful nonfiction picture books. A visit to the web site devoted to her debut title proves her devotion to high-quality nonfiction for children, not to mention I’ve seen an early copy of her upcoming Spring 2012 Roaring Brook Press title, Bird Talk: What Birds Are Saying and Why, which is beautiful. (No doubt she was inspired by her ornithologist grandparents, as well as her parents who were, as she notes below, wildlife photographers.)

But her latest title, released this November by Atheneum, is a work of fiction. Red Sled (my thoughts on it are over at last week’s Kirkus column) has been met with starred reviews across the board, the official Kirkus review even calling it nothing less than “pure genius.” There are so many well-crafted 2011 picture books for the current Caldecott committee to pore over and discuss, and who knows … perhaps this one is at the top of their stack. It certainly wouldn’t surprise me at all if it were.

This isn’t Lita’s first visit to 7-Imp (see here and here), but it’s a treat to have her sit down at the breakfast table today. I do quite a few of these cyber-breakfast interviews, but I have to say this one was a particular pleasure to format, given Lita’s thoughtful answers, the artwork and images she shares, and her obvious passion for illustration and picture books. I am also struck by how much of her life is so truly entrenched in the natural world — not mostly separate from it, as it is for so many of us. (Well, I guess I should speak for myself here.)

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I’m sticking to my original rules today and only featuring one illustration from today’s featured holiday book. Above is one of the fold-out pop-up spreads from Michael J. Rosen’s Chanukah Lights (Candlewick, September 2011), illustrated/paper-engineered by Robert Sabuda.

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