{"id":3689,"date":"2015-03-08T00:01:31","date_gmt":"2015-03-08T06:01:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=3689"},"modified":"2015-03-05T09:51:35","modified_gmt":"2015-03-05T15:51:35","slug":"7-imps-7-kicks-422-featuring-kristof-devos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=3689","title":{"rendered":"7-Imp’s 7 Kicks #422: Featuring Kristof Devos"},"content":{"rendered":"

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This morning, I’ve got some spreads from Pimm van Hest’s<\/a><\/strong> Weatherboy<\/a><\/strong><\/em>, illustrated by Kristof Devos<\/a><\/strong>. The book was first published last year in Belgium and Holland and has been translated from the Dutch by Clavis Publishing. It is on shelves this month, and pictured above is the cover art. <\/p>\n

It’s the story of a boy whose moods dictate the weather: “When he was happy, the sun shone, and when he was sad, the clouds cried too.” Everyone starts to call him “Weatherboy” and make terrible demands upon him. When folks want warm weather for the beach, they hope for illness to beset him so that he’ll have a fever. If their sunflowers need rain, they ask him to cry. This makes him sad, which casts his village into a dark fog. <\/p>\n

Feeling alone, even among his family, he leaves town. He finds a small house in a tree and lives there, alone. A boy who loves frost and snow heads out onto the ice one day and later meets Weatherboy. His presence makes Weatherboy happy. They have so much fun that “they didn’t even notice that the world was slowly thawing.” Afraid that his friend might leave, Weatherboy opens the refrigerator door to let cold fill their small house again. In the end, Weatherboy comes to the conclusion that he must tell his friend—and, really, all the world—to accept him just as he is. “This is who I am!” he says triumphantly as he floats along “golden rays of sunshine.”<\/p>\n

<\/a>
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“The little boy grew older and changed. And every day, the weather changed along with him. When he was happy, the sun shone, and when he was sad, the clouds cried too.
If he had an outburst of anger there was thunder and lightning, and when he sneezed suddenly the trees bent over and people were blown off their bikes.
Before long, everyone started calling him ‘Weatherboy.'”<\/em>
(Click to enlarge)<\/center><\/p>\n

And that’s the end of the story. It’s abrupt, and it remains to be seen how his friend will respond. But Weatherboy has done what he must do to find his own happiness. It’s a story that works on more than one level, and I’ve been thinking about it all week. <\/p>\n

Below are some more of Kristof Devos’ beguiling spreads from the book (without the text). … <\/p>\n

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“At first, Weatherboy liked being able to influence the weather. But slowly that changed. Because everyone around him wanted something from him. ‘Can you make Weatherboy cry?’ someone would ask. ‘My sunflowers could use some rain.’ Or …
‘Does Weatherboy have a fever? It’ll be a perfect beach day!’ This made Weatherboy very sad and when that happened, the village disappeared into a dark and gloomy fog.”<\/em>
(Click to enlarge)<\/center>
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\n<\/a>
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“One afternoon Weatherboy was having lunch with his mother and father. ‘Darling, you are so quiet,’ his mother said. ‘Is something the matter?’ ‘Well…’ the boy said, and suddenly there were tears in his eyes. ‘Oh, darling! Can’t you hold your tears for just a little bit longer?’ Our clothes are drying outside!’ She left the table and ran into the garden. This made his father laugh out loud. Weatherboy’s tears of sadness became tears of anger. Through the kitchen window his father saw big hailstones falling on his vegetable garden. ‘Look what you did!’ he shouted angrily, and he ran out too. Weatherboy felt sadder and more alone than he ever had before.”<\/em>
(Click to enlarge)<\/center>
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\n<\/a>
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“That night in bed, Weatherboy made a decision. He didn’t want to stay a moment longer. The next morning, before the rooster crowed, he left home. He met a lot of people on his way. And it didn’t take long before they all were asking something of him. ‘I want sun!’ ‘I want cold!’ ‘I want snow!’ I want, I want, I want… Heat waves, rainbows, thunder, lightning, hail, storm, fog…. Everyone wanted something from him and they all wanted something different. After every disappointment he walked farther.
Farther and farther.”<\/em>
(Click to enlarge)<\/center>
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\n<\/a>
\n<\/a>
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“Day by day, Weatherboy became more unhappy and lonely. At first you could only tell by the snowflakes that whirled down around him. But eventually it affected the whole world. The temperature dropped below freezing, and it stayed there. Ditches, canals and rivers turned into ice, and even lakes and seas froze over. Weatherboy saw it happen, but he didn’t know what to do about it. He found a little house and lived there all by himself. At night he dreamed of sun and warmth.”<\/em>
(Click either image to see spread in its entirety)<\/center>
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\n<\/a>
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“Far away there lived a boy who just loved the frost and snow. Every morning when he opened the curtains his face lit up. He could do what he loved doing the most —
ice skating! Every day! He was on the ice from early morning till late at night.
But soon that wasn’t enough. He wanted to skate farther. Farther and farther.”<\/em>
(Click to enlarge)<\/center>
\n
 

\nWEATHERBOY. Text copyright \u00a9 2014 by Pimm van Hest. Illustrations copyright \u00a9 2014 by Kristof Devos. Published by Clavis Publishing, New York. Illustrations reproduced by permission of Krisof Devos.<\/em><\/p>\n

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>
<\/center><\/p>\n

My big kick is that I’m in beautiful Asheville, North Carolina, right now to visit friends and talk about Wild Things<\/a><\/strong><\/em> at Malaprop’s Bookstore\/Cafe. But do tell me … <\/p>\n

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

This morning, I’ve got some spreads from Pimm van Hest’s Weatherboy, illustrated by Kristof Devos. The book was first published last year in Belgium and Holland and has been translated from the Dutch by Clavis Publishing. It is on shelves this month, and pictured above is the cover art. It’s the story of a boy […]<\/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-3689","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\/3689","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=3689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3689\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}