The girl greeting us here comes from British illustrator Krina Patel<\/a><\/strong>, a graphic design graduate of the London College of Communication<\/a><\/strong>. It’s the first Sunday of the month, when I feature students or those new to children’s books, and Krina has recently completed her first children’s book (yet to be published) and is here to tell us a bit about it. <\/p>\n But, first. Look up there at that number, dear readers. Two hundred weeks of kickin’. Two hundred weeks of taking some time here at 7-Imp to reflect on Seven(ish) Exceptionally Fabulous, Beautiful, Interesting, Hilarious, or Otherwise Positive Noteworthy Things, whether book-related or not, that happened to you. I love the timing, that it’s this milestone of sorts on the first Sunday of a new year. The first Sunday of a new decade, in fact. Very neat. <\/p>\n On that note, I must present you with this illustration from author\/illustrator Adam Gudeon<\/a><\/strong>, who you may remember visited me in April<\/a><\/strong>. As I said then, he is brand-spankin’-new to children’s literature, his first book<\/a><\/strong> scheduled for release this Fall from HarperCollins. I like this illustration a whole heapin’ lot, because I hope that 2011 greets you with music, as it is greeting squirrel here, thanks to his guitar-strumming crooner of a friend, fox. (Or, okay, I’m assuming<\/em> he’s a crooner, but his mouth’s not moving, so maybe it’s a lovely instrumental piece.)<\/p>\n Big thanks to Adam, and now back to Krina . . . <\/p>\n As Krina’s web site<\/a><\/strong> states, she likes “creating texture in her images by painting on tissue paper with towels, old jeans, combs, rulers, and whatever else she can find around the house, and assembling it into collages.” <\/p>\n Here she is to tell us a bit more about the book she created . . .<\/p>\n Krina:<\/strong><\/font> My Fabulous Book of Food is an alphabetical, rhyming picture book about food. A lot of the items are quite unconventional, so not the usual “A is for apple.” Every two spreads rhyme with each other, i.e “T is for tomato, from vine or can. U is for unagi, sushi from Japan.”<\/em><\/p>\n After finishing the book I wrote <\/em>Alphabetimals, a similar concept but, instead of food, the subject was animals and the rhyming element was on each page. The text for this project is complete; I just need to finish the illustrations. <\/p>\n I have also written a manuscript for a children’s picture book about empathy. The concept involves the main protagonist, Connie <\/em>{pictured at the top of this post}, imagining herself in lots of different people’s shoes, literally and metaphorically. This book also has a fun rhyming element: “Grandpa George wears leather loafers, soft and light and comfy to the tread. It feels like he\u2019s wearing two loaves of bread.”<\/em><\/p>\n Thanks to Krina for visiting. Best of luck in her career. I think ringing in the new year with food is good, too, and why yes, I’ll have some of that “irresistible ice cream,” thanks very much. <\/p>\n New Year illustration is copyright \u00a9 2010 Adam Gudeon. Reproduced by permission of the illustrator.<\/em><\/p>\n All other illustrations copyright \u00a9 2010 Krina Patel. Reproduced by permission of the illustrator.<\/em><\/p>\n 1).<\/strong><\/font> My new year really did greet me with music, as it does for the wood critters in Adam’s sparkly-good illustration above. That’s to say I’ve been listening to some great new music, and this makes me happy. I am particularly wow’ed by Laura Marling’s<\/a><\/strong> CD, I Speak Because I Can<\/a><\/em><\/strong>, since every track is stellar and I can hardly believe she’s only something like twenty years old. <\/p>\n See what I mean? This is a perfect little folk song. And I mean to tell you the entire CD is impressive stuff. <\/p>\n![](\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/jules\/happynewyear.jpg\")
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