{"id":4612,"date":"2018-04-22T00:01:42","date_gmt":"2018-04-22T06:01:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=4612"},"modified":"2018-04-22T09:55:20","modified_gmt":"2018-04-22T15:55:20","slug":"7-imps-7-kicks-583-featuring-g-brian-karas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=4612","title":{"rendered":"7-Imp\u2019s 7 Kicks #583: Featuring G. Brian Karas"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Illustrations from title page spread<\/em>
(Click to enlarge)<\/center>
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\nI’m doing that thing again (forgive me) where I’m writing about a book several months before it arrives on bookshelves, but I’ve had this art for a while and decided to go ahead and share it today. (See how I waited at least a little bit<\/em>?) Karen Hesse’s<\/a><\/strong> Night Job<\/a><\/strong><\/em> (Candlewick), illustrated by G. Brian Karas<\/a><\/strong>, will be on shelves in September — and it is a book to look forward to. <\/p>\n

This is the story of a boy and his father, who leave their apartment complex and take a motorcycle on a Friday night to the school that the father cleans for a living. “He opens the door, and the building sighs,” Hesse writes. “Come<\/em>, it whispers to us.” While sometimes the boy plays (shooting hoops while his father cleans the gym or reading aloud to him while he cleans the library), he also gives him a hand, “sweeping the school from stem to stern.” Hesse captures one night of the father’s custodial work; afterwards, they head home and, just as the sun is rising, drift away together in a recliner.
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Half title page<\/em>
(Click to enlarge)<\/center>
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\nHesse sets a lovely, hushed tone throughout the book and captures precise details that make the story come alive (the lilac smell of the school, the green vinyl sofa in the library). The boy, it seems, looks up his father and particularly enjoys their bike rides to the school (and back), zooming over “the darkening bay, riding the dusky highway.” Karas fills these spreads with dark night-time shadows but with the street lights, motorcycle headlight, and school lights illuminating the pages; in one spread, pictured here, they eat on an outdoor school bench in the dark, while the light from the open door illuminates just the two of them and their momentary break from work.
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“At ten Dad leads the way to the courtyard, where we unwrap our egg salad sandwiches, with their triple dollop of mayo and a heaping teaspoon of chopped pickle.
We take big bites that fill our mouths and chew and chew and chew
until there are only crumbs left. And then we chew those, too.”<\/em>
(Click to enlarge illustration and see text)<\/center>
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\nIt’s the tender story of one boy’s special night, made so merely because he got to spend it with his father. Here’s a bit more art. . . .
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“On Friday nights, when the sun goes down, I snap the clips shut on Dad’s lunch box
and climb onto the back of his bike.”<\/em>
(Click to enlarge and see text)<\/center>
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(Click to enlarge)<\/em><\/center>
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NIGHT JOB. Text copyright \u00a9 2018 by Karen Hesse. Illustrations copyright \u00a9 2018 by G. Brian Karas. Reproduced by permission of G. Brian Karas and the publisher, Candlewick Press, Somerville, MA.<\/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

1)<\/strong><\/font> Basil.<\/p>\n

2)<\/strong><\/font> Tomatoes.<\/p>\n

3)<\/strong><\/font> Squash and zucchini.<\/p>\n

4)<\/strong><\/font> Lavender. <\/p>\n

5)<\/strong><\/font> Strawberries.<\/p>\n

6)<\/strong><\/font> Daisies and dahlias. <\/p>\n

7)<\/strong><\/font> Rosemary.<\/p>\n

Those are some of the things we planted yesterday, and those are my seven kicks. It was good for my bad mood of yesterday to step outside in the sun. Please, stay away, cold snaps. <\/p>\n

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

Illustrations from title page spread(Click to enlarge)   I’m doing that thing again (forgive me) where I’m writing about a book several months before it arrives on bookshelves, but I’ve had this art for a while and decided to go ahead and share it today. (See how I waited at least a little bit?) Karen […]<\/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-4612","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\/4612","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=4612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4612\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}