Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

At the risk of sounding like Grumpy Old Man in a Series #7,000, I have to say that I pretty much loathe how children today are targeted as consumers at such very young ages. Though I limit the amount of time my children sit in front of the television screen, I actually don’t have a problem with storytelling (done well and in moderation) via the medium of television or DVD; it’s the commercials that I DO NOT want them to see. My husband taught our girls to say, at very young ages, “commercials are for suckers.” This would be why I’m happy to share some illustrations today from Mélanie Watt’s newest picture book, Have I Got a Book for You!, in which Mr. Al Foxword, one very insistent salesman, tries just about everything to get you to buy his book already.

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Yeah. Whew. That’s a long post title, but I enjoyed this conversation with debut picture book author Denise Doyen so much that I wanted to get your attention. Denise—who studied creative writing, poetry, design, and film direction and who directed children’s television for Disney—recently went back to school to focus on writing for children. Her first title—Once Upon a Twice (Random House, August 2009 — cover below), illustrated by the-seven-kinds-of-fabulous Barry Moser—is a cautionary tale (about both the hubris, or “furry overconfidence,” of a young mouse named Jam Boy and the dangers of the night) in the grand tradition of nonsense verse (“clever nonsense words and rhyming verse reminiscent of Lewis Carroll’s ‘Jabberwocky,'” the publisher likes to say). And it’s dark (in regards to both dramatic action and Moser’s lush, richly-dark palette — “a marvel of nighttime beauty,” writes Publishers Weekly) and eerie and beautiful and begs to be read aloud. Or, if you’re Kirkus, it’s “deliciously inventive,” possessing “fresh, inventive wordplay and masterful illustrations.”

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Regular 7-Imp readers may know of my deep and abiding love for British illustrator Polly Dunbar’s work. There’s been this post and this interview and this post and Penguin (I love that penguin and the blue lion who eats Ben for being too noisy)…and oh-so much more.

You may also remember this Sunday post from February of this year in which we met Tilly and her friends: This is a terrifically charming series of books for the wee’est of toddlers. Not a sticky-sweet kind of charming either. (You know I won’t steer you toward the Sticky Sweet.) And they’re funny. And the characters—Tilly and her friends, Doodle, Tiptoe, Pru, Hector, and Tumpty, who all live together in a little yellow house—will settle themselves quite comfortably into the lives of young children. This I know from experience with my own.

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Jules: Welcome to 7-Imp’s 7 Kicks, our 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.

I’m keeping the feature this week simple, since it’s been a busy weekend. See that sleepy elephant up there? I’m in need of his sleep, I think. But the busy-ness is the good kind of busy. More on that in my kicks.

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Jules: We’re here this morning with guest Adrienne Furness of What Adrienne Thinks About That to welcome authors Sara Lewis Holmes and Tanita S. Davis with some strong cyber-coffee before breakfast and Q&As about their new titles — Sara’s Operation Yes (Arthur A. Levine Books, September 2009) and Tanita’s Mare’s War (Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers, June 2009). Sara’s novel is about a group of middle-school students on a North Carolina Air Force base and their inspiring teacher, Mrs. Loupe, who brings them together with improv theatre, only to find that Mrs. Loupe will need their support in turn after her brother is reported missing in Afghanistan. Tanita’s novel, told in alternating chapters, tells the present-day story of two girls on a road trip with their eccentric grandmother and the grandmother’s own tales of having joined the African American battalion of the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) during World War II.

It’s been a while since I’ve posted about a novel—that didn’t have illustrations in it—but when two friends write really great books, you find yourself wanting to crow about them. Right, Adrienne?

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There’s this book. It’s about a book. A book that likes to eat people. It wants to have you for one impossible breakfast. And it’s called—you’ll never guess—The Book That Eats People (Tricycle Press, August 2009). In fact, I’m nervous even posting about it, lest it find out and come after me. I know, should I ever see it, not to read it with syrupy fingers or with cookies in my pocket, and I know not to turn my back on it or read it alone. Because it is ALWAYS HUNGRY. But let’s just say I’m prepared: If I hear it growling and clomping towards me, I’ve got something heavy to put on top of it.

This public-service-announcement of a book—warning us of the legend of this book and, did I mention, to always assume the book is ready to snack, people—was written by John Perry and illustrated by Mark Fearing, who is also a comic book artist, animator, and graphic designer. (Why, no, I’m not making up his last name.) John, who told an Ann Arbor freelance writer that he wrote this after getting worn out with the “fairy stories, stories with morals and stories that went to the beach” he was reading to his young daughters, says his life’s mission is to warn readers about it. Well, even though this is serious business, folks, this book makes me laugh, and I can’t even begin to tell you how much fun I’ve had with it in my home, my wee daughters putting heavy objects on top of it and gasping whenever they see it in a new spot. Mwahahaha. And you all know I’m fond of books in which characters get devoured. As the illustrator puts it below—since both book-creators are here today to talk a bit about it and their work—it’s “not too cute, not too darling, not full of sugar,” and I always like to talk about books like that. Even if they’re threatening to end me.

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I’m still nervous about seeing the film adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are. As Eisha and I were talking about recently, the book’s just sacred to me, not to mention my raving fan-dom for All Things Sendak. This video certainly helps quell some fears. (I saw part of this in a movie theater, while waiting for the weird-ass “Ponyo” to start, and I nearly jumped up, did an arm pump, and yelled “SENDAK!”)

And anyway, no matter how you feel about the upcoming movie, it’s always a good day when you get to hear Sendak talk. (Please excuse the ad at the beginning.)

Jules: Meet the Fabulous Fortunatos, who sing, dance, play the banjo, tell jokes, and juggle brilliantly. With them is their son, Lorenzo, who often felt like he had been born into the wrong family. He pondered important matters in his crib, drew pictures of the planets on the walls as a toddler, and generally kept his head in the clouds. Instead of, you know, somersaulting and walking on tightropes like the rest of his family.

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Several weeks ago, I blogged about a few new picture book biographies that made me happy. I was eager then to tell you about the title I’m featuring today, but I wanted to wait a bit to secure some spreads from it to share with you. This is, hands down, one of my favorite picture books from this year, and it seems to have come out of nowhere and surprised me. It’s called The Secret World of Walter Anderson (Candlewick, September 2009), it’s by an author with whom I was not previously familiar, Hester Bass, and it’s about “the most famous American artist you’ve never heard of,” as Bass puts it. The book was illustrated by the one and only E.B. Lewis, whose work I’ve long adored.

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As many sites around the kidlitosphere today celebrate nonfiction titles (as they do every Monday), I am having a cyber-breakfast with author/illustrator Bonnie Christensen, pictured here, who has brought us a handful of engaging nonfiction titles over the years — either illustrating them or both writing and illustrating them herself. Perhaps best known for Woody Guthrie: Poet of the People (Alfred A. Knopf), for which she was given the Horn Book-Boston Globe Honor Award in 2002, she has illustrated fifteen beautiful books for young readers, her primary media being oils and wood engraving or dry point engravings, though she seems to have no fear and has also attempted such artistic adventures as old-skool fresco. (More on that below.)

You do remember the Woody-Guthrie title (rendered in mixed media) from 2001, right? I do. It blew me away. It was a dramatic and powerful tribute to someone whose music most of us know, whether we realize Woody was behind it or not:

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