{"id":3547,"date":"2014-10-12T00:01:08","date_gmt":"2014-10-12T06:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=3547"},"modified":"2014-10-11T19:30:48","modified_gmt":"2014-10-12T01:30:48","slug":"7-imps-7-kicks-401-featuring-richard-byrne","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=3547","title":{"rendered":"7-Imp\u2019s 7 Kicks #401: Featuring Richard Byrne"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Today’s post will be brief, because it’s the weekend of the Southern Festival of Books<\/a><\/strong> here in middle Tennessee. My co-author was in town from New York City to present with me about our book<\/a><\/strong> (which was yesterday and went well). But it’s been an unusually busy work week, and this weekend itself is hoppin’. I’m, quite simply, worn out<\/em>, so I’m going to tell you briefly about this entertaining book by Richard Byrne<\/a><\/strong>. And then I’m going to relax with a cup of hot cocoa. <\/p>\n

Know your picture book terminology? Know what a gutter is? The gutter is the place between two pages where the binding meets. Awards committees (think: Caldecott) care an awful lot about gutters and whether or not an illustrator can effectively work around them. You don’t want, for instance, to let the gutter swallow an illustration whole. <\/p>\n

Well, cue Byrne’s book. This UK illustrator’s newest picture book, This Book Just Ate My Dog!<\/a><\/strong><\/em> (Henry Holt, September 2014), embraces the gutter, to put it mildly. In this story, a young girl named Bella takes her dog for a walk “across the page,” only to discover that he is suddenly gone. He’s walked straight into the gutter, you see; the dog’s leash just disappears into the center of the book, leaving Bella with a look of shock on her face. When Bella sees her friend Ben, she declares, “THIS BOOK JUST ATE MY DOG!” When Ben investigates … you guessed it: He disappears into the gutter too. So do the fire truck, police car, and more: “Things were getting ridiculous,” Byrne writes. <\/p>\n

My, what a vicious book! <\/p>\n

So, our protagonist turns to readers to ask for help. She herself has disappeared after all. She tosses out a note, asking the reader to kindly turn the book and shake it. <\/p>\n

If you’ve read Wild Things<\/a><\/strong><\/em>, by chance, you know that there’s a section about picture books in which the protagonists get eaten. Well, now we have a new one to add to the list, and in this case, it’s the very book itself causing all kinds of mischief. Chomp, chomp. <\/p>\n

Here’s a bit more art. Big fun, this book … <\/p>\n

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THIS BOOK JUST ATE MY DOG! Copyright \u00a9 2014 by Richard Byrne. Spreads used by permission of the publisher, Henry Holt, New York.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Note for any new readers: 7-Imp\u2019s 7 Kicks is 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. New kickers are always welcome. <\/p>\n

* * * Jules’ Kicks * * *<\/strong><\/font>
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My kicks one to seven are this weekend’s festival. Betsy and I presented about Wild Things<\/a><\/strong><\/em> yesterday, as I said, which went very well. It was good to see Betsy here in Nashville, and my family and I saw some great authors and illustrators speak. The highlight was probably hearing John Rocco<\/a><\/strong> read Blackout<\/a><\/strong><\/em> and Blizzard<\/a><\/strong><\/em> to us all.<\/p>\n

Tomorrow we head back for the likes of Jacqueline Woodson<\/a><\/strong>, Deborah Wiles<\/a><\/strong>, and Lev Grossman<\/a><\/strong>. <\/p>\n

Best thing about Nashville in the Fall!<\/p>\n

What are YOUR<\/font><\/strong> kicks this week? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Click to enlarge) Today’s post will be brief, because it’s the weekend of the Southern Festival of Books here in middle Tennessee. My co-author was in town from New York City to present with me about our book (which was yesterday and went well). But it’s been an unusually busy work week, and this weekend […]<\/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-3547","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\/3547","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=3547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3547\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}