Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

{Anyone else with children listening to Dan Zane’s new CD suddenly want to break into song when you hear “hear ye”? Alkelda?! Track #6, the “Choo choo Ch’ Boogie,” opens with Rankin’ Don a.k.a. Father Goose belting that out . . . but I digress}.

Anyway, Eisha and I don’t normally do posts announcing things such as the new issue of The Edge of the Forest, ’cause, well . . . we figure everyone else is covering it and that — if you have any sense — you read Big A little a anyway and already know about it. But this is just to say that you all should go over and read Volume II, Issue 5 (since I started the sentence that way, I’ll have visions of sweet, cold plums in my head all day), ’cause Kelly and her writers work so hard on this publication and it’s so very good. There’s a lot of great stuff in this issue, as always, including Little Willow’s feature on The Bermudez Triangle and how it’s currently being challenged in Oklahoma, which she was telling us about on Sunday. Kelly also tells us all about Tracy Grand’s JacketFlap.

Every issue is worth reading, and the articles never disappoint, but this is just to say that it’s there and kudos to Kelly and her crew for such an informative online monthly.

We here at 7-Imp are taking a break this week from chatting with The Blue Rose Girls (we’ll get to know Libby Koponen a bit more two weeks from now). And, during the interim, we’re going to take some time to chat with the smart, opinionated, dauntless go-getter of Chasing Ray, Colleen Mondor.

If you don’t frequent Chasing Ray, why then, we hope we can change your mind and turn you into a regular reader. Colleen states at the site itself that Chasing Ray is “all about the literary world and my place within it.” Even that sounds modest, ’cause when you visit her blog, you’re always rewarded — with detailed, thoughtful reviews on specific titles or her always-passionate take on general topics in the realm of literature, such as this post on the importance of print book reviews in today’s increasingly-prevalent online world, this post on blog tours, this post on censorship, or this post in which she spoke out about the recent comments that have been swirling around cyber-space about unpaid book-reviewing via blogs. She’ll occasionally keep you up-to-date on the blogosphere’s goings-on, such as she did here; she’s really knowledgeable and enthusiastic about YA literature; and she’ll sometimes write very candidly about her own fiction-writing or write beautiful personal posts, such as this one about her father and her son.

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It’s time for another installment of 7-Imp’s 7 Kicks . . . For those new to our series, this is where we all stop in every Sunday to report seven (more or less is fine) Good Things that happened to you (or that you read or saw or experienced or . . . well, you get the picture) this week. Absolutely anyone is welcome to contribute.

1* Well, if you read last week’s 7 Kicks post you already know I was in TN meeting my nephew for the very first time. I got to spend almost a whole week in his company, not to mention my mom, my sister (who also flew in from the other coast to meet lil’ Miles), my sister-in-law, and a lot of extended family. My elusive brother even made a brief appearance. It was a great visit. And I am so in love with Miles I just cannot stand it. He is so utterly amazing. Every little thing he does just blows me away. I’m trying very hard not to include a photo here. Very, very hard.

2* But I will show you a picture of Ella Grace. She’s my cousin’s daughter, who was born the same week as Miles even though she wasn’t due until June. She finally got to come home from the hospital – she’s up to 5 lbs, and is doing amazingly well. I can’t even describe what a thing it is to see her. She’s so impossibly tiny, so fragile, but already such a survivor. I don’t use words like “miracle” a lot, but it’s the only word that seems to fit.

3* And, as Jules mentioned, I got to spend an afternoon with her and the girls, which is always a good time. Every time I see Miriam and Ada I am just amazed at how smart, funny, sassy, and beautiful they’re turning out to be. Just like their mom. Read the rest of this entry »

God, this book is funny. Just. so. funny. And, apparently, I’m not the only one who thinks so; it garnered quite a bit of advanced praise and then managed to get some good reviews (from The Horn Book and School Library Journal to name just a couple). I have David Elzey’s review at The Excelsior File to thank for first making me want to go out and find a copy. Here’s what so funny: Grumpy Bird just wakes up pissed off. I love it. There are some of us for whom the phrase “woke up on the wrong side of the bed” simply has no meaning. There can be “a” wrong side? Both sides are always glaringly wrong and we wake up feeling as if the center of gravity were directly under our bed and need about, oh, at least one hour and several cups of coffee to facilitate actually speaking to anyone without grumbling and cursing and swearing. Read the rest of this entry »

{Note: Vivian at HipWriterMama is on top of things and already rounding-up the Poetry Friday entries for today. Here’s the link} . . .

A little Sylvia Plath seemed the natural choice for today, after Jules’s review of Your Own, Sylvia by Stephanie Hemphill.

Sometimes I feel compelled to defend poor Sylvia against those who think of her as the patron poet of semi-suicidal goth girls. I mean, okay… yeah, she is. But I think people tend to get hung up on Plath’s life story and forget what an awesome poet she really was. It’s easy to do – her bio works as a parable for a lot of motifs: the angsty misunderstood girl who couldn’t live up to her own expectations, much less everyone else’s; the talented artist who sacrificed her own ambitions to support her husband and raise his children, only to lose him to another woman; the poster child for the questionable diagnoses and barbaric treatments of mid-century psychiatry… But really, if you can get past all the prefab persona and just look at her body of work, you’ll find some seriously good poems. Her images come at you like kidney punches, one after the other; and they’re rendered in so precise a meter it’s as though she painstakingly pared away any excess syllables with an X-acto knife.

Here’s an example. It’s one of her later poems, “Balloons,” from her posthumous collection Ariel.

Since Christmas they have lived with us,
Guileless and clear,
Oval soul-animals,
Taking up half the space,
Moving and rubbing on the silk

Invisible air drifts,
Giving a shriek and pop
When attacked, then scooting to rest, barely trembling.
Yellow cathead, blue fish—
Such queer moons we live with…

See? “Oval soul-animals” – simple and perfect. And not the least bit angsty. Read the rest here. And also check out this nifty site for an English class at Stanford, with links to most of her poems in either chronological or alphabetical order. Go on, you know you want to… go get your Plath on!

Oh, fine… you can light a candle or two, if it’ll help set the mood.

My black nail polish? Oh, geez, I think it’s over in that box of makeup I only use for Halloween… um, yeah, go ahead.

A Cure CD? No. Well… maybe Head on the Door… I mean, NO, I’m sorry, no. Just read the poems already.

Bah-dum-ching. Awful pun. Sorry. Yup, more from my huge stack of new picture book titles that please me for one reason or another, and I grouped some of the ones about bears together here in this post, ’cause, uh, I’m a dork. And ’cause I have such a huge pile of great books about various topics and with all kinds of protagonists — animal or not — that I can.

This picture book is a gem, a little sparkly, shinybright gem. At the Thank You Bear site, you’ll see that someone has said, “It’s the new Emperor’s New Clothes” (actually, that someone who said that is Karl Lagerfeld. Yes, the fashion designer. The Thank You Bear site has all kinds of celebrity endorsements — from David Bowie to David Byrne to Michael Stipe — if you care about that kind of thing). I get the Emperor vibe, but I think it has more of a Carrot Seed sensibility about it . . . “Early one morning, a little bear found a box,” the book opens. We, as the reader, aren’t sure what is in the box, if anything, but we do know that the little bear looked inside and said, “‘Why, it’s the greatest thing ever! Mouse will love this.'” But when he shows the box to the monkey, the owl, the fox, the elephant, the squirrel, and the bunny, they all — in one way or another — rain on his parade. Read the rest of this entry »

If I were a cheerleader (shudder), I’d be doing one of those thrust-my-arms-up-and-forward-and-wave-my-fingers-in-the-air thingies for the return of Hondo and Fabian. If you’re familiar with McCarty’s first book (from 2002) featuring this dear duo (and if you’re not, oheavensgoreaditrightnow!), you know that Hondo got to have the adventure. Well, now it’s Fabian’s turn. And it’s perfect and so spot-on funny, I tell ya, and with the same understated humor that graced Hondo and Fabian. Opening in the same way as the previous title (sweet, sweet words to read if you’re a Hondo and Fabian fan) — “Fabian on the windowsill, Hondo on the floor — two sleepy pets in their favorite places” — we see that Hondo gets to go out for his walk, but he immediately returns and “Fabian escapes out the window. Fabian will have an adventure.” Right on, Fabian! Way to make things happen. McCarty juxtaposes the two adventures (who says you can’t have some fun inside, too?): Fabian’s outside eating flowers, while Hondo’s in the kitchen eating a stick of butter; Fabian “meets the neighbors” (that aforementioned wonderfully understated humor, as Fabian’s staring at a row of dogs, we see in the illustration), while it’s Hondo’s turn to get mildly tortured by the baby! Poor Fabian; those friendly neighbors “are happy to play chase with their new friend.” And poor Hondo; the baby wants to play dress-up. When it’s all said and done, Fabian’s welcomed home, just as Hondo was in the last adventure. McCarty scores once again with his minimalist text; detailed, texturized pencil art and soft, muted colors in his sophisticated yet welcoming style; and his subtle humor. He’s a class act, once again showing us that when the pleasures are simple, life is good.

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Jump back, ’cause Stephanie Hemphill has poured her heart and soul and many years of research and hero worship into this fictionalized verse portrait of Sylvia Plath, entitled Your Own, Sylvia (Random House Children’s Books; March 2007; review copy). It’s quite daring and ambitious (“to imitate Plath’s form to tell her story could be bold-hearted courage, the sincerest form of flattery, or foolhardiness; perhaps all three by turns,” wrote KLIATT), telling us about Plath’s life through Hemphill’s own original poetry, many re-imagined in the style of Plath’s poems, and with Plath’s imagery scattered throughout the novel as well. But Hemphill pulls it off and passionately invites the reader in to get to know Sylvia; these are meticulously-crafted poems — and in many forms, from villanelles to rhymed couplets to lots of free verse and even one abecedarian — that serve as a wonderful introduction to Sylvia’s life. But even ardent Sylvia fans who need no convincing will enjoy this portrait and glimpsing Sylvia anew through the eyes of those who surrounded her in her short life.

It might be a tad confusing, so let me clarify right off the bat: The poems are based on the real, live life of the real, live Sylvia Plath, but they are fictionalized. Read the rest of this entry »

As mentioned last week, we’ve had a great deal of fun chatting with the savagely smart Blue Rose Girls, and this week our site is graced (figuratively and literally) by the presence of the prolific and talented Grace Lin. As their site explains, Grace is one of the original Blue Rose Girls, having initially bonded with fellow illustrators Anna Alter and Linda Wingerter in 1996 and then eventually bringing the other ladies (Alvina, Meghan, Libby, and Elaine) on board. Grace is a consistent and always informative blogger over at the BRGs’ site — posting on such topics as racial identity and labelling in multicultural books; her thoughts on blogger book reviewing; her conference visits and author talks; how to boldly and confidently get your name out there and make a living as an author/illustrator; her own party-throwing (parties to rival the New York KidLit Drink Nights any ‘ol time, thanks very much); what it means to her to be a “multi-cultural author”; and much more. And Grace also has her own personal blog, Pacyforest, where she’ll keep you up-to-date on her writing and illustrating (“I’m a children’s book author and illustrator which means my secret life is full of drama, intrigue, adventure . . . and pink fuzzy bunnies,” she writes at the site).

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Happy birthday to my very best friend, the ultimate co-blogger, a super mom, and an all-around kick-ass human being. Jules, I mean this from the bottom of my heart…

 YOU ROCK!!!!

 You also look absolutely fabulous for, ahem, 24.