{"id":5355,"date":"2021-06-06T00:01:28","date_gmt":"2021-06-06T06:01:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=5355"},"modified":"2021-06-05T15:33:29","modified_gmt":"2021-06-05T21:33:29","slug":"7-imps-7-kicks-746-featuring-lian-cho","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=5355","title":{"rendered":"7-Imp\u2019s 7 Kicks #746: Featuring Lian Cho"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\nWell, we’ve not yet officially met the first day of summer here in the U.S., but with my own daughers out of school, it sure feels like it. What better book to celebrate with than Gideon Sterer’s<\/a><\/strong> It Began with Lemonade<\/a><\/strong><\/em> (Dial, May 2021), illustrated by Lian Cho<\/a><\/strong>. (Remember Gideon Sterer from this glorious book<\/a><\/strong>, published earlier this year?) <\/p>\n

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Our resilient, determined protagonist, pictured above, hopes to sell some lemonade: “It was the first Saturday of summer, hot as an oven with blazing blue skies.” She chops, measures, squeezes, stirs, tinkers, tweaks, and tastes (look at those delicious verbs), while her father builds a lemonade wagon. (!) Unfortunately, as you can see below, all the lemonade-stand real estate is taken. <\/p>\n

Things aren’t looking so great for her when, while looking for a good spot to park her stand, she loses control of it and ends up stranded next to the river. Suddenly, around the water’s bend comes an “old man,” needing to quench his thirst, followed by an octopus in a hat (and some octopus babies), a host of wild creatures (including serenading alligators, one with a ukulele), some mermaids, a tug boat full of frogs, and much, much more. The girl even takes a moment after her heaping sales to drink some lemonade with her new friends. All of this is laid out on brightly colored spreads with summery rose, lemon, warm green, and river-blue hues. Cho’s versions of these fantastical creatures are a delight, and the girl makes for an endearing character. In the end, pictured below, she imagines what tomorrow can be, “deep asleep.” Look closely around her room, and you’ll see the toys that likely inspired her fantastic lemonade adventure. (But who are we to say it didn’t actually happen?)<\/p>\n

Here are some spreads. Enjoy! And happy (almost but sort of already) summer …
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“… there was no room for me. Not on my street. Not on Bobby Tillman’s street.
Not on my grandma Rose’s street. Nowhere.”<\/em>
(Click spread to enlarge)<\/center>
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\n<\/a>
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“Soon came things with paws, and claws,
and as I looked out from that riverbank, it felt just like a dream.”<\/em>
(Click spread to enlarge)<\/center>
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\n<\/a>
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“So I chopped and measured, tasted and squeezed, and hour after hour, gulp after guzzle, this is what I called: Lemonade! Lemonade! A glass for you, half price for two!”<\/em>
(Click spread to enlarge)<\/center>
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\n<\/a>
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“And late that night, deep asleep, I saw what it could be.”<\/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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\nIT BEGAN WITH LEMONADE. Text copyright \u00a9 2021 by Gideon Sterer. Illustrations \u00a9 2021 by Lian Cho and reproduced by permission of the publisher, Dial Books for Young Readers, 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.<\/em><\/p>\n

My kicks this week, one to seven, are that the grad course I teach (all about picture books!) for the University of Tennessee’s Information Sciences program has begun! I’ll be teaching all summer; I have a full class; and I’m excited to talk all picture books all the time with these students this summer. Also within those kicks is the fact that I even pulled off the first class the other night, since I’ve been suh-wamped with other work. I’m looking forward to the next eight weeks with these students. <\/p>\n

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

  Well, we’ve not yet officially met the first day of summer here in the U.S., but with my own daughers out of school, it sure feels like it. What better book to celebrate with than Gideon Sterer’s It Began with Lemonade (Dial, May 2021), illustrated by Lian Cho. (Remember Gideon Sterer from this glorious […]<\/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-5355","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\/5355","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=5355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5355\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}