Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Her name is Elizabeth, thank you very much.

And Elizabeth is the star of a delightful new picture book from author Annika Dunklee (born in Sweden but now residing in Canada) and Canadian illustrator and comic book artist Matthew Forsythe. It’s called none other than My Name Is Elizabeth! (Kids Can Press, September 2011), and Kirkus has called it “wonderful,” adding: “This…is close enough to perfect in its tone, pacing and interplay between words and pictures.” They’re right, you know. Oh, and “close to perfect” Pamela Paul called it in the New York Times in August. Not bad for the picture book debut from both author and illustrator.

Elizabeth Alfreda Roxanne Carmelita Bluebell Jones really loves her first name. She likes that it is nine letters long. She likes all the neat things her mouth does when she says it. She likes that there is a queen named after her. “But I don’t like it when people call me names other than ELIZABETH.” Lizzy? Liz? Beth? Betsy? Stop it already. Please. (As the Kirkus reviewer also notes, she isn’t bratty in her requests. She’s polite, please and thank you very much.) She’d just love for you to call her by her beloved name. It’s really that simple. It’s Elizabeth, and she’d like you to stick to it. Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a quickie post about a picture book I have totally developed a huge crush on, Stephen Shaskan’s A Dog Is a Dog, released by Chronicle Books this month.

I’ve got so many other books I want to post about, too, so I’ll be brief, and I’m mostly here this morning to show you some spreads from it anyway.

This is a winner of a picture book for your youngest of readers or especially for those needing a great story time title for wee audiences, whether in a school or public library or classroom.

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My visitor for breakfast this morning—designer, editorial illustrator, children’s book illustrator, and sequential artist Marc Rosenthal—has a brand-new illustrated title coming out … well, actually today. (Really. I don’t plan these things. I’m hardly that organized and haven’t even seen the book yet. I just have really lucky timing sometimes.)

But I have to say: He illustrated an early 2011 title that I still claim to be one of the funniest books of the year. You haven’t forgotten it, have you, dear readers? Written by Eileen Rosenthal, Marc’s wife, I Must Have Bobo! (Atheneum, January 2011)—as I wrote in January—is the story of a straight up showdown between one young boy, Willy, and the family cat, the dilemma being that the object of their affection is one beloved sock monkey, named Bobo. Bobo, however, can only be with one creature at a time. In a book full of subtlety and understatement, which was also Eileen’s picture book debut (so promising, too, and I’m eager to see what she brings us next), Marc brings Willy and Earl (the aforementioned and very funny cat) to life with warmth and wicked humor, nailing the emotions of a young child. The Kirkus review wrote that it’s “an exercise in self-recognition and empathy for the intended audience.”

So, back to today’s release: You can read a bit more about it below and see a sneak-peek inside it. It was written by Alison McGhee and is called Making a Friend. As I said, I haven’t seen it, but according to IndieBound anyway, its publication date is today. And the School Library Journal reviews tells me this:

The digitally manipulated pencil illustrations have a retro look and are reminiscent of the work of Louis Slobodkin. There is a lot of white space, particularly on the pages where only the boy and the snowman are depicted, giving the impression that they are in their own special private world. A simple but deeply nuanced story that should resonate with children.

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Happy October, one and all. I think this may be my favorite month of all, and I cannot believe October of 2011 is already here.

Since it’s the first Sunday of the month, I’ve got a beginning illustrator visiting today. Painter and illustrator Shelley Davies is not new, by any means, to making art, but she’s got her mind set on doing children’s book illustrations and is here today to share some of her artwork. Shelley lives on the western coast of Canada with her family (here’s her self-portrait)—pictured above is her own Mad Hatter tea party—and I’ll let her tell you all about her background and what she wants to do next:

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Tomorrow morning over at Kirkus, I’ll have a Q & A with author Catherynne M. Valente about The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, one of this year’s most talked-about children’s novels. Two local friends and fellow children’s lit aficionados joined me on this interview. (The questions they contributed are way better than anything I could ever conjure up.) An abbreviated version goes up at Kirkus tomorrow, and next week at 7-Imp, I’ll have the interview in its entirety — along with some of the book’s illustrations from Ana Juan.

The link will be here tomorrow. {Ed. to add on Friday: The link is here.}

If you missed last week’s column, I wrote about Emily Jenkins’ latest set of stories about StingRay, Lumphy, and Plastic — Toys Come Home: Being the Early Experiences of an Intelligent Stingray, a Brave Buffalo, and a Brand-New Someone Called Plastic, released by Schwartz & Wade this month. That column is here.

Opening this post is an illustration from the book from Paul O. Zelinsky (who visited me for breakfast in 2008 with one of my favorite breakfast interview photos EVER). Paul is also sharing one more image below, a sketch page showing possible images for Toys Come Home, which he submitted to The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression’s online children’s book auction. This is an auction of children’s art that culminates during Banned Books Week (September 24 to October 1).

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I’ve been prepping for this. Local friends, come join me.

Until later …

Happy Fall, one and all.

This morning, I’m featuring illustrations from two books meant for grown-ups, Sophie Blackall’s Missed Connections: Love, Lost & Found (from which the second illustration above comes) and Graphic USA: An Alternative Guide to 25 U.S. Cities (from which Austin designer Bryan Keplesky’s wonderful don’t-shave image above comes), edited by Ziggy Hanaor and with art from various illustrators and designers — but two books with exciting art, nonetheless. And exciting art, which talented illustrators and designers create, is what 7-Imp is all about, yes? I’d like to think so.

And can I just say that these two books are super-rad-neato-skeeto, to be erudite about it? They really are. I love them.

First up …

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At Kirkus this morning, I weigh in on Toys Come Home (Schwartz & Wade, September 2011), the third set of stories about Stingray, Plastic, and Lumphy, written by Emily Jenkins and illustrated by Paul O. Zelinsky. The link is here.

If you missed last week’s column, I discussed a picture book so funny that I’ve been evangelizing it with nearly every kid I see lately. Seriously, I’ve been reading a lot at my daughters’ school (read to the kindergartner’s class, read to the second grader’s class, and read to first graders in the library), and I’ve taken this book every time. Each age group has responded so positively to it. Meaning, they laugh very loudly (as do I), since this one is so cleverly done and so. very. funny. The book is Anton Can Do Magic, an international import from Gecko Press, originally published as Anton kann zaubern in Germany in 2006 and translated for this first American edition by Catherine Chidgey. It was written and illustrated by Ole Könnecke. Since it’s about magic, I like to whip out my magic nickel after reading it to kids, though I can never quite get that trick right. (I’m supposed to make the nickel disappear, you see, but I keep accidentally shrinking it, and who is gonna take a tiny nickel as currency, I ask you?)

Here are some illustrations from this wonderful picture book. Enjoy.

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What can I add to the discussion about this already much-lauded book, Kadir Nelson’s Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans (Balzer + Bray, September 2011)?

The book takes on nothing less than African American history from the founding of America to Barack Obama’s Democratic nomination for President. Actually, I didn’t have enough coffee before breakfast today and I take that back: Nelson, as noted in the book’s closing timeline, goes back in the first chapter (“Declarations of Independence”) to 1565 when Africans first arrived in North America as slaves of Spanish colonists. An elderly African American female serves as the book’s narrator—“You have to know where you come from so you can move forward…it’s important that you pay attention, honey, because I’m only going to tell you this story but once”—and she takes us back to when her own grandfather, Joseph (“Pap”), was captured in Africa in the year 1850 at the age of six and brought to America.

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A spiral, that is. Spirals are bold. And warm and safe. And protective. And beautiful and mysterious. And much more. All depending on the creature or object in nature in which they are residing.

These spirals in nature are the focus of the latest picture book from poet and author Joyce Sidman, Swirl by Swirl: Spirals in Nature, to be released by Houghton Mifflin next month. The illustrations for this book, which Kirkus called no less than “[e]xquisitely simple and memorable,” were rendered by Caldcott Medalist Beth Krommes, pictured here, who is joining me for a cyber-breakfast this morning.

Beth tells me that at 6 a.m. daily, she has strong black coffee and locally-made bread, toasted with butter. She had me at strong coffee, though I might sneak some cream into my mug during her visit this morning.

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