Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Here are some brand-spankin’-new picture book titles as well as a couple from last year that I’m just getting to . . . If anyone is wondering, by the way, yes, we’ll have a blogger interview this week. Look for it on Thursday.

Onwards, then, to some winning picture book titles . . .

Here’s a lively addition to the list of international books to look for this year, this time a Dutch import. Little Donkey’s back (having been introduced to us in 2006’s Little Donkey and the Baby-Sitter, which I’ve never actually read but really want to now) . . . His friend, Jackie, is having a birthday party, so off Little Donkey and Mama Donkey go to purchase a gift for him. But Little Donkey’s great turmoil is that he wants to keep the present he’s picked out for Jackie: a kite with a long, long tail. He decides it’ll just stay in his possession, offering up alternate toys for Jackie’s gift, but Mama Donkey kindly — but resolutely — says no. Read the rest of this entry »

When Ruth White — one of children’s literature’s most celebrated authors (and, yes, let’s pause and do a little dance for teacher/librarian writers such as herself) — brings us a new novel, it’s cause for celebration in my book. Ruth White can transport you to another time and another place with great ease and can bring the reader such superb characterization — of that complex creation called a Southerner, no less — that you feel as if you’re in the presence of a master. And she never fails to provide a bit of wise, home-spun commentary on the Big Things of our emotional inner lives, both our strength of spirit and vulnerabilities as humans — and without ever laying it on too thick. As School Library Journal once put it well, White is a “real truth teller.” Not to mention, her books are infused with those mysterious, amorphous matters of the heart — love, friendship, familial devotion. Yessirree, when I’m in the mood for some good, old-fashioned Appalachian storytelling, some good Southern fiction, one of the writers I turn to is Ruth White.

On the whole, White doesn’t disappoint with her new title, Way Down Deep, which is — as pointed out by Lee Smith — part fable, part mystery. But, as KLIATT and Booklist also point out, we’re also dealing here with elements of folklore, fantasy, biography, and even magic realism (and, Publishers Weekly wrote, “{s}ome of White’s narrative teeters on the wobbly edge of farce”). The publisher itself will tell you it’s a bit of “fairy-tale magic.” There’s a little bit of everything here, but White pulls it all together with the cohesive thread that is, at its core, a tender narrative about the relationship between a caretaker and her child — and what it truly means to be a family. Read the rest of this entry »

{Note: Sorry there’s no blogger interview today. Yes, we tend to feature those on Mondays. We promise to continue our ongoing discussion with The Blue Rose Girls as soon as possible — most likely, another day later this week — and, after that, with a lot more bloggers with whom we want to chat. For now, enjoy a book review — uh, “recommendation” or whatever it is we’re supposed to call them in the wake of the discussion Roger started. I say that with no snarkiness, by the way} . . .

Eisha and I began a Middle-Grade Books round-up last week (it’s here if you missed the scrotrageous fun we had writing it), and so here I am to do a Part Two of some more middle-graders I’ve read. I intended to write about four — yes, count them, four — titles in this post, but I started with the first title on my list and found myself writing, ahem, a bit more than I’d expected. So, I’ll continue with the other stack of middle-grade novels in a little while. For now, make way for The One. The Only. Emma-Jean Lazarus:

I just had to pick up a copy of Emma-Jean; my curiosity was piqued with all the blog buzz about the book (see here, here, here, and here). This — Lauren Tarshis’ first novel — could be a case study in children’s lit classes for the examination of voice used successfully in a novel — particularly, chapter one, exactly where heavy use of voice should reside as we meet our characters. The protagonist, Emma-Jean, has quite the distinctive style and manner of expression. I guess there are arguments goin’ around for her being autistic, but I don’t buy that. Now onwards and upwards then . . .

Middle-schooler Emma-Jean Lazarus doesn’t like messy, disorderly things like emotions and, quite frankly, friendship — except for with her mother, the doctoral student who is a boarder in their home, the school janitor, and her pet parrot (all believably-drawn secondary characters, I might add in approbation). She’s wicked smart and terribly aloof, a classic misfit. She makes it “her habit to keep herself separate, to observe from afar . . . She maintained a general policy of staying out of the messy lives of her fellow seventh graders.” She’d rather stand on the perimeter of everyone else’s illogical, irrational lives, thanks very much — not unlike a super sharp tween-aged social anthropologist at work: Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Well, it was kind of a weird week, wasn’t it? But we’re here to focus on the good, and that seems like a very good idea right now. So:

1* Since I live in MA, Monday was a state holiday (Patriot’s Day – they’ve got a couple of these weird Revolutionary War-related holidays that no one else celebrates up here). So I had a 3-day weekend, which is always a good thing. Read the rest of this entry »

{Note: Today’s Poetry Friday round-up is over here at Big A, little a} . . .

Trees are never felled . . . in summer . . . Not when the fruit . . .
is yet to be borne . . . Never before the promise . . . is fulfilled . . .
Not when their cooling shade . . . has yet to comfort . . .

…from A Poem on the Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy
by Nikki Giovanni

Like everyone, I was stunned and horrified by the massacre at Virginia Tech on Monday. Like many, I have a friend who teaches there, and spent part of the day worrying, checking the VT website and the news, back and forth, waiting for them to release names of victims… until he got out of lockdown and answered his email. Thankfully, he did answer, and he is okay.

MotherReader spoke very eloquently about the tragedy on her blog. So did Paul. I don’t think it’s my place to say anything here, and even if I did I wouldn’t know where to begin. It’s sick and it’s sad and it shouldn’t have happened, these things just shouldn’t happen, ever, to anyone.

But I ran across this today on the Poetry Foundation website, and thought it was worth sharing. It’s Nikki Giovanni, who you probably know teaches at VT, speaking at their convocation on Tuesday.

{Addendum to post: We realize that at least one of our regular readers is deaf; we apologize for the lack of text here re Giovanni’s speech. Perhaps the Poetry Foundation or Virginia Tech itself will have the text printed somewhere. If anyone needs us to look for that, we’re happy to do so. Also, a portion of Giovanni’s speech is printed at A Wrung Sponge’s Poetry Friday entry for today. Thanks} . . .

{Addendum #2: Here is the transcript at Virginia Tech’s site; thanks to Marcie at World of Words for the link!} . . .

This is a sly little take on the Aesop fable about the boy who cried “wolf!” But Rocco turns the tables here, making the wolf — not the boy — center stage. And he places the characters in a pastoral Chinese setting (“Under a canopy of wind-swept trees and cherry blossoms, the wolf sports a Chinese silk jacket of the type seen in old Fu Manchu movies, the boy wears a topknot, and the neighbors who complain about the boy’s false cries sport queues and silk caps,” Publishers Weekly’s review points out).

Rocco’s striking wolf is old, arthritic. He’s too worn out and slow to chase animals and catch and consume birds (his jacket is adorned with the traditional Chinese symbol for longevity), so he attempts to grow his own food in a garden. Alas and alack, this doesn’t go too well (too many weeds). Fumbling with his hysterically primitive hearing aid one day, he hears the titular character of the classic Aesop story crying “WOLF! WOLF!” He creaks his way up the mountain in all his confusion (“the old wolf didn’t have any friends on any mountain,” so he’s not quite sure who’s calling for him). A LOVELY double page spread, wordless, of the wolf crossing a footbridge in a gorgeous spot of the wood, rife with cherry blossoms, follows. Loveliness, loveliness, I tell ya. I know I use that word entirely too much, but Rocco smacks us upside the head with The Lovely. It’s a smorgasbord for the eyes. Sit down and take a bite. It’s almost breathtaking in spots. Read the rest of this entry »

7-Imp is pleased to be the inaugural stop on Barbara Kerley’s current blog tour.* This is Barbara, of course, pictured here from 2004 on a Paris stop — the Eiffel Tower’s carousel, to be exact — which was part of her trip to London to finally see Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins’ dinosaurs (see below for a photo from that visit), Hawkins being the subject of one of her picture book biographies. So, yes, she’s setting aside some time this month to chat with bloggers about her new novel (and writing/life in general). The novel is called Greetings From Planet Earth (Scholastic; April 2007), and we’re here to tell ya, folks, that it looks really interesting. You can read all about it below (as well as some other forthcoming titles), since Barbara has stopped by for a cyber-visit here at 7-Imp. Read the rest of this entry »

Hi there, one and all. We’ve been reading a whole slew of intermediate-aged novels and decided we’d review them in a round-up post. Some are newer than others (yes, you’ll see that we’re just now getting to titles like The Higher Power of Lucky and Rules, but better late than never, eh?). And, you know, we here at 7-Imp never really addressed Scrotumgate (or what Kristen McLean at pixie stix kids pix aptly called “the Great Scrotum Kerfuffle of 2007“). So, in honor of speaking out against those adults who feel “discomfort . . . {about} . . . references to body parts in children’s literature. . . {and the} fear of giggling” and in defense of scrotums as children’s literacy tools (in the words of Susan Patron herself), we’ll try to use at least one scroadjective in each review of this round-up — such as, the profoundly erudite “scrotastically testacular ” in the title of this post. (And we hope the authors of each book below will forgive us and will know that we have only the utmost respect for them).

And when we say “intermediate” or “middle-grade,” keep this in mind: more or less. All the below titles pretty much fit into the “ages 6 to 12” category, if we must use categories; Mary Hanson’s new book is for the younger set, while Rules and Lucky technically get labelled “9 to 12” a lot. But blah blah blah, what matters is that these are some brand-new titles or titles from the previous year (with which we’re getting caught up) that will appeal to your older elementary and middle-grade students and that we think are worth your time for one reason or another. Enjoy! (Oh, and look for a Part Two soon — we’ve got even more to say) . . .

What It’s About: A cookie-lovin’ rat (named Bob) manages to save himself from being devoured by two hungry cats, Brutus and Muffin, by serving them cookies and telling them fairy tales about his family. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome, Dear Readers.  This week we continue our series of interviews with the Blue Rose Girls by talking to the uber-talented, delightful author/illustrator Anna Alter. (Yup, in case you’re wondering, that does indeed seem to be a knitting, flying monkey that she’s drawing there.)

Let’s face it: we’re all fascinated by artists. Especially those of us who have a huge appreciation for art without any actual artistic talent of our own. What’s cool about Anna, besides her lovely illustrations and stories, is the way she shares her process and techniques with the rest of us through her blog posts and outstanding website. It gives us left-brainers a behind-the-scenes glimpse of all the hard, tedious work and meticulous research that goes into creating all those gorgeous picture books we love. For example, check out these two posts that show us the step-by-step creation of an illustration for an upcoming book, from sketch to finished painting. And here, where she experiments with various apparel choices for a character.  Read the rest of this entry »

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.

1) Elaine Magliaro’s dedication of an original acrostic poem to me and Eisha. Thanks again, Elaine!

2) MotherReader’s lovely tribute to Kurt Vonnegut.

3) The opportunity to chat with authors and illustrators and editors and other bloggers because of this blog. Eisha and I really enjoyed chatting with Alvina Ling (how multi-faceted is she?) and John Green (who is just so stinkin’ nice) last week, and this week we will feature interviews with author/illustrator Anna Alter (who amazes me) of The Blue Rose Girls and Barbara Kerley of The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins and Walt Whitman: Words for America (two very lovely, lovely books out of a handful of great books she’s written). Why can’t these people pass some of their talent over to me? If only it were that simple . . . Read the rest of this entry »