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Jules:<\/font> Award-winning author\/illustrator Jackie Morris<\/strong><\/a> is visiting us this morning, and we’re so glad she’s here. Jackie, who trained as an illustrator at the Bath Academy of Art<\/strong><\/a> in England, now lives here<\/strong><\/a> in Wales and has won international acclaim for the many books she has written and illustrated. I struggle to find the words to describe her art work without sounding…well, totally trite, and I ended up deciding to go with words of praise from School Library Journal<\/em> about her illustrations, since they nail it: “The undeniable beauty of the delicate watercolor illustrations, with their dramatic use of line, coupled with soft, earthy tones, lend the characters and landscapes dignity and timelessness.” Yeah, what they said. <\/p>\n Jackie, who—as SLJ<\/em> indicates—works in watercolors, is sharing some new art work with us this morning, too, which is particularly exciting. This opening illustration above is to be the cover from Tell Me a Dragon<\/em>, written and illustrated by Jackie, to be released next Fall. Isn’t it beautiful? Here are some more from that forthcoming title: <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Below is an illustration from Jackie’s most recently-illustrated title, a 2008 Moonbeam Children\u2019s Book Award<\/strong><\/a> recipient, Singing to the Sun: A Fairy Tale<\/strong><\/em><\/a> by Vivian French and published by Kane\/Miller this past September. (Vivian is the author of many books, one of her most recent ones being this great-looking book<\/strong><\/a> which I still want to read and which Cynthia Leitich Smith asks her about in this interview<\/strong><\/a> from October). <\/p>\n Kane\/Miller posted a wonderful interview<\/strong><\/a> with Jackie just this past Friday (also posted here<\/strong><\/a>), in which she talks more about Singing to the Sun<\/em>: <\/p>\n There are so many messages in the book if you want to look for them. For children, one message is that maybe love is better than wealth and power, but it is a thing to be freely given. For fathers, a reminder that daughters have free will and are fed up of being given away as prizes in stories. For parents, the message can be that arguing is frightening for children. For women, that it is always a good idea to keep your wolves close, if you have a wolf, and that cats are smart and music can often provide answers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Does that description not make you want to run to the nearest library or bookstore to get this one? It does for me. <\/p>\n Jackie is also currently working on two other titles. One is to be published by Frances Lincoln in 2010, and it’s called The Ice Bear<\/em>. Here’s a draft of one of the opening illustrations, followed by an illustration of mother and child: <\/p>\n The other title, written by James Mayhew<\/strong><\/a>, is entitled Starlight, Starbright<\/em> (illustration pictured below), to be published by Barefoot Books. Jackie says she’s been “finding it difficult to catch the key to it,” and she’s been documenting her sometimes frustrating—but always honest—illustrating process for this one over at its own blog<\/strong><\/a>. <\/p>\n Finally, here’s a bit of random Jackie-Morris loveliness, The Guardians<\/em> (you can see many more prints at this page<\/strong><\/a> of her site) . . . <\/p>\n And this is Jackie’s dragon-filled studio in October: <\/p>\n Jackie also told me, “I want to come for breakfast! If you came here, I would make you pancakes with peaches and bacon and maple syrup and then we would go for a walk with my cats and dogs to look for seal pups. And the sun would shine.” HOW COULD I TURN THAT DOWN? I’m so there. She’s pretty much welcome to a seven-questions-over-breakfast interview any ‘ol time she’s up for it. <\/p>\n Many thanks to Jackie for stopping by this morning. We look forward to her new titles. <\/p>\n As a reminder, our 7 Kicks posts are the 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. <\/p>\n 1* OH! I’ve been in love with Jackie Morris since The Barefoot Book of Classic Poems<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, and I’m so happy she’s here. She’s so swirly! I adore all those illos, especially the Wind Dragon, the Story Dragon (I want one!), the Ice Bear… okay, basically all of them.<\/p>\n 2* Homemade peanut butter chocolate chip cookies from my lovely and thoughtful neighbors. Mmmm.<\/p>\n 3* Good conversations at work.<\/p>\n 4* Remember how that jeweler replaced the two missing rhinestones in my new glasses a couple of weeks ago? Well, another one dropped out (on the other side this time), so I went back. This time they didn’t even charge me to replace it. Can you believe it? So, since they wouldn’t take my money, I’m giving them some love. Thanks, Mansour Jewelers<\/strong><\/a>!<\/p>\n 6* As you read this, I am somewhere on my journey from Ithaca to Detroit to Tokyo to Seoul. Woo-hoo! I promise I’ll check in when I can, and share pics and such. Have a lovely Sunday, an excellent week, and a Happy Thanksgiving!<\/p>\n WOOT! Have TOO MUCH FUN, Eisha, and travel safely!<\/p>\n 1). Seeing as how so many people lately are struggling with this sagging economy—which is very sad and anti-kicky, indeed—my first kick is that my husband and I still have our jobs. Since he is a Computer Geek for Bridgestone and I work as a contractor (while temporarily away from full-time librarianship) for a company that does corporate training, we’re both seriously lucky — and keeping fingers crossed. <\/p>\n 2). Seeing my four-and-a-half year old in her first official play. She was the Mayflower. How’s that for a story for when she’s a world-famous thespian one day?<\/p>\n 3) . . . actually, my other kick is that she asked me if there were such things as cooking schools and said she wants to be a chef one day. <\/p>\n 4). Robert Neubecker<\/strong><\/a> gave me permission to post his “Wow! Art!” spread on the page of our site in which I archive illustrator features and interviews. Here<\/strong><\/a> it is!<\/p>\n 5). Continuing to find old college friends on Facebook. <\/p>\n 7). I forgot this last week: My four-and-a-half year old read most of a beginning-reader book to me and my husband. I’m not a flash-card mom, and I’m sure excessive mommy-bragging can be tiresome. But humor me here. Really, it’s just truly kick-y in that the world of books is about to really<\/em> open up to her. WOOT! <\/p>\n What are your kicks this week?<\/font> It’s been a good week of many wonderful interviews<\/strong><\/a> (including Sara<\/strong><\/a>—along with Caroline Hickey—at MotherReader’s place and J. Patrick Lewis<\/strong><\/a> and John Green<\/strong><\/a> at Writing and Ruminating<\/em> and M.T. at Finding Wonderland<\/em><\/strong><\/a> AND many, many more); it was Jama’s birthday<\/strong><\/a>; and Jone got some great news<\/strong><\/a>. How about you? <\/p>\n Alan Silberberg<\/strong><\/a>, the 2008 recipient of the Thurber House Children’s Author in Residence, wants to make sure all you authors out there know about the application process for the four-week fellowship that is the 2009 Writer-in-Residence Program. Details on the application process can be found here<\/strong><\/a> at The Thurber House site. And here’s<\/strong><\/a> Alan’s post about it. Or, as he writes, “unless you don’t need 4 weeks of uninterrupted writing time, your own apartment in the historic home of one of America’s funniest Writer\/Cartoonists, and the opportunity of a lifetime – let me try and help with some possible reasons…”}<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Jules: Award-winning author\/illustrator Jackie Morris is visiting us this morning, and we’re so glad she’s here. Jackie, who trained as an illustrator at the Bath Academy of Art in England, now lives here in Wales and has won international acclaim for the many books she has written and illustrated. I struggle to find the words […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-seven-good-things-before-monday","category-picture-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1507\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/jules\/firedragon1.jpg\")
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5* I saw Twilight<\/em><\/strong><\/a> on opening night, with all the squealing 14-year-olds. Oh, my dearly beloveds, I had me some powerfully low expectations of that movie, and it exceeded<\/em> them. It was so bad it was hilarious. Thankfully I saw it with Dana<\/strong><\/a> and Justin<\/strong><\/a>, and we went out to a diner afterwards to talk about all our favorite bad parts.<\/p>\n![](\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/jules\/wowart1.jpg\")
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6). Knowing full well that Despereaux<\/a><\/strong><\/em> will be adapted to the screen next month, I’m reading it to my girls. I think they’ll appreciate it even more when they’re older, but hey, I’m enjoying it. And they mostly dig it. <\/p>\n![](\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/jules\/MeThurberCutOut.jpg\")
{Quick Note For Authors: <\/p>\n