{"id":4605,"date":"2018-04-12T09:51:44","date_gmt":"2018-04-12T15:51:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=4605"},"modified":"2018-04-12T09:51:44","modified_gmt":"2018-04-12T15:51:44","slug":"my-kirkus-qa-with-matt-james","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=4605","title":{"rendered":"My <em>Kirkus<\/em> Q&#038;A with Matt James"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/blaine.org\/7pics\/2018\/04\/Matt-James-photofor post.jpg\"><strong><font size=6>&#8220;<\/strong><\/font><em><strong><font color=\"#777777\">I want Norma to show that these moments can hit us all differently and that there is a <\/em>serious<em> complexity to the way we all process something like death \u2014 in this case, the death of a distant relative. <\/p>\n<p>The truth is, though, that this book came into being because I had a chance to observe my kids in situations that were more or less the same as the ones that Norma and Ray find themselves in. Mix in a fair amount of recollection \u2014 I remember my first funeral vividly, especially the fact that I felt really guilty for not being sad enough \u2014 and a little bit of invention, and you get <\/em>The Funeral.\u201d<\/font><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><center>* * *<\/center><\/p>\n<p>Over at <em>Kirkus<\/em> today, I talk with Canadian illustrator <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.mattjamesillustration.ca\/\">Matt James<\/a><\/strong>, pictured here. His newest picture book, <em>The Funeral <\/em>(Groundwood, April 2018), is the first one he&#8217;s both illustrated <em>and<\/em> written.  <\/p>\n<p>The Q&#038;A is <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kirkusreviews.com\/features\/finding-life-loss-matt-james\/\">here<\/a><\/strong>. Next week, I&#8217;ll follow up here at 7-Imp with more art from the book. <\/p>\n<p>Until tomorrow &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;I want Norma to show that these moments can hit us all differently and that there is a serious complexity to the way we all process something like death \u2014 in this case, the death of a distant relative. The truth is, though, that this book came into being because I had a chance to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogger-interviews","category-picture-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4605","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=4605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4605\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}