{"id":1813,"date":"2009-10-11T00:01:59","date_gmt":"2009-10-11T06:01:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=1813"},"modified":"2009-10-13T20:40:22","modified_gmt":"2009-10-14T02:40:22","slug":"7-imps-7-kicks-136-featuring-il-sung-na","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=1813","title":{"rendered":"7-Imp’s 7 Kicks #136: Featuring Il Sung Na"},"content":{"rendered":"

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“Some make lots of noise when they sleep.”<\/em>
(Click image to enlarge. Really. The details are lovely.)<\/center><\/p>\n

Jules:<\/strong><\/font> Welcome to 7-Imp’s 7 Kicks, 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

I’m keeping the feature this week simple, since it’s been a busy weekend. See that sleepy elephant up there? I’m in need of his sleep, I think. But the busy-ness is the good<\/em> kind of busy. More on that in my kicks. <\/p>\n

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These spreads are from illustrator Il Sung Na’s<\/a><\/strong> (born in South Korea and studied and worked in London) picture book debut, A Book of Sleep<\/strong><\/a><\/em>, released in September by Alfred A. Knopf (but first published in the UK in ’07). I love these illustrations, and I love this book. Publishers Weekly<\/em> writes, “It’s the rare picture book that, upon arrival, feels as though it has been around for years already; Na’s belongs to this group,” adding that the sleep habits of various animals, the subject of Na’s book, “seem almost incidental to the soothing, captivating aura that emanates from every spread.” To this I say: Word. Evidently, Na created the illustrations by combining hand-made painterly textures with digitally-generated layers, all combined in Photoshop. The result? Very textured, delicate, intricate spreads over which other Illustration Junkies may enjoy poring. <\/p>\n

Case in point? Click on this spread:<\/p>\n

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“Some sleep with<\/em> both eyes open…they don’t even blink!”<\/em><\/center><\/p>\n

Wonderful, yes? You can see more spreads from it at Na’s site. I love featuring international illustrators and wish I could do it way<\/em> more than I do. Anyway, go have a look. Good stuff. <\/p>\n

* * * * * * *<\/center><\/p>\n

A BOOK OF SLEEP. Copyright \u00a9 2007 by Il Sung Na. First American Edition published 2009 by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House, New York, NY. <\/p>\n

* * * Jules’ Kicks and One Anti-Kick * * *<\/strong><\/font><\/center><\/p>\n

1). I attended the Authors in the Round soiree-thingy on Friday night at the Southern Festival of Books<\/a><\/strong>. I got to meet Sara Zarr<\/a><\/strong> and hang out with her a bit. She was much fun. <\/p>\n

2). On Saturday, I got to hear Sara speak with another YA author, got to meet Elizabeth O. Dulemba<\/a><\/strong> and Hester Bass<\/a><\/strong> (who serenaded her session’s attendees — Hester, that is), and hosted a session for author\/illustrator Elise Primavera<\/a><\/strong>, who is a HOOT, you all. I got to talk with her for about 30 or 45 minutes before her session, and she was CRACKING ME UP. I missed the chance to meet Marc Tyler Nobleman<\/a><\/strong>, since I’m generally disorganized, which is my loss, and I forgot my camera every time I left the house, so I have no photos. But, well, I promise I’m not making it all up!<\/p>\n

3). Speaking of the Southern Festival of Books, this<\/a><\/strong> new site from Humanities Tennessee is another kick.<\/p>\n

4). I’m typing this ON THE FIRST-EVER LAPTOP IN OUR HOME, thanks to my dear, dear husband, who knows me well. <\/p>\n

5). I’m about to go make a cup of hot cocoa with cinnamon and vanilla. <\/p>\n

6). Best of all, we’re going to be partying down today for my daughter’s 4th birthday, so if I’m scarce today, that’s why. I will try to check in when I can. <\/p>\n

7). I got her more Polo<\/a><\/strong> books for her birthday. She loves her some of that world-travellin’ dog. <\/p>\n

The ANTI-Kick:<\/strong><\/font> As many of you most likely already know, Andrea over at Just One More Book<\/a><\/strong><\/em> was diagnosed with breast cancer this week. As you also<\/em><\/em> probably already know, she had called it quits<\/a><\/strong> on podcasting for a while; she was experiencing some burn-out and overload from all their podcasting and from publishers-who-were-just-a-tad-too-persistent (and who kinda sometimes forget that we do this stuff for no pay and that it’s supposed to be fun and that no one is supposed to be pushy about when we post ANYthing) and just generally feeling like she needed a serious break, like they had been pushed beyond their limits. Hardest-working duo in the kidlitosphere, I’ve always said. I’ve been there a few times myself lately, honestly, entertaining the notion of a very long blog break. So, I checked in with Andrea to see how her break was going, and she reported that it was totally blissful. And then not five minutes later, or so it seemed anyway, she emailed back to tell me she had just<\/em> received news of a cancer diagnosis. Stupid-dumb, evil old cancer. <\/p>\n

As this post<\/a><\/strong> over there at JOMB<\/em> indicates, they’re now DEFINITELY on a blog break so that they can focus on Andrea getting better. I’m not normally a things-happen-for-a-reason kind of gal, but isn’t it a good thing that they had already declared a break—or possible end—to their podcasting? ‘Cause now this. <\/p>\n

Let’s send them lots of good wishes, collectively, as Sunday kickers, shall we? Let’s tell her that we’re behind her in her efforts to kick. cancer’s. ass. <\/p>\n

Good luck, Andrea, and we love you!<\/font><\/center> <\/p>\n


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Andrea and Mark at the first annual kidlitosphere conference<\/em><\/center> <\/p>\n

What are YOUR<\/font> kicks this week, everyone?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Some make lots of noise when they sleep.”(Click image to enlarge. Really. The details are lovely.) Jules: Welcome to 7-Imp’s 7 Kicks, 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1813","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\/1813","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\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1813\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}