Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Hi, everyone. Just a quick note to say that we will be guest blogging at ForeWord Magazine in their Shelf Space column (“Booksellers and Librarians talk about what’s in their reading room and what’s on the horizon”) for the next few weeks. Eisha took week one, and I’ll take another . . . and we plan to co-write some pieces, too.

Here is Eisha’s write-up, which was posted yesterday. It’s entitled, “Those Crazy Kids: Depression Remains a Hot Topic in Young Adult Fiction,” and in it she discusses her impressions of a few recent titles that feature clinically depressed characters, including It’s Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini (Hyperion, 2006); Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You by Peter Cameron (Farrar Straus Giroux, 2007); Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac by Gabrielle Zevin (Farrar Straus Giroux, 2007); and Get Well Soon by Julie Halpern (Feiwel & Friends, 2007).

We are looking forward to the rest of our articles over at ForeWord. If you’re not familiar with them, you can read all about it here. Bottom line: They are a bi-monthly review journal of books from independent presses. In early September, they launched a new web site featuring blogs from publishing insiders and librarians and booksellers. Their inaugural bloggers were Michael Cairns and Betsy Bird, a.k.a. Fuse. We’re honored to be working with them.

Happy Saturday to all . . .

I’ve had marriage on my mind lately. B. and I are attending two weddings this weekend. And our own eight-year anniversary is coming up. No, seriously. Eight years. And we started dating six years before that, so we’ve been together over a third of our lives. It always gives me pause when I think about it in those terms. How much have we shaped each other, been cultivated by each other into the adults we’ve become? Who would I be now if I’d never met him?

I also spent time recently with a widow around my own age. And Grace Lin has just started blogging again, after the loss of her husband. And when my aunt passed away in March, she left behind my uncle, her high school sweetheart and husband of 30+ years. I look at these people and think, could I do it? Could I build a new life on my own, if B. were taken away from me? Could I be that strong? Who would I become then?

I don’t know. I really just don’t know. I mean, sure, marriage is hard, and people always tell you that before you get married but you just don’t know how hard until you’re in it. When you get married, your vows should go something like “I promise that no matter how I grow and change and evolve as a person, I’ll keep myself in synch with you while you undergo your own individual growth and evolution.” Not very poetic. But I didn’t marry my husband because I expected a non-stop romantic-movie montage sort of life. I married him because I think I’m a better person with him than without him. We don’t always agree, we often get on each other’s nerves, sometimes we flat out don’t get each other. But he’s so much a part of me now, he’s family, and if something happened to him I can’t even imagine the hole that would leave in the universe.

So, here’s a love poem, in tribute to my husband, and to everone else who’s ever been crazy-brave enough to marry somebody.

from “Colors passing through us” by Marge Piercy:

Here is my bouquet, here is a sing
song of all the things you make
me think of, here is oblique
praise for the height and depth
of you and the width too.
Here is my box of new crayons at your feet.

Read the rest here.

Back in May of this year, I decided that — instead of simply listing our seven kicks each week here at 7-Imp, a little tradition we began in March — we could feature an illustrator each Sunday as well (our 7-Imp art gallery, if you will, featuring the illustrators who have graced our site each Sunday thus far, is here). In mid-August, one of those illustrators who agreed to send us some art work was none other than author/illustrator G. Brian Karas, whose work we here at 7-Imp have adored over many years. To boot, he sent us a spread from Today and Today, an anthology of haiku by Kobayashi Issa, which Karas illustrated. It was released this March by Scholastic and reviewed here by Yours Truly (and the spread he sent was one I had specifically requested, as it is my favorite from the book, so . . . well, as a Southerner, I suppose I’m required to say bless his heart. Really, I was so grateful. You can see the spread below in the interview. It’s gorgeous).

If you haven’t experienced Today and Today yet, go treat yourself. Karas selected twenty-two of his favorite Issa poems to tell the story of a year in the life of a family — a year in which they will experience the loss of their beloved grandfather but also the renewal that comes from healing after loss. Dividing the entries into seasons, it’s a comforting and poignant look at life’s many cycles — and the little miracles in our day-to-day lives. Booklist wrote in their starred review, “Karas uses the haiku of the eighteenth-century Japanese poet Issa to limn a gentle, understated tale of one family over a year. The translations, from several different but fairly recent sources, do not always hew to the traditional syllabic format of haiku, but they are simply and clearly crafted . . . In a note, Karas explains that like Issa’s haiku, he tries to ‘convey the precise feeling of each moment.’ He succeeds beautifully.”

So, after we featured his art work in mid-August at that kicks list, I was itchin’ to ask for an interview; I simply could not sign off without asking if he would be interested. I was a little bit intimidated, ’cause it’s G. Brian Karas. Extremely talented. Very prolific. Did I mention we’re fans? I’m very happy and relieved that he agreed to the interview. Read the rest of this entry »

Start trying to analyze the humor in a book — or even sometimes why you think it succeeds to make you laugh in the first place — and you’ll, likely, bore the pants off your blog readers. Suffice it to say, then, that Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith’s latest creation, Cowboy & Octopus, has the type of extremely droll humor that makes me laugh with an annoying, unrestrained glee. And will seven-year-olds do the same? Hoo boy, you betcha they will. These seven very short stories of an unforgettable duo really nail that rather elusive, dry humor of both early- and late-elementary students (dang, as Cowboy might say, even early middle schoolers).

On the title page spread, we see right away why it is that the stances, body language, and facial expressions of both Cowboy and Octopus never change throughout the book: There lies a pair of child’s scissors; a bound collection of paper-doll cut-outs, entitled Western Heroes Vol II; and a comic book, sitting open, with a panel of an octopus, exclaiming “AHOY!!” . . . but that octopus has been removed from the book with those scissors, too. Our heroic duo have been plucked from their respective paper homes and have been made the characters in their own adventures, at the hands of a scissors-happy child (whom you never see), ready to storytell. Even the fact that their stances never change, particularly Cowboy’s, makes me laugh (there he is, all stiff-legged on a seesaw in his cowboy hat and fringed cowboy shirt and handkerchief-’round-his-neck, with his hand extended, saying “YEE-HAW!” with that static smile — but there he is doing the same thing on every other page. Visit the duo’s blog to see what I mean). This book is just funny as hell. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s late, but here I am posting conference photos so that other conference-go’ers can see them on Monday morning. Now, people: Before anyone complains about how BIG they are, well . . . I can’t do tables in WordPress, and I don’t have time to figure out picture formatting/sizing right now, so here they all are, each at width 500. And absolutely NO ONE is allowed to email and say, but I look awful! Wah! . . . ’cause none of you do. You are all beautiful. So there.

We sure did have fun meeting everyone. Enjoy the pics. Wish I had a lot more, but I’m bad about runnin’ my mouth, talking to folks, and being a bit too much in the moment, only then realizing much too late that I haven’t taken a single photo. This is better than what I usually turn out, though, yes, I’m still kicking myself for not getting even more photos of bloggers we met.

(For the record, I got a big family photo, too, but it came out way too dark. Go see Mark and Andrea for a beautiful copy) . . .

Read the rest of this entry »

Hi, everyone! Eisha and I are at the 1st Annual Kidlitosphere Conference this weekend. Woo! So, we’re not around today to leave our kicks, but you’re still welcome to leave some if we aren’t already getting to know you in Chicago.

Frank Dormer, whom we’ve featured before and who created our wonderful Mad Tea Party image (just for us!), sent us this mummy for this week’s kicks list (it actually is on the front page of his site). For the record, Frank knows a lot of us aren’t around right now, reading blogs, but if you are here, please do leave your kicks — and we hope that everyone who is in Chicago this weekend visits 7-Imp later this week to see this fabulous mummy.

Today is the first Sunday in October, so we’re gearing up for Halloween with this spooky (and lovable) guy.

By way of explanation for any new folks (who we hope will leave their lists), our weekly 7 Kicks list is the meeting ground for listing 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.

So, let’s hear your kicks, even though we’re not able to leave ours. We’re actually both flying back to our respective homes today, so we can read the lists a bit later. We can try to leave our own, too, which will probably both be . . .

1. Going
2. to
3. the
4. First
5. Annual
6. Kidlitosphere
7. Conference!

Until then . . .

So, yes, it’s my turn for Poetry Friday, but a) I’m packing for the 1st Annual Kidlitosphere Conference, and b) I’ve been busy this week with my work that . . . well, pays, to be frank. Yes, as much as I love runnin’ my mouth about literature here at 7-Imp, it’s a labor of love which does not help pay the bills, and so the work that does help pay the bills came first this week. This means I don’t have a proper book review for you today or a well-considered poem. But I’ll get back to that soon enough.

What I did stumble across, which I want to quickly share (and which is not poetry), is this little piece of advice I had jotted down years ago in a journal and just re-discovered. It’s from the mind of writer Henry Miller (pictured here in a photo taken by photographer Carl Van Vechten and first published in the U.S. in 1923; the image is in the public domain):

“Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music — the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls, and interesting people.”

So, here’s to the beautiful souls and interesting people I’m looking forward to meeting tomorrow when I arrive in Chicago. I’m really excited about meeting the faces behind the blogs. Safe travels to everyone else attending, too. Until tomorrow . . .

What is “Bradbury Day”?, you ask. Well, Colleen Mondor at Chasing Ray suggested that — in honor of the upcoming trick-or-treating holiday, which is all things spooky — we consider a favorite creepy-esque, Halloween-esque, scary-esque novel or story or picture book or etcetera (for any age readers) and write about it. Anything that celebrates the idea of The October Country, Ray Bradbury’s 1955 collection of twenty macabre short stories (and why that? ‘Cause Colleen is a hugely huge Bradbury fan, as she made clear in our May interview with her). And if you visit her site today, she’ll have a list of other bloggers who are highlighting their favorite spooky books on this Bradbury Day 2007.

You may remember that we recently interviewed Adam Rex, and we’ve made it very clear repeatedly that we’re big ‘ol honkin’ fans of his books. So, it may be no surprise that for Bradbury Day we want to re-visit and highlight Adam’s fabulous anthology of original poems, published last year by Harcourt, entitled 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. And Adam gave us permission to use Frankenwaiter up there to help us celebrate this book.

And then, even better yet, he gave us a sneak peek at the first poem of the new book he’s working on, and it’s entitled . . . Read the rest of this entry »

Do you know how. very. long I’ve been sitting on this post? Oh my, perhaps months now. We’ve been busy here at 7-Imp. Better late than never, though. And there are oh-so, EVER-SO many more picture books I want to talk about (who can add about five more hours to my day? Anyone? Anyone? Email me pronto!), but let’s take it one day at a time, shall we? Onwards then . . .

The grown-up Horse, Sheep, and Pig want to dance the night away — some bouncing, some jigging, some leaping — while their young ‘uns sleep . . . or so they think. Those wee ones are, indeed, watching all the cavorting from their hay beds. Who can sleep on such a gorgeous night anyway? But eventually the adults hang it up to hit the hay, so to speak, since nothing seems to go as planned: Horse is such a dancin’ fool that she sets the straw on fire; Sheep jumps and leaps so high that she gets stuck on a beam high above; and Pig jigs so hard that she falls down. After they fall asleep, the young ones head out to dance by the light of the moon and stay until the sun rises in the sky. Hutchins’ sparkly, bright gouache illustrations are eye-catching, especially with her dark, beautiful night-time palette, brightened with those splashes of cheery pinks and crimsons which you see on the cover there. The Horn Book review called this one “a pleasant romp, a natural for dramatic play.” It is, indeed. And what I really love is that depiction of the parents’ urges to get out already and live it up a little while the children sleep — as well as the latter’s awareness of it and secret joy in watching it all unfold. A good story-time read-aloud choice. And I’ll line up for a Pat Hutchins title any day. Read the rest of this entry »

Hi, everyone. One more post here that is a bit of business, so to speak, and not a review, but we promise to get back to reviews tomorrow.

You may remember the Blogging for the Cure effort, begun in mid-September. Well, in the way of an update, all is going well. Over 150 illustrators were chosen by approximately 65 bloggers, and they will be featuring the snowflake-making illustrators (some of them, but not all of them, by any means) for the Robert’s Snow 2007 online auctions, starting October 15 and all the way up until the day before the first auction, November 18. That means that during that time, about four or five illustrators a day will be featured at various blogs, even on Saturdays and Sundays. We will all link to one another’s features so that folks can easily find which illustrator and his/her snowflake is being featured where. 7-Imp will commit to having the master schedule posted here for each day during this effort, which will last a little over a month. Remember: The goal is to drive traffic to the Robert’s Snow site so that more snowflakes will get sold to raise money in the fight against cancer.

The bloggers involved are really excited to feature these beautiful snowflakes and the artists who created them.

If you live in the Massachusetts area, please note the following information, your opportunity to see some of these snowflakes in person at two special gallery showings between October and December:

For more information, read here. And you can view the ’07 snowflakes here. Remember that our devoted bloggers will be featuring them and the illustrators who created them, staring October 15. We’ll keep you updated here at 7-Imp about that snowflake-feature schedule, as we get closer to mid-October.

Let the fundraising begin!