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Who has read James<\/a><\/strong> & Joseph Bruchac’s<\/a><\/strong> Rabbit’s Snow Dance<\/a><\/em><\/strong>, illustrated by Jeff Newman<\/a><\/strong> and released early this month by Dial? Raise your hands, please. If not, may I boldly recommend tonight that you find a copy and experience it? There. I just did. <\/p>\n The artwork here is by Jeff Newman, who visited for breakfast in 2010<\/a><\/strong>. I always like to see what Newman is up to. There are some final spreads at the bottom of this post, as well as some sketches, storyboards, and dummy images, so you can get a good sense of Newman’s style with this one. Check this out, too, something I wish so super bad I’d written: The Publishers Weekly<\/em> review of Rabbit’s Snow Dance<\/em> wrote, “Newman\u2019s influences are comparatively modern\u2014think Mary Blair with a touch of Hanna-Barbera.”<\/em> Right? RIGHT. That fits. That works. It totally and entirely does. You can see this below in the images he shares. <\/p>\n [Note: As for the three different storyboard versions below, Jeff writes: “… Storyboards 2 and 3 are evolutions of the same approach, which ended up in the final book. However, the first storyboard shows an entirely different version of the book, which would have essentially been the same scene repeated throughout the book. So, rather than the scene changing, we’d see the animals moving over the landscape, and how the weather changes it.”]<\/em><\/p>\n Enjoy the art, and I thank Jeff for sharing today. <\/p>\n RABBIT’S SNOW DANCE. Text copyright \u00a9 2012 by James & Joseph Bruchac. Illustrations copyright \u00a9 2012 by Jeff Newman. Published by Dial, New York. All images posted with permission of Jeff Newman.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Early sketches from Rabbit’s Snow Dance(Click to enlarge) Who has read James & Joseph Bruchac’s Rabbit’s Snow Dance, illustrated by Jeff Newman and released early this month by Dial? Raise your hands, please. If not, may I boldly recommend tonight that you find a copy and experience it? There. I just did. This picture book, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2464","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\/2464","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=2464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2464\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}This picture book, sub-titled A Traditional Iroquois Story<\/em>, is a read-aloud treat. Telling the story, a traditional Native American fable (ever-so perfect for winter), of why Rabbit’s once long, beautiful tail is now stubby-short, the Bruchacs (father and son, both storytellers) incorporate engaging chants and rhythms into the text (“I will make it snow, AZIKANAPO! I will make it snow, AZIKANAPO!” and “EE-OOO! Thump! Thump! EE-OOO! Thump! Thump! YO, YO, YO! YO, YO, YO!”), daring you not to tap your foot as you read. I don’t want to give away the story here, but there’s a lot of humor here, especially given our protagonist’s excessive pride. <\/p>\n
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below the bushes. It melted down below the grass.”<\/em>
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