Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

I’m sorry, I know I engage in hyperbole for fun quite a bit here at 7-Imp, but I truly find those colors breathtaking.

On the 7-Imp to-do list in my head for this week, though I admit I usually figure these things out at the last minute, was a post in which I had planned to feature some illustrations from Amy Novesky’s Me, Frida (Abrams, October 2010), illustrated by David Díaz. I’ve had the book for a while, and it’s a well-crafted story and beautifully illustrated. Then, yesterday it was up and named a Pura Belpré Illustrator Honor Book. So, I don’t know about you, but I think today’s the perfect time to feature it. I’m still feeling celebratory over yesterday’s winners!

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I want to add, now that I got that Caldecott yawp’ing out of me, congratulations to all of today’s winners in all categories.

Just because I want to celebrate with more art, here’s a previously-featured illustration from Seeds of Change (Lee & Low Books, April 2010), written by Jen Cullerton Johnson and illustrated by Sonia Lynn Sadler, who was named the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent (Illustrator) Award winner. (To see more, visit this August 2010 post.)

The Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Book is Gary Golio’s vibrant picture book biography of the young Jimi Hendrix, Jimi Sounds Like a Rainbow (Clarion Books, October 2010), illustrated by Javaka Steptoe. You can visit this December 2010 post for more illustrations from that title.

Okay, seriously. To the work-that-pays…

All images posted with permission of publishers and recycled from earlier posts.

I can hardly contain my excitement, you all! The ALA Youth Media Awards were just announced, and I was particularly excited about the Caldecott. Read the rest of this entry »

In honor of tomorrow morning’s big award announcements from the American Library Association—I am inordinately excited to hear who the Caldecott winner and Honor winners will be—I am featuring the illustrator who is very familiar with the Caldecott, to put it mildly, and who, some argue, has a chance at winning it yet again this year, author/illustrator David Wiesner. (David has been awarded three Caldecott Medals and two Caldecott Honors.)

David had planned last year to come over to 7-Imp for an interview—and might still make it for a visit when his schedule slows down—but I decided to go ahead today and show some art from this 2010 title anyway, though I had been holding out for that Wiesner-visit. I had my best coffee mugs out, y’all. But, really, he’s welcome any time, so let us carry on…

The title I’m speaking of is … well, see here to the left? That’s Max, holding the very line an illustrator uses to tell us a story. Art & Max, released by Clarion in October, is a marvel. One of my favorite bloggers, Travis Jonker at 100 Scope Notes, described it as “one of the more uniquely beautiful books of the year” and a “wonderful pick for introducing artistic media, styles, technique, and freedom in a classroom setting.” (Or, in the words of The Horn Book, it’s a “visual meditation on the effects of illustrative style.”) This is true on all accounts, particularly the latter, as what Wiesner does in this title is … well, again, as Travis put it, he deconstructs the the idea of illustration itself. Read the rest of this entry »

A fly-by post today in the category of Here’s Another Straggler from 2010 I Want to Mention, I bring you the 2010 re-print of Remy Charlip’s Arm in Arm: A Collection of Connections, Endless Tales, Reiterations, and Other Echolalia. Originally published in 1969, it was re-printed in 1997, and last September saw another iteration of the book (paperback from Tricycle Press).

You know you’re gonna love a book with a sub-title like that. The New York Times praised this one decades ago, when it first arrived in the world, for its “verbal and visual witticisms…as joyfully illustrated as it is absurd.” What you have here, for those who aren’t already familiar with it, is concrete (and circular) poetry (not to mention songs), puns, absurdity, anything-goes philosophical ponderings, a page with no pictures, some dialogue and a bit of theatre, lots of cats, an octopuss, a play of manners, some optical illusions of a sort, altogether illogical delights, and general ridiculousness from the great artist, writer, dancer, teacher, theater director, and choreographer Remy Charlip.

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And now we come to that odd time of year, blogging-wise, when I won’t necessarily be talking about 2011 titles. I will soon. Fear not. But I’m still not done with some 2010 stragglers I wanted to mention. And There’s Going to Be a Baby (Candlewick, September 2010)—the story of a young boy trying to adjust to his sibling’s impending arrival by imagining possibilities for the baby’s future with his mother, written by John Burningham and illustrated by Helen Oxenbury—is one of them.

I may have mentioned a few times before here at 7-Imp (translated: a billion times) that I am a huge fan of Burningham (in particular — it’s not as if Oxenbury isn’t a major talent, too). This Q & A with them over at Publishers Weekly from October was damn near one of the most exciting things to come out of 2010 for picture book nerds such as myself. Yes, I might engage in hyperbole, but there’s no denying it. Can you say living legends? Read the rest of this entry »

Is it Sunday? The holiday-days are still running together for me, but at least I think I have the right day. I take my chances. If it’s really, say, Monday and I’m posting this, just lie to me and list your kicks anyway. Deal? Deal.

The girl greeting us here comes from British illustrator Krina Patel, a graphic design graduate of the London College of Communication. It’s the first Sunday of the month, when I feature students or those new to children’s books, and Krina has recently completed her first children’s book (yet to be published) and is here to tell us a bit about it.

But, first. Look up there at that number, dear readers. Two hundred weeks of kickin’. Two hundred weeks of taking some time here at 7-Imp to reflect on Seven(ish) Exceptionally Fabulous, Beautiful, Interesting, Hilarious, or Otherwise Positive Noteworthy Things, whether book-related or not, that happened to you. I love the timing, that it’s this milestone of sorts on the first Sunday of a new year. The first Sunday of a new decade, in fact. Very neat.

On that note, I must present you with this illustration from author/illustrator Adam Gudeon, who you may remember visited me in April. As I said then, he is brand-spankin’-new to children’s literature, his first book scheduled for release this Fall from HarperCollins. I like this illustration a whole heapin’ lot, because I hope that 2011 greets you with music, as it is greeting squirrel here, thanks to his guitar-strumming crooner of a friend, fox. (Or, okay, I’m assuming he’s a crooner, but his mouth’s not moving, so maybe it’s a lovely instrumental piece.)

Big thanks to Adam, and now back to Krina . . . Read the rest of this entry »

This festive new-year illustration comes from David Ezra Stein. If he got a certain award or honor award in a couple of weeks that has to do with the best illustrated children’s books of the year, I’d not be at all surprised. I could get behind that.

Happy 2011 to all . . .

Image copyright © 2010 by David Ezra Stein. Reproduced by permission of the illustrator.

Last week, I decided at the last minute to post some holiday illustrations and managed to get a few up. I have two more to throw into the mix, one for today and one for tomorrow. Short and sweet. Not the trilogy that yesterday’s 7-Imp recap post is.

This one actually comes by way of an agent, the agent of Ohio author/illustrator Adam Watkins. This image comes from a work-in-progress title of his, his next project and first children’s book, Christmas Ninja Attack! Head on over to Adam’s site for more information and more art.

If you were to ask me how heartily I laughed when I first saw this, the answer would be very. Enjoy. And here’s hoping you still have some snow—but no shuriken-wielding, snowman-defeating mercenaries of feudal Japan—in your backyard.

Image copyright © 2010 by Adam Watkins. Reproduced by permission of Joanna Volpe, Nancy Coffey Literary & Media Representation.

Alfred and I are here to look back on What Happened at 7-Imp in 2010. I’ve done this for the past two years every December, and—as I explained last year—I question my own sanity when I pull together posts like this, since it’s not a trivial thing to do and takes quite a bit of time I could use, say, sleeping instead. Well, this is way more fun than napping, I say, not to mention that, for some inexplicable reason, I find strangely beguiling at the end of every year those retrospective round-ups and best-of lists of all sorts that one sees everywhere—both online and in print—about entertainment and literature and politics and on and on. Ill say it again: Creating one of my own, looking back at who visited the 7-Imp salon in 2010, is my warped idea of fun, tidy fun. And these recaps are crazy long, yes. But they’re for browsing. Good-times browsing.

I know Alfred looks slightly sinister and surly, but he really enjoys these, too. He just takes it very seriously.

So, what was new to 7-Imp in 2010? This is how I see it: Read the rest of this entry »