Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Welcome to 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.

As you know, we feature students of Illustration or brand-spankin’-new illustrators the first Sunday of every month.
Today’s featured illustrator, Jeff Miracola, isn’t exactly new to illustration—he’s been working as a freelance illustrator since 1993 for companies such as Wizards of the Coast, Inc., Hasbro, Inc., Upper Deck Entertainment, Electronic Arts, Inc., ImagineFX Magazine, Advanced Photoshop Magazine, and many more—but he is new to children’s books, so we’re featuring him today. Welcome, Jeff!

These illustrations today are from Jeff’s upcoming thirty-six page picture book, Welcome to Monster Isle, written by Oliver Chin and to be published by Immendium this month. The book is about a family’s vacation gone haywire when a perfect storm tosses their skipper’s tiny boat off course. Seven castaways are stranded on an uncharted desert island. A boy named Finnegan, his sister, his parents and his dog, Howl, venture into the wild and encounter a zootopia of mythical creatures with names like the Yowie and Ogopogo. Super-keen. Or, as Jeff puts it: Read the rest of this entry »

When I worked as an educational sign language interpreter, I can’t tell you how many classes I interpreted at the college level — even the graduate and post-doctoral level (not because I’d have to kill you if I told you, but because it seems like I did a lot). One of them was a Women’s Studies course, and I remember the students had to give presentations on the life of a famous woman (I’m sure the assignment was more complicated than that, but I don’t remember the hand-flapping details of that one). One student presented on the life of Billie Holiday, and I remember thinking: Damn. She had it bad. Reeeeeal bad. Raped at the age of ten, frequent visits to a Catholic reform school and a mother who could hardly take care of her, a hard drug addiction, jailed on drug charges, relationships with abusive men, and much more.

But that’s not much to remember. Hey, you take your Latin courses, your Epidemiology, your Theatre History, your Anatomy, your Sports Psychology, and your Trig—all of which I interpreted plus some—and you forget the details. But I do remember thinking, I’ve GOT to get a good biography on Billie, whose music I’ve always lurved.

Lucky for me, the insanely talented poet and children’s book author Carole Boston Weatherford has just written what she calls a fictional verse memoir of Billie’s life, Becoming Billie Holiday (Boyds Mills Press/Wordsong, October 2008), Weatherford’s young adult book debut with illustrations from Floyd Cooper. Read the rest of this entry »

Remember how I indicated in 7-Imp’s blog-identity-crisis post that I’ve had less time lately for reviewing books? Well, that’s still the case, but I figured I could touch base with our dear readers and share what it is I’m reading now — or at least have lined up to read. And my focus today is going to be sequels, ’cause Eisha had this great idea a while back to have a 7-Imp Sequel Week. As you can see, sometimes we have great ideas and then it takes a bit of time for life to slow down for us to make them happen. But in the meantime, here are some sequels I’m either reading or have read or am getting excited about reading (and don’t forget Adam Rex’s Frankenstein sequel, which Kelly Fineman and I already covered):

Traction Man Meets Turbodog by Mini Grey (Knopf Books for Young Readers; on shelves in September, I believe) — Traction Man is back! Guess how many starred reviews it’s gotten already? Five — from the The Horn Book, School Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and Kirkus, no less. There may even be more stars floating around for it, for all I know. Bottom line is it’s great. Traction Man and his faithful pet Scrubbing Brush are back for more heroic rescues — this time Traction Man must rescue Scrubbing Brush, since the family chucked him after a trip to the northwest slope of Mt. Compost Heap (“it’s just so unhygienic, it must be FULL of germs…”), though it takes Traction Man a while to figure this out while he’s off having adventures with the battery-operated Turbodog. In Grey’s further tributes to the imaginative play of children—not to mention the very real bonds wee ones have with their toys—Traction Man meets up with Handbag Dwellers, the Lone Sock, the Grand Sofa Canyon, the Dark and Terrible Underworld of the Bin and its Evil Creatures and Bin-Things, and much more. How much do I love Mini Grey’s books? Let me count the ways. And she’s supposed to stop by for a seven-questions-over-breakfast interview soon, so we’ll chat with her more then. Read the rest of this entry »

Jules: I really, really hope that folks are around this weekend, despite it being a holiday weekend, to see the art work of our featured illustrator today, Hyewon Yum, who studied painting, printmaking, and illustration at both Seoul National University and the School of Visual Arts in New York.

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I’ve been rereading Salinger this week, which means I’ve been reading a lot of references to Sappho. I know, she’s a weird choice for Poetry Friday, because we only really have one complete poem from her, and then a bunch of tantalizing fragments that are kind of hard to quote effectively. But whatever. Read the one we have, and weep for what has been lost:

“The Hymn to Aphrodite” (Fragment 1; literal translation by Henry Thornton Wharton)

Immortal Aphrodite of the broidered throne, daughter of Zeus, weaver of wiles, I pray thee break not my spirit with anguish and distress, O Queen. But come hither, if ever before thou didst hear my voice afar, and listen, and leaving thy father’s golden house camest with chariot yoked, and fair fleet sparrows drew thee, flapping fast their wings around the dark earth, from heaven through mid sky. Quickly arrived they; and thou, blessed one, smiling with immortal countenance, didst ask What now is befallen me, and Why now I call, and What I in my mad heart most desire to see. ‘What Beauty now wouldst thou draw to love thee? Who wrongs thee, Sappho? For even if she flies she shall soon follow, and if she rejects gifts shall yet give, and if she loves not shall soon love, however loth.’ Come, I pray thee, now too, and release me from cruel cares; and all that my heart desires to accomplish, accomplish thou, and be thyself my ally.

Click here for this translation, as well as several attempts to translate it into verse. I like the straight-up version best, though.

Charlotte’s got this week’s Poetry Friday round-up over at her Library. Check it out. (Sorry, bad pun.)

Jules: Excuse the decidedly uncreative post title. Not enough coffee yet. You think I’m joking with my severely cheesy “Instant Human: Just Add Coffee” mug? I’m not.

I’m happy to be joined today by Kelly Fineman of Writing and Ruminating in discussing the new monstrous poetry anthology from Adam Rex, Frankenstein Takes the Cake (Which is Full of Funny Stuff Like Rotting Heads and Giant Gorillas and Zombies Dressed as Little Girls and Edgar Allan Poe. The Book, We Mean — Not the Cake), the sequel to 2006’s Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich (And Other Stories You’re Sure to Like, Because They’re All About Monsters, And Some of Them Are Also About Food. You Like Food, Don’t You? Well, All Right Then) — both books published by Harcourt. (And how much do you love those titles, Jules? you ask. A whole heapin’ lot.) As I noted a few weeks ago here at 7-Imp, if you haven’t read that prequel, well there’s a hole in your life too big and awkward for us to even address. But Kelly has joined me today to talk about the new poetry anthology, so let’s get right to it…

This, by the way, is also posted over at Guys Lit Wire today if you’re so inclined to read it over there. But this post here includes pretty much sorta the same content and same images, so you get to take your pick.

Also: This may be the first and only time you’ll read the words “Adam Rex” and “The View” in the same sentence. I could have never predicted that.

Also: Adam Rex is a superspy.

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This is Lane Smith with his wife and book designer extraordinnaire, Molly Leach. We told him this would be one of our breakfast interviews, but we didn’t expect him to attempt to take a chunk out of his own face. But that’s the thing with Lane: You never know what to expect. After gently talking him into lowering the fork and having something else for breakfast, he’s considering either oatmeal or Cheerios, fresh OJ, and one small cup of decaf, adding that it’s a boring breakfast. For the record, we don’t think it’s boring, but we’ll just pretend he didn’t say decaf, which is the devil’s blend. But, hey…to each his own.

Here are 7-Imp’s Seven Reasons Why We’re Super-Nerdy Excited That Lane Smith is Here Today For a Chat:

1). He has a Bachelor of Awesome. See below.

2). He is one of the most inventive, most unpredictable (in the good way), most entertaining, and most imaginative contemporary illustrators whose work displays a tremendous respect for children and possesses a sharp, irreverent, wisecracking humor. Cases in point (just some of many): 1991’s Glasses (Who Needs ‘Em?); 1995’s Math Curse, written by Jon Scieszka; 2001’s Baloney (Henry P.), received and decoded by Scieszka; and 2004’s Science Verse, also by Scieszka — all published by Viking.

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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.

You know we really love featuring illustrators and artists here at 7-Imp, and we like to pride ourselves on featuring all different styles of art. And it’s not often that we feature art that hasn’t been created for a children’s book, though we love doing that, too. And I can’t remember that we’ve ever featured art like today’s — straight-up realistic portraits of animals, rendered in colored pencil. These are from artist, author, and musician Maggie Stiefvater, who calls herself an “equestrian artist…Suffice to say,” she writes at her site, “I draw and paint a lot of horses…I take my horse portraits very seriously. It seems to me that if you want an exact replica of what any horse looks like on a given day, there are plenty of cameras out there to help you with that. You need an artist only if you want to capture the mood of the day, the character of the horse, the feeling of the moment frozen in time. There’s a point where the camera just doesn’t cut it. That’s where an artist steps in.”

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We had so much fun with our Jane Yolen interview this week that we thought we’d top off the week with one of her poems. If you missed our interview, you’ll see that she shared two as-yet-unpublished ones with us, so head over there if you missed those. The below poem is from Here’s a Little Poem: A Very First Book of Poetry, a wonderful collection of poems for the very young, collected by Jane and Andrew Fusek Peters and illustrated by Polly Dunbar. The 7-Imp love for this anthology has been fierce — here’s a review, and here’s our interview with Polly Dunbar (not to mention I’ve run my mouth about this book in many other posts here, and I’ve bought a copy for each and every baby shower I’ve attended since the book was released. It’s the perfect gift for a wee newborn, the best to-grow-with-them gift).

Here’s one of my favorite poems from the book, Jane’s “Recipe for Green”: Read the rest of this entry »

Jules: Eisha, Jane Yolen’s here! I have to say that this is a big ‘ol highlight in our short, little existence as 7-Imp. Wouldn’t you agree?

And here’s one reason why it’s exciting: As I have been working on her interview, reading and then re-reading her responses, reading other interviews with her online, reading all about her, I am struck by her generosity as a writer. I mean, she’s THE one and only Jane Yolen. She’s as prolific a writer as they come, having written over 250 books; Newsweek declared her America’s Hans Christian Andersen (and someone else declared her a modern-day Aesop, though I’m not sure who); she’s written in just about every genre for every age, from board books to books for adults (even songbooks — and didn’t she write a comic book, too?); she’s an accomplished poet; she’s been awarded many an honor, including a Caldecott, a World Fantasy Award, two Christopher Medals, a Jewish Book Award, a Golden Kite Award, and much more; she’s written books that children are in love with and crazy about, including her dinosaur books with illustrator Mark Teague and The Devil’s Arithmetic; she’s written one of the top-five best picture books that’s ever existed (in my not-so humble opinion), Owl Moon; she is a former president of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America and served on the board of directors of the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators for more than twenty-five years; she is admired and respected by all kinds of readers, from folktale nerds (and I say that lovingly) to science fiction geeks (ditto) to historical fiction nerd-geeks (I say that lovingly and respectfully); she has collaborated with a whole slew, to be precise, of illustrators and other children’s book authors, including her own grown children…oh heavens, I could go on.

Where was I? Yes, so she’s, to put it bluntly, AMAZING…and yet she takes the time to speak and read to children (and write to them); she advises other authors; she has a very robust online presence…I could go on again. I’m just struck by how this graceful, immensely talented…well, I’ll say it: living legend (as cliché as that sounds) takes the time to share her wisdom. And she’s modest, to boot. I mean, really…check out the below photo of her sitting and talking to those child readers (next to the big ‘ol Teague dinosaur). I dare say that photo sums up nicely what Jane is all about: sharing the love of reading with the wee ones of the world. I love that picture.

Know what I mean, E? Whew. Are you still with me? Do you have a favorite Yolen book, or is it too flippin’ hard to pick?

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