{"id":2118,"date":"2011-04-17T00:01:31","date_gmt":"2011-04-17T06:01:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=2118"},"modified":"2011-04-23T15:22:34","modified_gmt":"2011-04-23T21:22:34","slug":"7-imps-7-kicks-215-featuring-janice-nadeau","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=2118","title":{"rendered":"7-Imp’s 7 Kicks #215: Featuring Janice Nadeau"},"content":{"rendered":"

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“One cool autumn morning a man called Sebastian was passing Miriam’s bakeshop when her sweet-smelling voice came floating through the window. He went inside the shop and bought some cinnamon bread. After that he bought a loaf of bread every day for a year. Then he asked Miriam if she would marry him, and she said yes.”<\/em>
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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

I responded on a personal level to today’s featured picture book, Cinnamon Baby<\/a><\/strong><\/em> (Kids Can Press, February 2011) by Nicola Winstanley and illustrated by Janice Nadeau<\/a><\/strong>. (Wow. Check out that website for lots more art.) From a professional standpoint—as a children’s librarian, who studied children’s lit in grad school and who is always trying to separate the good children’s books from the not-so-good ones—I love it, too. It resonated with me on both<\/em> of those levels, that is. <\/p>\n

It’s the story of a baker named Miriam, who owns her own little bakery. She makes bread and makes it well: “She made a spicy bread, studded with little peppercorns and basil, and a sweet bread with ginger. She made a light, white loaf with dill, and a crusty brown one with sunflower seeds and honey.”<\/em> (Mmm. See? The story had me right at the beginning.) The cinnamon bread, her favorite, she always saves for last. While baking, Miriam sings the songs her mother taught her as a child. It’s her beautiful voice and the aromas from her delicious bread that attract Sebastian one day, riding around on his bike, who asks Miriam to marry him. <\/p>\n

Time passes. A baby is born to Miriam and Sebastian. “The child had big brown eyes and dusky skin and smelled like sweet milk.”<\/em> All is well. For a while. On the fourth day, the baby starts crying and simply won’t stop. No matter what Miriam does, the baby is a scream machine, though breaks for sleeping are occasionally taken. “The baby is not sick,” the doctor tells Miriam. “I think it is simply unhappy.” But everyone is confused as to why. <\/p>\n

One day, her sleeping baby reminds Miriam of a “little, wrinkled raisin,” and she’s struck with a good idea: Heading to the bakery in the “still-dark morning,” Miriam gets right to work, stirring, pouring, measuring, baking. The baby’s cries subside. Miriam makes just about every kind of bread she knows to make, yet it’s when the baby smells the cinnamon bread that it stops crying altogether. Everyone lives happily ever after. The end. <\/p>\n

Now. My oldest is named Miriam, though she decided to go by her middle name when she was three, and it’s a name I don’t hear often in the South. So, that right there was my first personal connection to the book. But also: She was the world’s. screamiest. baby. I could go on (and on) about this and its great challenges, and I won’t. This isn’t a parenting blog. It’s enough to say that she wasn’t ill, and she wasn’t even colicky. This kind of constant unhappiness (whose only remedy was for mama to hold her, which meant I constantly<\/em> had a baby in my arms and slept with said baby, though I hadn’t planned to) is a level of confusion and mystery way beyond simple colick (which is itself not simple to begin with). It’s very difficult to describe this kind of almost-incessant screaming (though Dr. William Sears has a name for it<\/a><\/strong> and a whole book about it, and just him NAMING IT was so helpful that I decided years ago that if I ever meet that man I’m gonna hug his neck). So, boy howdy and howdy boy, did this tale resonate with me on those personal levels. <\/p>\n

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“But when the baby woke up, it started to cry once more. So Miriam dressed the baby, put it in the baby carriage and went for a walk.”<\/em>
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“Sebastian got home later that day, and the baby was still crying. He wrapped it up in a soft blanket and walked through the chilly streets with the baby crying in his arms. The baby cried at the moon and the stars and the streetlights and the darkness. Finally the baby feel asleep, and Sebastian went home and
they both tucked in to bed beside Miriam.”<\/em>
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See the showers<\/em> of tears and actual flooding? Yup, the illustrator nailed it. (And in a very funny way.)<\/p>\n

Also—and I suppose it could be argued I’m reading too much into it—I feel like Miriam’s story (the picture-book Miriam, that is) is more than just about the smell of bread making a baby’s cries subside. Having a baby is a huge—though happy—shock. The boot camp that is early parenthood is a ginormous life-changer, no matter how prepared you convince yourself you are. The mother, in particular, has to give herself up on multiple levels to this new human. It’s an adjustment. In my experience, going from full-time library’ing (and doing half a billion other things) to full-time parenthood was challenging (and was actually one reason I started blogging — that is, to engage in conversations again about children’s lit, while at home with a human being incapable of abstract thought). To me, what I found moving about this picture book was the notion that Miriam returned to the pre-baby love of her life: Her work. Her baking. Something at which she excelled. Something for which she felt passion. Maybe that<\/em> joy is what made screamy baby unscreamy. Publishers Weekly<\/em> wrote, “Debut author Winstanley’s simply-told fable offers a gentle message about the importance of nurturing the soul.” Yeah. True. But I’m talking about mama’s<\/em> soul here, too — not just baby’s. I dunno. Food-for-thought anyway. <\/p>\n

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“Once the dough had started to rise, Miriam took it out of the mixing bowl and began to knead it. Thumping and pushing the dough to the rhythmless sound of the baby’s crying, Miriam made every kind of bread she could think of, with every herb and spice on the bakery shelf: basil, coriander, ginger and allspice, parsley, oregano, rosemary and sea salt, chili, paprika, sage and nutmeg. Finally, because she always saved it for last, Miriam made the cinnamon bread. And what do you think happened?”<\/em>
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Anywhoozles. Lovely book. I like it. Winstanley’s writing is a feast for your senses. Janice Nadeau, a Canadian illustrator and three-time recipient of the Governor General’s Award for Illustration, rendered the tale in watercolor, graphite pencil, and paper collage — all assembled digitally. Her palette is primarily composed of warm earth tones, and there are endearing, funny details for observant readers. (For one, Miriam’s hair looks a bit like a cinnamon bun.) Her textured, fine-lined illustrations on cream-colored paper have a real delicacy and charm. And bonus: I just found this March New York Times<\/em> feature<\/a><\/strong> on the book. <\/p>\n

CINNAMON BABY. Text copyright \u00a9 2011 by Nicola Winstanley. Illustrations copyright \u00a9 2011 by Janice Nadeau. Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Kids Can Press, Tonawanda, NY.<\/em><\/p>\n

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* * * Jules’ Kicks * * *<\/strong><\/font>
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1).<\/strong><\/font> I’m reading an ARC of this fabulous book, to be released in May from Feiwel & Friends. It’s so flippin’ good that it makes my day to read it. I hope it doesn’t go bad. So far, so good. The other day, reading it with my seven-year-old, I read “the sun hitched up her trousers and soldiered on up into the sky”<\/em> and had to put the book down a moment and exclaim loudly and marvel, while my daughter waited patiently. Also, check out this excerpt below. By way of explanation, the protagonist, a girl named September, is trying to get to a land called Pandemonium but must first pass through the House Without Warning with a woman made of soap, Lye. Lye tells September she cannot get to Pandemonium “without having the road washed from you and your feet made soft and your spirit thoroughly scrubbed.”<\/em> September takes three baths. Her courage, wishes, and luck are all washed. Here’s courage:<\/p>\n

“When you are born,” the golem said softly, “your courage is new and clean. You are brave enough for anything: crawling off staircases, saying your first words without fearing that someone will think you are foolish, putting strange things in your mouth. But as you get older, your courage attracts gunk and crusty things and dirt and fear and knowing how bad things can get and what pain feels like. By the time you’re half-grown, your courage barely moves at all, it’s so grunged up with living. So every once in a while, you have to scrub it up and get the works going or else you’ll never be brave again. Unfortunately, there are not so many facilities in your world that provide the kind of services we do. So most people go around with grimy machinery, when all it would take is a bit of spit and polish to make them paladins once more, bold knights and true.”<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ah. Grunged up with living. So true. <\/p>\n

(Here<\/a><\/strong> you can read 90% of the book, since it began its life as online serial installments. Thanks to John<\/a><\/strong> for that link.)<\/p>\n

2).<\/strong><\/font> You know when you’re having a bad day or sad day or, whatever, just a murky, not-sunny day? I was reminded this week, by hitting “shuffle” on my iPod, that songs with hand claps can help those moods. I need to make a Songs With Hand Claps mix. I really do. This song below, “Heart to Tell” by The Love Language<\/a><\/strong>, is one. No, really. Consider listening to it, pretty please. It’s short, and it’s a perfect little pop song. That percussion’y-hand-clappy part there that you hear about thirty seconds in and then you hear one more time later? THAT JUST MAKES MY BRAIN HAPPY. <\/p>\n

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Also in this hand-clappy category is Delta Spirit’s<\/a><\/strong> “People C’mon,”<\/a><\/strong> which I can lip sync perfectly, thank you very much (except for one tiny part with mangled lyrics during which I just resort to the ‘ol “banana banana” trick). Also, it’s good for air-drummin’. (This lip-syncing of “People C’Mon” is something I’ve practiced a lot. Maybe even very subtly while walking in the park with my iPod, which maybe even made me look like a crazy person. But there’s not much that will stop me from looking like a crazy person.)<\/p>\n

P.S. Should I email my suggestions to Paste Magazine<\/em><\/a><\/strong>? <\/p>\n

P.S. Again: The Love Language’s CD is totally named “Libraries.” Score. <\/p>\n

3).<\/strong><\/font> Okay. I want to word this carefully. I don’t want to sound boastful, and well…one can sound A Bit Much, I’m afraid, when going on and on about her blog<\/em>. Know what I mean? At least I try not to take it all too seriously, as I’m just a tiny speck of dust in cyberspace. Anyway. More than one person told me this week that they appreciate how 7-Imp connects<\/em> them with others. Illustrators with other illustrators. Authors with illustrators. Authors with authors. And, best of all, readers with books (or authors or illustrators). And, you see, this makes me so happy. I hope I don’t sound braggy? That is the highest compliment you can give 7-Imp, though, in my book. The very highest. I like connecting people. Why else blog? <\/p>\n

4).<\/strong><\/font> All I can say about this Tiny Desk Concert<\/a><\/strong> with Otis Taylor is YES. Just YES. And also: Why can’t these musicians with banjos have concerts at my<\/em> tiny desk? <\/p>\n

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5).<\/strong><\/font> When people stop by 7-Imp to visit and share so generously of their time and work and talents. I’ve done enough interviews and features to be able to tell those people who think that stopping by merely means they might sell one more book and and that’s THAT<\/em> (meaning they answer questions rather perfunctorily and hurriedly) from those people who really and truly love<\/em> to talk about the art of creating picture books and have a real reverence for the whole process and want to communicate and share their wonder with readers. Guess which I prefer, and not just ’cause blogging is a labor of love? (This post<\/a><\/strong> was one of the latter, no doubt, which is one of many reasons I like it so.)<\/p>\n

6).<\/strong><\/font> Are you tired of me talking about Elbow<\/a><\/strong>? BUT THEY’RE BRILLIANT, I TELL YOU. <\/p>\n