{"id":4238,"date":"2017-01-08T00:01:27","date_gmt":"2017-01-08T06:01:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=4238"},"modified":"2017-01-08T09:45:22","modified_gmt":"2017-01-08T15:45:22","slug":"7-imps-7-kicks-517-featuring-anne-hunter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=4238","title":{"rendered":"7-Imp\u2019s 7 Kicks #517: Featuring Anne Hunter"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\nDear Imps, I know it’s 2017 and all that, but let’s look back one more time to 2016 and the publication (in March) of author-illustrator Anne Hunter’s<\/a><\/strong> Cricket Song<\/a><\/strong><\/em> (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). It’s a lovely book, and it need not go by unblogged about. <\/p>\n

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Via warm and textured watercolors and ink, Hunter brings us the story of the cricket-song through the grass and other sounds you hear in the evening as you fall asleep. (Her use of second-person is quite effective here, pulling in the reader with a sense of immediacy.) The breeze may carry the cricket-song and the songs of frogs into your room, but it also carries it to fox and its footfalls, the rabbit in her hole, the owl watching over the bay, and the sea otters on the tide. It is carried far — to another continent, where another child sleeps. <\/p>\n

The story is book-ended by two sleeping children, who live across the world from another, and on each spread, as you can see immediately below, Hunter shows readers a panoramic landscape so wide-reaching that we see the boy’s house on the left and the girl’s on the right. We watch with each page turn, as the sun moves through the sky and people live their lives.
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“… who dozes, like you, to the song of crickets.”<\/em>
(Click to enlarge)<\/center>
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\nBelow, Anne shares some more paintings from the book, as well as peek at Possum and the Summer Storm<\/em>, coming in Spring 2018 from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. “It’s the third Possum<\/em> book,” Anne says, “the first being 20 years old!” (You can read about both previous books here<\/a><\/strong> and here<\/a><\/strong> at her site.) She also shares a couple of images from an as-yet-unpublished manuscript. <\/p>\n

I thank her for sharing. <\/p>\n


 

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Picture in-progress (ballpoint pen), followed by a portion of a final spread:
“The breeze carries the song of crickets into your room.”<\/em>
(Click each to enlarge)<\/center>
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Portion of a final spread:
“Out in the yard, cricket-song mingles with the <\/em>kreck kreck kreck
of frogs in the stream.”<\/em>
(Click to enlarge)<\/center>
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Picture in-progress (ballpoint pen)<\/em>
(Click each to enlarge)<\/center>
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Portion of a final spread:
“… that grows in the yard of a child.”<\/em>
(Click to enlarge)<\/center>
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From Possum and the Summer Storm<\/em>:<\/font><\/strong><\/center>
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An early ballpoint spread, followed by final art<\/em>
(Click each to enlarge)<\/center>
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From an Unpublished Dummy:<\/font><\/strong><\/center>
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(Click each to enlarge)<\/em><\/center>
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CRICKET SONG. Copyright \u00a9 2016 by Anne Hunter. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston. All images here reproduced by permission of Anne Hunter.<\/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>
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1)<\/strong><\/font> When my 11-year-old told me she thinks the word “ya’ll” is lime-green. <\/p>\n

2)<\/strong><\/font> New music coming from Elbow<\/a><\/strong>. Thanks for the video, Little Willow:
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