{"id":1859,"date":"2009-12-20T00:01:01","date_gmt":"2009-12-20T06:01:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=1859"},"modified":"2009-12-20T10:07:02","modified_gmt":"2009-12-20T16:07:02","slug":"7-imps-7-kicks-146-featuring-richard-scarry-matt-tavares-petr-horacek-and-gail-de-marcken","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=1859","title":{"rendered":"7-Imp’s 7 Kicks #146: Featuring Richard Scarry, Matt Tavares, Petr Hor\u00e1\u010dek, and Gail De Marcken"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Welcome to 7-Imp’s 7 Kicks, a 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

This week, as a gift to you, I’ve got a little round-up of some holiday art. Okay, well, I say “holiday,” but this week it happens to be all Christmas in nature. <\/p>\n

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Ah, Richard Scarry<\/strong><\/a>. I’m ridiculously happy to have his art work at the top of this post today. Anyone else read Leonard S. Marcus’<\/strong><\/a> Golden Legacy<\/em><\/strong><\/a> (covered here<\/strong><\/a> at 7-Imp in April of last year)? If you’re a Richard-Scarry fan and you have not<\/em> read that, you’re in for a treat, as Marcus covers Scarry’s career in detail. The book also includes “A Few Words About Richard Scarry’s Working Technique” by Huck Scarry, his son: “He had a masterful sense of design and composition, and an amazing talent for explaining through drawings often very complicated information in a deceptively simple and always lighthearted way…The virtuosity of Richard’s handling of gouache paint in layers—first ‘wet-on-wet,’ then on to full-bodied opaque, testifies to an incredible mastery.”<\/em> (As for that latter part of the quote, Huck was referring to 1963’s I Am a Bunny<\/strong><\/em><\/a> by Ole Risom<\/strong><\/a> and illustrated by Richard.)<\/p>\n

These illustrations this morning come from Richard Scarry’s Favorite Christmas Carols<\/strong><\/em><\/a> (complete with a little keyboard, as you can see above), published by Sterling in October of this year — but originally published in 1990. I guess I can always do an Ode to Richard Scarry post another day—when I don’t have three other sets of holiday art to show you, as I do this morning—but suffice it to say that I’m happy that folks like Marcus have shone the spotlight on Scarry in the recent past. When I was a grad student, studying children’s lit, and then later a working librarian, I detected from more than one person a sort of Richard Scarry snobbery, if you will — that, since his books were so very<\/em> mass-market during the height of his career, he was considered a sell-out, not “cool enough.” That’s codswallop and flapdoodle is what I say. <\/p>\n

Here are two more images from the book:<\/p>\n


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Lowly Worm<\/strong><\/a> always makes me laugh. Why don’t we pretend we have a 7-Imp Christmas tree and put him at the top of that one, too. Whaddya say? Deal? Deal. <\/p>\n

Next up is Kristin Kladstrup’s The Gingerbread Pirates<\/strong><\/em><\/a> (Candlewick, September 2009), illustrated by Matt Tavares<\/strong><\/a>. I’m thinking that the best word for this new Christmas tale is magical<\/em>. Magical and funny — without ever being hokey about it. Oh, and swashbucklin’, too. This is the story of a boy named Jim, who makes a gingerbread pirate crew on Christmas Eve, deciding before bed-time to take the captain upstairs to his room and leave him there as he sleeps. As the drifts off, the pirate captain, complete with a gingerbread cutlass and a toothpick peg leg, manages to make his way downstairs (poor Captain Cookie: The stairs are as treacherous as cliffs) and embark on his own adventure: “{The boy} lay awake, listening for reindeer hooves on the roof. Captain Cookie seemed to be listening, too”:<\/p>\n


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“Where’s my crew?…And who’s this Santa Claus who wants to eat them?”<\/em> This had me and my wee girls laughing outloud. Captain Cookie finally meets up with some crew members and is then astonished when he sees the Christmas tree (“a huge tree with stars in its branches”), and he’s also astonished to meet Santa.<\/p>\n

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“Back beside the starlit tree, the pirates watched as Santa Claus reached into an enormous bag. ‘What have you got there?’ the captain began. ‘It’s a ship!’ Wavy shouted, and the next thing Captain Cookie knew, his men were swarming its decks and rigging. ‘There’s cannons! And cutlasses!’ cried Dots.”<\/em>
(Click to enlarge.)<\/center><\/p>\n

I can’t give away the ending, OF COURSE. I love to see Tavares’ work, these dramatic watercolor and gouache spreads. As Kirkus<\/em> points out, he handles the magical transformation at the book’s close with subtlety. Tavares brought us Lady Liberty last year in this<\/strong><\/a> gorgeous book. He doesn’t disappoint and, it seems, gets better with each book. <\/p>\n

Petr Hor\u00e1\u010dek’s<\/strong><\/a> Suzy Goose made an appearance at 7-Imp back in ’06<\/strong><\/a>. There’s been at least one other Suzy book since then — maybe more. And she’s also starring in her own Christmas title this year, Suzy Goose and the Christmas Star<\/strong><\/em><\/a> (also from Candlewick, September 2009). Hor\u00e1\u010dek’s art work is always bold and brightly-colored; one wonders, at seeing his textured multi-media spreads, if he doesn’t cite Eric Carle as an inspiration. <\/p>\n

In this story, the child reader gets to be one-up on Suzy (which child readers always<\/em> enjoy), as she goes looking for a star to put atop the animals’ Christmas tree — yet na\u00efvely ends up trying to catch one from the sky: <\/p>\n

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“It was Christmas Eve. Suzy Goose and her friends were gathered around the tree.
It was beautiful. But it was missing one thing.”<\/em>
(Click to enlarge.)<\/center><\/p>\n


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This is a quiet holiday tale, good for a one-on-one, lap-time read. <\/p>\n

And what holiday round-up would be complete without another picture book adaptation of E.T.A. Hoffman’s Nutcracker tale? This lavishly-illustrated version, The Nutcracker and the Mouse King<\/strong><\/em><\/a>, illustrated by Gail De Marcken (Orchard Books, September 2009) and story adaptation by Wren Maysen, features lush, richly-hued watercolor spreads. Publishers Weekly<\/em> calls it a “glowing interpretation…This is a loyal and energetic version, best for read-aloud in multiple sittings, given the length of the text.” (Oh yes, it is lengthy.) <\/p>\n

I’ll let the art do the talking here: You can see the level of detail De Marcken put into the illustrations. Click on each below to enlarge and see the full spread from which each illustration comes:<\/p>\n

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Of course, this<\/strong><\/a> adaptation will always be my very favorite, but De Marcken does a beautiful job with this. Here’s to another Nutcracker picture book in the world, this one well-worth your time. <\/p>\n

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

Boring But Very Necessary Copyright Info:<\/p>\n

Scarry artwork reprinted with permission from <\/em>Richard Scarry’s Favorite Christmas Carols, \u00a9 1990 Richard Scarry II, published 2009 by Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.<\/p>\n

THE GINGERBREAD PIRATES. Text copyright \u00a9 2009 by Kristin Kladstrup. Illustrations copyright \u00a9 2009 by Matt Tavares. Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Candlewick Press, Somerville, MA. <\/p>\n

SUZY GOOSE AND THE CHRISTMAS STAR. Copyright \u00a9 2009 by Petr Hor\u00e1cek. Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Candlewick Press on behalf of Walker Books, London.<\/p>\n

THE NUTRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING. Text copyright (adaptation) \u00a9 2009 by Wren Maysen. Illustrations copyright \u00a9 2009 by Gail De Marcken. Published by Orchard Books, an imprint of Scholastic. All rights reserved.<\/em><\/p>\n

* * * Jules’ kicks * * *<\/strong><\/font><\/center><\/p>\n

1). I’m feeling kicky about the very kind responses to the announcement of our book deal<\/strong><\/a>. Several folks did their own posts about it, and I thank them. I have to say, though, I love any that lead off with Ralphie<\/strong><\/a>. <\/p>\n

2). Many of you, I’m sure, already know the Kirkus<\/em> news<\/strong><\/a>. I loved Roger Sutton’s post<\/strong><\/a> about it last week:<\/p>\n

Kirkus<\/em> had a reputation…for being mean. …Speaking only of the juvenile reviews, I think what people had trouble with was the fact that Kirkus<\/em> was no coddler. Children’s books generally occupy a protected status because of their intended audience, and if you shouldn’t be mean to children, then you shouldn’t be mean to their books. “But kids like it” is a defense mounted in our field all the time, an argument that would be laughed right out of any critical conversation about books for adults. As well, preachiness is tolerated in children’s books (because preaching to children comes second nature to adults) even while grownups won’t stand for it in their own recreational reading. What Kirkus<\/em> did was to treat books for children and adults the same in the same publication. Good for them…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I know, I know. I’ve never written a book that was reviewed by Kirkus<\/em>, so who am I to talk? But I like what Roger fundamentally has to say about children’s books there. <\/p>\n

3). In this recent post<\/strong><\/a>, I mentioned this<\/strong><\/a> new adaptation of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland<\/em> and how I tried (but failed) to secure the mad tea party illustration for one of 7-Imp’s headers. Well, never mind. I got it after all, with thanks to Sterling. Here’s the spread below (a rarely-spotted brown-haired Alice), and it’s been placed in the header of this page<\/strong><\/a>. Isn’t it beautiful? It’s by Australian illustrator Robert Ingpen<\/strong><\/a>. <\/p>\n

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(That’s a very Michael-Caine<\/strong><\/a>-esque Mad Hatter, huh? Click to enlarge.)<\/em><\/center><\/p>\n

4). Susan’s “blackout poetry”<\/a><\/strong> at Chicken Spaghetti<\/em>.<\/p>\n

5). Now, this<\/strong><\/a> is just funny.<\/p>\n

6). I’m not a big shopper. The world is full of thneeds<\/a><\/strong>, don’t you think? But we’ve gotten most of our shopping done. This is good. <\/p>\n

7). It’s almost Christmas! Merry-merry to those of you who celebrate it, and happy holidays to all. I know a lot of folks may not be around this week, but to those who are: Happy & merry to you!<\/p>\n

What are YOUR<\/font> kicks this week?<\/p>\n

{The tea-party image is reprinted with permission from<\/em> Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, illustrations \u00a9 2009 by Robert Ingpen, Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Welcome to 7-Imp’s 7 Kicks, a 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. This week, as a gift to you, I’ve got a little round-up of some holiday art. […]<\/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-1859","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\/1859","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=1859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1859\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}