Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

On Saturday, we (Eisha and Adrienne of What Adrienne Thinks About That) attended the Third Annual Teen Book Festival in Rochester, NY. We had a fabulous time, and thought we’d co-blog about it and share the highlights with you. This will be cross-posted on both 7-Imp and WATAT, for your viewing pleasure.

The event started with a red-carpet arrival for the authors, which we totally missed ’cause, um, it was Saturday morning and, you know. We had to get coffee at Adrienne’s favorite place, the Leaf and Bean. Which totally exceeded all expectations.

Anyway.

Then there was a general assembly, with the organizer Stephanie introducing all the authors on a stage that was flanked by members of the Garrison Excelsior 501st Legions, in full Star Wars regalia. It was particularly fitting that Timothy Zahn was almost totally obscured by the faux-Queen Amidala’s headdress (seen here). There was a “lightning round” of questions, led by two teen volunteers, where they asked a question and the authors passed the mike down the row giving short answers.

Then each author was put in his/her own room for three “breakout sessions,” and you could choose any three to attend. In between sessions one and two, there was pizza for lunch in the cafeteria (delivered – not actual cafeteria food). And at the end, there were books and merch for sale in the gym, with all the authors available for autographs.

It was extremely well-attended, with teens bussed in from all over, and tons of local librarians, teachers, and teens volunteering to keep the whole thing running smoothly.

For a full description of the event and complete list of the authors in attendance, see the website for TBF LIVE! 2008.

eisha: Well, first, I just want to say thanks, Adrienne, for inviting me to this totally excellent event. I’m sort of in awe at the assemblage of talent they had going there.

adrienne: Yes, thanks for driving up! This is my third year at TBF, and it’s so much fun. I always have a hard time deciding which authors to go see.

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It’s the first Sunday of the month (is anyone else astounded it’s already April?), and so it’s time again to feature an up-and-coming illustrator, someone new to the scene or a student of illustration. This week it’s freelance artist and art teacher, Courtney Pippin-Mathur, who grew up in Texas but now lives on the east coast with her family (and where she “now paints, teaches, loves the fall season and misses tex-mex.”) Featured above is “Jazz, Music for the Soul.” And, now, here comes trouble:

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Happy Saturday, dear readers. I’m going to get right to it today: Here is my attempt to catch up on some book reviews, both titles from last year. I’m, uh, really slooooooooow sometimes, but better late than never.

If dark humor is your thing — and I mean moments of incredible pathos that rattle your heart in your chest a bit while, somehow, also make you laugh simultaneously — here’s a new title for you, Gone and Back Again (Soft Skull Press, 2007) by Jonathon Scott Fuqua (based loosely on “the author’s own strange childhood,” according to his site). Fuqua is the award-winning author of four YA novels, a graphic novel (also geared at adults), and one book for young children. This is his first novel for adults, though I say it has tremendous cross-over appeal to teens.

Middle-schooler Caley; his brother, Fulton; and his sister, Louise, are being dragged from town to town by his mother, who has “changed after the divorce. It was like her goodness and affectionateness seemed to be hibernating or were gone.” Caley, whose father is capable of moments of undeniable cruelty and a master of the fine art of guilt-tripping, must acclimate himself to life with his mother’s new boyfriend, Henrico, “who was a total jerk to us kids.” His mother occasionally attempts to convey affection but mostly fails (“I wanted my mom to be like a mom instad of just a woman we sometimes saw”). “For me,” Caley tells the reader, “life was like a train passing into a tunnel just before an avalanche falls and blocks the way out.” Thus, Caley starts his “days of badness,” drinking and stealing: “I was the kind of kid who, even if you wanted to, you didn’t care about.”

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Hellooooooooooooooooo, spring!

This morning, on my way to work, I finally saw some crocuses starting to bloom, and I think until that moment I hadn’t realized just how bad I needed to see something green. I almost cried with relief.

I really, really like winter. And snow. No, serious, I do! What I don’t like, weather-wise, is too many days in a row of the same thing. This winter felt like one long five-month stretch of 30-degree-highs, grey skies, and fitful snow flurries, punctuated by an occasional serious snowstorm that would coat everything in prettyness for a few hours, but ultimately just add another layer to those icy piles of crud that build up along the edges of the sidewalks.

Yeah, I needed a little green already.

This week I got it. Not just the crocuses – there’s grass! Buds on tree branches! There’s even little spiky blades of stuff that might be daffodils and tulips soon! (I know, people, we don’t even have daffodils yet – see how bad it is?)

We can’t get too cocky about it yet, though. It’s still cold. Sure, it’s sunny, but there’s a fierce wind out there that does not permit the shedding of coats and scarves. Not just yet. But that’s okay by me – the sun and the green are enough for now. They’ve shaken me out of my winter huddle-under-a-blanket-drinking-cocoa doldrums. It feels like change out there, like newness, like possibility, like the start of something… and it makes me want to start something too. It makes me want to stand up, toss that blanket on the couch, stretch, look around, and… I dunno, misspend whatever’s left of my youth?

It’s the kind of weather that makes you wonder where the past year has gone – for that matter, where the past 34 years have gone. It makes you wonder if you’re wasting your life away; wonder if you could be doing more, living more. Maybe it’s time to figure out what you really want to do with the rest of your life, and just go do it already.

I love it when I find a poem that perfectly expresses what I’m feeling right at that moment. Today it’s “Cold Spring” by Lawrence Raab:

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I promise to talk about books-longer-than-32-pages relatively soon, but today I’m sharing a few more picture book titles in honor of National Poetry Month. Let’s get right to it.

The pebble made rough music,
Humming past a tiny
Island in the Blanco
River.
Touch tone, touch stone.
You could count the beats more or less

Evenly.
It was easy—
Guess
How many times
The pebble dimpled the water.

That is a poem from the latest poetry anthology from the prolific children’s poet, J. Patrick Lewis (and many thanks to him for permission to post it in its entirety here). Entitled The World’s Greatest: Poems (Chronicle Books; January ’08) and illustrated by Keith Graves, it’s the title for that student / child you know who gets inordinately excited over record books, such as Guinness, and who likely has an affinity for hyperbole (and possesses excessive spastic energy, to boot). It’s a lot of fun, this book is. And Graves’ light-hearted illustrations are a fitting match, everything a bit embellished, impossibly preposterous, utterly absurd, and wonderfully hammy.

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I’m unveiling today a new interview-series idea here at 7-Imp. Eisha and I love doing interviews, but they take a lot of time. And I mean a lot, especially considering that — in my case and I’m sure for Eisha’s, too — I only have little windows of time in which to read and blog (translated: after my children are asleep). And we’re not going to give up our usual interview format, I promise. But this series idea I have had a-churnin’ in my brain is to interview illustrators — but with a format which will make it a little more efficient in terms of time. And that means I / we will be able to do more interviews altogether — whether our traditional ones or illustrator interviews via this new format. And that is a good thing, I think.

Why illustrators? It’s no surprise that I love my picture books. If I had one little shred of talent-with-art-supplies whatsoever — or if a genie popped out of a magic bottle — I’d opt to be an illustrator in this life. Neither thing is likely to happen, so I’ll settle for grilling some of my favorites and appreciating their work and their talents.

Jeremy Tankard bravely agreed to be my guinea pig with this new interview format. I was thrilled to pieces he agreed, since I’m a fan of his work, as I’ve made clear several times at 7-Imp, and I’ve been wanting to interview him for a while. So, let’s get right to it then. And I’ll gladly accept any feedback on this new format, should any one want to pipe up.

So, yes, Jeremy’s joining me for breakfast, and his morning meal of choice is granola over fresh homemade apple sauce with a glass of water and hot ginger tea. Mmmm. Of course, I have to throw in some coffee, too (and if it’s going to be the cup pictured here, oh heavens, someone add some cream and sugar!) But, first let’s set the table with some introductory information from Jeremy (you didn’t really think I’d be able to stick to just seven questions, did you?) Remember: This is the proposed format for the new seven-questions-over-breakfast illustrator-interview series (yeah, it’s altogether way more than seven questions, but just humor me here and indulge my love of Q & As.)

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No foolin’! It’s April 1st, and that means it’s National Poetry Month. This makes April one of the best months in the year, in my book, no matter what T.S. Eliot said. I’m here to celebrate today with the new picture book poetry anthology from Julie Larios and Julie Paschkis, Imaginary Menagerie: A Book of Curious Creatures, published by Harcourt this month.

Just check out this swirling, visual delight from Paschkis (used with permission), an illustration which comes straight from this title:

That’s part of “Mermaid,” one of Larios’ many poems celebrating a handful of creatures from a mythological world. You’ll meet a dragon, a centaur, the firebird, a sea serpent, a gargoyle, the naga of seven heads, and much more. Below is Paschkis’ depiction of a cockatrice, whom Larios describes as “a snake-tailed rooster . . . a rooster-headed snake,” who isn’t quite sure if he should crow or he should hiss:

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If you’re a wordsmith or a wordsmith wannabe, here’s a book for you. Bust my buttons! It’s the cat’s meow, an indubitable lollapalooza — and that’s no codswallop (nor is it flapdoodle, claptrap, tomfoolery, shenanigans, malarkey, or even blarney). You need to find yourself a copy by hook or by crook, or you may find yourself feeling a bit woebegone. (I can try to not pepper this post with words and expressions from the book, but it wouldn’t be as fun, now would it?).

Chronicle Books released this little gem of a book this month, developed and compiled by Molly Glover with additional text by Kate Hodson. It’s called L is for Lollygag: Clever Words for a Clever Tongue (geared officially at ages ten and up), and — as someone who has always loved a good, juicy word — I am all atwitter about this title. This is for you word-nerds, like me, who feel a bit of ennui with your typical dictionary or even your typical alphabet book — you must go and take a look-see. This is a world in which “A” is for alakazam, “B” is for boondoggle, and “C” is for catawampus. (Amusingly enough, “X” is for nothing, since — as the book points out — “X can be a lot of fun: X marks the spot, X-ray vision, planet X, generation X, X-Men, signed with Xs and Os . . . and you can’t play Tic-Tac-Toe without good old X. But most of the tongue-tickling X words don’t actually begin with X.” Lisa Graff would be happy. And, though I’m seriously digressing here, I have to add that my favorite adaptation to that pesky letter is when They Might Be Giants make up a country called “West Xylophone” in their “Alphabet of Nations,” one of their children’s songs, which I’ll add to the bottom of this post — appropos to very little, but just for fun.)

So, yes, they’re all here, words that are deliciously fun, tripping off one’s tongue: hoi polloi, flibbertigibbet, fussbudget, loosey-goosey, mizzenmast, jittery-skittery, kit and caboodle, snollygoster, and spindle-shanked (I’ve always wanted to be spindle-shanked myself). The definitions are concise and full of swagger, brief and often amusing. Read the rest of this entry »

Jules: What a pleasure it is to have Laura Nyman Montenegro here today to share some art work from her latest title with us! If you’re already familiar with some of Laura’s previous titles (here’s just one of my favorites), then you already know about her beautiful line-and-watercolor spreads and, as the above Just One More Book!! link put it well, her stories of “confidence, creativity and acceptance.” And here’s something not-to-be-missed: A Spring ’08 feature on Laura at The Prairie Wind (newsletter of the SCBWI-Illinois chapter), in which Laura talks about what a person’s bookshelf reveals about him or her — and elaborates on her own mother’s bookshelf, as she viewed it as a child:

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Jules here. My turn for Poetry Friday was last week, but Eisha graciously helped me out and posted instead, ’cause I was having a busy week. And she was going to post this week, too, since I’m travelling for work as you read this (which means I won’t be able to respond to comments, should there be any, as I’ll be company meeting’ing all day in Boston). However, I went ahead and typed my Poetry Friday entry early, as I was inspired by something — and so that Eisha could get a Poetry Friday break, too.

I talked to my mother today (Tuesday, as I type this), and she was telling me the state of my grandmother, Grace, who is in a nursing home near where my parents live. They visit Mom-Mom just about every day, and my mother told me that she sleeps more and more and seems to be getting smaller. She’ll be 97 this year, so this is not a surprise. She’s most certainly nearing the end of her long life, and her memory went several years ago. She might be able to tell you the name of the road she lived on when she was eleven, but I’ll walk in the room and she won’t recognize me or my daughters.

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