{"id":5263,"date":"2021-01-17T00:01:14","date_gmt":"2021-01-17T06:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=5263"},"modified":"2021-01-16T16:29:24","modified_gmt":"2021-01-16T22:29:24","slug":"7-imps-7-kicks-726-featuring-yael-frankel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=5263","title":{"rendered":"7-Imp\u2019s 7 Kicks #726: Featuring Yael Frankel"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\nWould you like to take a look at an Argentinian import? Today, I’ve got some spreads from Yael Frankel’s<\/a><\/strong> The Elevator<\/a><\/strong><\/em>, originally published in 2019 in Argentina and translated from the Spanish by Kit Maude. It comes from Tapioca Stories<\/a><\/strong>, a New York-based publisher that brings readers Latin American children’s books, originally written in Spanish and Portuguese.<\/p>\n

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The tall, slim, vertically-oriented (naturally) story of The Elevator<\/em> begins with our narrator, a girl with a miniature red hat. She and her dog Roco head out for a walk, aiming for the ground floor in the elevator, but finding themselves going up. There they meet their neighbor Ms. Paula, who is scared of dogs. They keep going up, where they meet Mr. Miguel on Floor 8. As they finally head back down, they meet more neighbors \u2014 Cora and her twins, nestled in their stroller. They hear a strange noise around Floor 5, and suddenly the elevator stops. <\/p>\n

This is just after the dog has peed in the elevator. The twins start to cry. Mr. Miguel complains about the elevator: “Not again! … When are they going to fix it?” Things seem grim until Ms. Paula opens the box she has with her and pulls out a cake. “It was a birthday cake for my friend,” she says, “but who cares?” <\/p>\n

Eventually, Mr. Miguel improvises a story called “Who Cares?” It’s about a bear at his own birthday party. He hears no one is planning to show. “What does it matter,” the bear thinks. “I wasn’t expecting anyone anyway.” On the story goes, as the inside of the elevator morphs into a forest. Mr. Miguel is now the bear. <\/p>\n

This playful, offbeat tale of connection with one’s neighbors, filled as it is with endearing characters, is visually striking with its monochromatic palette and occasional touches of vivid red. Frankel gets creative with her composition choices, as we see the elevator on the move; in one case, it rises and the top of an illustration is lopped off. Below are some spreads so that you can get a sense of the art. <\/p>\n

Best of all, after you finish the book, you find a tiny envelope pasted to the book’s back inside cover. Open it. Pull out a 5″ x 5″ book that is the bear’s story, the one Mr. Miguel tells in the elevator. Cue the delight. This tiny book is called Who Cares?<\/em> Pictured below are some illustrations (and the cover) from Mr. Miguel’s story too. <\/p>\n

Note: If you’re intrigued by this story and especially if you’re interested in other Latin American children’s imports, Tapioca has also published The Invisible<\/em>, written by poet Alcides Villa\u00e7a and illustrated by Andr\u00e9s Sandoval<\/a><\/strong>. Translated from the Portuguese by Fl\u00e1via Rocha, in collaboration with Endi Bogue Hartigan, it was originally published in 2011 as invis\u00edvel<\/em>. This (delightfully) cryptic and evocative tale is for anyone who has ever wondered what it would like to be invisible. (I, for one, wish it were my superpower. And evidently Villa\u00e7a wrote this poem as an ode to the fact that invisibility was his own favorite childhood superpower.) The book employs clear red vinyl pages that, at the page turns, conceal portions of the illustrations with an effect similar to the ones achieved by old red-and-blue anaglyph 3D glasses. It’s one you have to hold in your hands to experience. You can read more about it here<\/a><\/strong>.
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From The Elevator<\/em>:<\/font><\/strong><\/center>
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“‘Someone must have called it before us,’ I told Roco. And I was right. When we got to Floor 7, my neighbor Ms. Paula got on. (She’s the one who’s afraid of dogs.)”<\/em>
(Click spread to enlarge)<\/center>
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“On Floor 8, we were met by Mr. Miguel,
the oldest person in the whole building.”<\/em>
(Click spread to enlarge)<\/center>
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“The elevator stopped on Floor 6. Now what? It was Cora and the twins going out for a walk. (Cora said she wanted to tire them out for nap time.)”<\/em>
(Click spread to enlarge)<\/center>
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“For instance, when none of his friends came to his birthday party, he said,
‘Who cares?’ over and over again.”<\/em>
(Click spread to enlarge)<\/center>
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\n<\/a>
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“The story wasn’t over, but then we heard that strange noise we’d heard before.
All of a sudden, the elevator started to move again … It stopped back on Floor 4
(even though no one had pressed the button)!”<\/em>
(Click spread to enlarge)<\/center>
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\n<\/a>
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(Click cover to enlarge)<\/em><\/center>
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From Who Cares?<\/em> by Mr. Miguel:<\/font><\/strong><\/center>
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\n<\/a>
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(Click spread to enlarge)<\/em><\/center>
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(Click spread to enlarge)<\/em><\/center>
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(Click spread to enlarge)<\/em><\/center>
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\n<\/a>
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(Click spread to enlarge)<\/em><\/center>
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\nTHE ELEVATOR. First English language edition published in North America in 2020 by Tapioca Stories. English language edition \u00a9 2020 Tapioca Stories. Originally published as <\/em>El ascensor \u00a9 2019 Limonero, Argentina. Illustrations reproduced by permission of the publisher, Tapioca Stories, Huntington, New York.<\/em><\/p>\n

* * * Jules’s Kicks * * *<\/strong><\/font>
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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

1)<\/strong><\/font> Inaguration! <\/p>\n

(May everyone stay safe.)<\/p>\n

2)<\/strong><\/font> Actual snow. <\/p>\n

3)<\/strong><\/font> Christmas gifts that showed up late just made Christmas feel longer.<\/p>\n

4)<\/strong><\/font> One of those gifts from Blaine Danielson included my new Janeway<\/a><\/strong> mug:
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\n5)<\/strong><\/font> Starting a Movie Project with Blaine Danielson in which we watch a bunch of 2020 movies we managed to miss. We close our eyes and pull a film name out of a hat when it’s movie time. I hope to have informed opinions when it’s time for the Oscars. (And clearly I needed a pandemic project, because I’m super excited about this.)<\/p>\n

6)<\/strong><\/font> I’ve nearly perfected my Alexis Rose<\/a><\/strong> impression. <\/p>\n

7)<\/strong><\/font> The 2021 ALA Youth Media Awards<\/strong><\/a> are a week from tomorrow. <\/p>\n

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

  Would you like to take a look at an Argentinian import? Today, I’ve got some spreads from Yael Frankel’s The Elevator, originally published in 2019 in Argentina and translated from the Spanish by Kit Maude. It comes from Tapioca Stories, a New York-based publisher that brings readers Latin American children’s books, originally written in […]<\/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-5263","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\/5263","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=5263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5263\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}