{"id":3457,"date":"2014-07-11T08:41:37","date_gmt":"2014-07-11T14:41:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=3457"},"modified":"2015-10-17T19:18:43","modified_gmt":"2015-10-18T01:18:43","slug":"what-im-doing-at-kirkus-this-weekplus-what-i-did-last-week-featuring-amrita-das","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=3457","title":{"rendered":"What I\u2019m Doing at <em>Kirkus<\/em> This Week,<br \/>Plus What I Did Last Week, Featuring Amrita Das"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/jules\/Hopespread1HR.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/jules\/Hopespread1HRsmall.jpg\" border=1><\/a><br \/>\n<center><em>&#8220;A child&#8217;s life is hard, especially if you&#8217;re cursed to be poor. It&#8217;s gone even before you start on it. &#8230; If you dream for a moment,<br \/>you&#8217;re asked why you&#8217;re twiddling your thumbs.&#8221;<\/em><br \/>(Click to enlarge and read full text)<\/center><br \/>\n<BR>&nbsp;<BR><br \/>\nThis morning over at <em>Kirkus<\/em>, because I&#8217;m preparing for a presentation about the best picture books of the year thus far, I thought I&#8217;d weigh in my with tippy-top favorites. <\/p>\n<p>Thank link is <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kirkusreviews.com\/features\/favorite-2014-picture-booksso-far\/\">here<\/a><\/strong>. <\/p>\n<p><center>* * *<\/center><\/p>\n<p>Last week, since I wrote (<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kirkusreviews.com\/features\/you-never-know-what-awaits-you\/\">here<\/a><\/strong>) about Amrita Das&#8217; <em><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.indiebound.org\/book\/9789383145027\">Hope is a Girl Selling Fruit<\/a><\/strong><\/em>, an April release from India&#8217;s Tara Books, I&#8217;m following up with some art today. <\/p>\n<p>Enjoy.<br \/>\n<BR>&nbsp;<BR><br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/jules\/Hope is a Girl_ImageHRlarge.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/jules\/Hope is a Girl_ImageHRsmall.jpg\" border=1><\/a><br \/>\n<center><em>&#8220;At the workshop, I was asked to think of a story to draw. I didn&#8217;t know where to start. I wanted to draw women, but what story would these women be part of?<br \/>I thought of my own childhood. &#8230; and started to paint two girls under a tree.<br \/>Here they are: they&#8217;re dancing, happy to be jumping on the leaves. Everything&#8217;s green, the leaves rustle pleasantly, the birds chirp. It&#8217;s an idyllic scene.<br \/>But was my childhood really like that? Was this the truth?&#8221;<\/em><br \/>(Click to enlarge)<\/center><br \/>\n<BR>&nbsp;<BR><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/jules\/Hopespread3HR.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/jules\/Hopespread3HRsmall.jpg\" border=1><\/a><br \/>\n<center><em>&#8220;It all started when I met that girl&#8217;s eyes: poor, inncocent eyes that said so much, even while she was so silent. &#8230;&#8221;<\/em><br \/>(Click to enlarge and read full text)<\/center><br \/>\n<BR>&nbsp;<BR><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/jules\/Hopespread2HR.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/jules\/Hopespread2HRsmall.jpg\" border=1><\/a><br \/>\n<center><em>&#8220;The first night on the train, well past midnight, I woke up and looked for her.<br \/>She was not there! I panicked. &#8230;&#8221;<\/em><br \/>(Click to enlarge and read full text)<\/center><br \/>\n<BR>&nbsp;<BR><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/jules\/hopespread4HR.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/jules\/hopespread4HRsmall.jpg\" border=1><\/a><br \/>\n<center><em>&#8220;This other girl was poor too, and her clothes were torn. She had lost a leg, but she managed to push her cart around confidently. &#8230; She&#8217;s her own creature, I thought, she&#8217;s walking around, she&#8217;s earning and supporting her family.&#8221;<\/em><br \/>(Click to enlarge and read full text)<\/center><br \/>\n<BR>&nbsp;<BR><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/jules\/Hope_Lotus_spreadzlarge.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/jules\/Hope_Lotus_spreadsmall.jpg\" border=1><\/a><br \/>\n<center><em>&#8220;&#8230; We&#8217;re all in this together, I remember thinking, lost, but not quite. We have to take what we have, go our own ways, and try to make the most of it. &#8230;&#8221;<\/em><br \/>(Click to enlarge and read full text)<\/center><br \/>\n<BR>&nbsp;<BR><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/jules\/hopeisagirlcover.JPG\" border=1><br \/>\n<BR>&nbsp;<BR><br \/>\n<center>* * * * * * *<\/center><br \/>\n<BR>&nbsp;<BR><br \/>\n<em>HOPE IS A GIRL SELLING FRUIT. Copyright \u00a9 2013 by Tara Books. Illustrations reproduced by permission of the publisher.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;A child&#8217;s life is hard, especially if you&#8217;re cursed to be poor. It&#8217;s gone even before you start on it. &#8230; If you dream for a moment,you&#8217;re asked why you&#8217;re twiddling your thumbs.&#8221;(Click to enlarge and read full text) &nbsp; This morning over at Kirkus, because I&#8217;m preparing for a presentation about the best picture [&hellip;]<\/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-3457","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\/3457","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=3457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3457\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}