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Jules:<\/font><\/strong> Welcome to our 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 And Happy Father’s Day to all our papa-readers out there!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It’s a Secret!<\/strong><\/a><\/em> is John’s newest title, released by Candlewick this month. One of Burningham’s appeals, in my book, is the terrifically spot-on child-like dialogue in his titles. And it’s more than just dialogue. It’s the way he gets so easily into a child’s way of thinking<\/em>. Clearly, he is on their side. For instance, in this one, when a young girl named Marie Elaine starts to wonder where cats go at night and then has her opportunity one night to find out when she spots Malcolm, her cat, dressed to the nines and on his way out the door, she doesn’t even blink. She begs to join him, and when he tells her that, well, she’ll have to get dressed up, she does so. And then when he tells her “but you’ll have to get small,” she does so (as you can see in the opening spread above). “Marie Elaine got small, and they went out of the house through the cat door.”<\/em> And that’s that. No explanation needed for a wee child, thanks very much. What matters is that she got out<\/em> and gets to see, indeed, what her cat does<\/em> all night. And the art is signature Burningham — the bold lines, the seemingly quick sketches alternating with the textured, sprawling spreads, and the use of color to excellent effect. <\/p>\n Best of all? Burningham never, ever<\/em> talks down to children. There is both joy and sorrow, side-by-side, in his titles: Ever read Granpa<\/strong><\/em><\/a>? Whew. <\/p>\n As for the above image (look at those colors! Holy saturation!), there’s always a spread in a Burningham book, usually involving feasts, which I wish were available as a print that I could hang on my wall. (I wish I could hang this<\/strong><\/a>—someone else online has posted it—from the fabulous Mr. Gumpy’s Outing<\/strong><\/a><\/em> in my kitchen.) In this new book, there are some wonderful night-time party spreads (including, OF COURSE, a delicious midnight feast). It’s a cat party, you see, and yes, the Queen shows, but I won’t say anymore, in case you want to read yourselves. <\/p>\n [Time interlude. Had to pick myself up off the floor.]<\/em> You know, I’ve read a bit here and a bit there about a John Burningham collection of sorts that is supposed to be released soon. I just did a search and found this<\/strong><\/a>. Be still, my heart. A foreword by Sendak? “Copious notes” from Burningham himself? A signed book plate? ON SALE IN AUGUST? I. must. find. out. more. And start saving. <\/p>\n {IT’S A SECRET! Copyright \u00a9 2009 by John Burningham. Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Candlewick Press, on behalf of Walker Books, London.}<\/em><\/p>\n Hey, Happy Father’s Day to all the good dads out there!<\/p>\n 1* Okay, well, that news about the John Burningham book is pretty awesome.<\/p>\n 2* I finally saw the new Star Trek movie. OMG, you guys. KICK. ASS. The casting is brilliant, the special effects are amazing, and I loved the way they incorporated elements from the classic series but still made something that feels modern and edgy and new.<\/p>\n 4* I’m rereading Laini Taylor’s<\/strong><\/a> Blackbringer<\/em><\/strong><\/a> in preparation for reading Silksinger<\/em><\/strong><\/a>. Dang, I’d almost forgotten what a fun, inventive, edge-of-your-seat story it is.<\/p>\n 5* When my mom and sister were in town, we went to the Corning Museum of Glass<\/strong><\/a>, since I had such a good time there when my mother-in-law was visiting. This time, I got to make a glass pendant<\/strong><\/a> in the glassmaking workshop. I’ve worn it out a couple of times, and keep getting compliments on it. I’m not exactly crafty, so it’s quite a rush to be able to say, “Oh, this old thing? Yeah, um, I made it.” Here’s my sister making hers:<\/p>\n 6* All this recent entertaining has led me to take a long, hard look at our bed sheet situation. I realized that 1.) I don’t remember the last time we bought any new ones; 2.) we seem to have misplaced one of our better sets in the last move; and 3.) the ones we have left are looking sorta pitiful, plus they clash with our newish bedspread. So after some serious hunting, I bought these delicious new sheets on sale. They’re like, I dunno, 6000-gazillion thread-count or something – certainly the nicest sheets I’ve ever had, and they’re a great shade of dark gray (sounds boring, I’m sure, but gray is truly one of my favorite colors). I love them, even though they don’t make it any easier for me to get out of bed in the mornings.<\/p>\n 7* This past week was one of the more challenging ones I’ve had at work. Most of the department was out of town for a rare book conference, and for some reason a whole mess of new researchers picked this week to come in, plus we acquired two new collections of personal papers, plus the digital reproduction unit finally got some broken equipment replaced and started churning out our backlog of repro orders, etc. etc., so we were crazy busy and crazy understaffed at the same time. But you know… I honestly kind of like that sort of week once in a while. Keeps things interesting, you know? And everyone was great about pitching in and doing more than their usual share. But HOO-BOY, am I glad it’s over.<\/p>\n Well, the news about the Burningham collection being available soon is now a major kick for me, but I decided earlier to kick it with The Basics this Sunday, with the things for which you can always assume<\/em> I’m grateful — but perhaps never say enough. I’m grateful my girls are healthy and happy, I’m grateful my husband and I have jobs and can do things like pay the mortgage and<\/em> have a bit of fun, and I’m grateful for him. He teases me sometimes that he doesn’t show up in my kicks enough, and I told him one day I’d do kicks 1-7 as “Blaine, Blaine, Blaine…”<\/p>\n So, Happy Father’s Day to someone my girls are extremely lucky to have as a dad. Here are my kicks this week:<\/p>\n 1). Blaine What are YOUR<\/font> kicks this week?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" (Click to enlarge.) Jules: Welcome to our 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. And Happy Father’s Day to all our papa-readers out there!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-picture-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1710","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=1710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1710\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}I tried hard—I really did—to get some Father’s-Day-related illustrations today. (If the publisher pulls through and sends me the spreads I had in mind, how about I post ’em at a later date?) So, I may not have some art in honor of the papas of the world, but I do<\/em> have Malcolm, the cat who wears fancy clothes and a hat-with-a-plume and attends secret cat parties at night in which the Queen of the Cats appears. And who sprung from the mind of John Burningham<\/strong><\/a>. And, as I’ve mentioned before<\/strong><\/a>, my deep and abiding love for John’s books and illustrations rivals only my love for Sendak’s for the Number One spot in the category of Best Picture Book Creators Ever. <\/p>\n<\/a>
\n3* And I saw it with a few friends from work, and then we grabbed significant others and went out for a yummy dinner<\/strong><\/a>. It was a perfect way to spend a rainy Saturday.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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