{"id":5633,"date":"2022-07-24T00:01:45","date_gmt":"2022-07-24T06:01:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=5633"},"modified":"2022-07-30T11:09:59","modified_gmt":"2022-07-30T17:09:59","slug":"7-imps-7-kicks-804-featuring-antoinette-portis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=5633","title":{"rendered":"7-Imp\u2019s 7 Kicks #804: Featuring Antoinette Portis"},"content":{"rendered":"

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“and the sun shines”<\/em>
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\nAntoinette Portis’s<\/a><\/strong> ebullient and sun-dappled A Seed Grows<\/a><\/em><\/strong> (Neal Porter Books, June 2022) is a thing of beauty. It captures the life cycle of a flower \u2014 in this case, a healthy, glowing sunflower. The entire text consists of one long sentence and then one final short one that brings everything full circle. The images \u2014 which feature visually rich colors, textures, and patterns \u2014 are bright and bold and will engage the young children, particularly the emerging readers, at whom this book is aimed. <\/p>\n

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Each spread features text on the left and an illustration on the right \u2014 until we reach the end where we see some double-page spreads. Portis rendered the illustrations with “various printmaking techniques, including gel printing, linocutting, potato stamping and printing with a celery stalk.” So when we read on the first spread ” a seed falls,” we see text on the verso in copious white space \u2014 the word “seed” rendered in a blue type rendered via a printmaking technique \u2014 and a small seed fall to the ground in the illustration on the recto. The page-turn reveals: “and settles into the soil.” We see the seed on the ground. The sun shines (pictured above), the rain falls, the seed sprouts, and so on \u2014 until a plant grows. And grows. Portis gives ample time and space for readers to see the plant push up and its leaves spread. A bud forms, and we are then treated to the glorious vertical gatefold spread pictured below: the sunflower, whose large head looks as if it could be the sun itself. <\/p>\n

After the plant fills with seeds (by the way, these might be my favorite endpapers of the year, pages filled with seeds on an orange background, as if we’re staring right into a big, beautiful sunflower head), the birds grab the seeds that have fallen, fly to the tops of trees “where the sun shines” (again), and we start over: “And a seed falls.”<\/p>\n

Backmatter includes diagrams about the life cycle of a sunflower plant, the parts of a sunflower, the parts of a sunflower seed, and what the seed needs to sprout. And a short bibliography (“More to explore”) is included. <\/p>\n

These are spreads that, as the Publishers Weekly<\/em> review<\/strong><\/a> puts it so well, “belie their quiet complexity.” See for yourself …
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“and the plant grows”<\/em>
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“that blossoms into a flower”<\/em>
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“that drop to the ground and feed the birds”<\/em>
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(Click cover to enlarge)<\/em><\/center>
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\nA SEED GROWS. Text and illustrations copyright \u00a9 2022 by Antoinette Portis. Illustrations reproduced by permission of the publisher, Neal Porter Books\/Holiday House, 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> Lauren Groff’s Matrix<\/a><\/strong><\/em>. Such<\/em> good writing. <\/p>\n

2)<\/strong><\/font> Again, Better Call Saul<\/em>. Boy howdy, do they know how to visually craft a scene. <\/p>\n

3)<\/strong><\/font> My Mother Made Me<\/a><\/em><\/strong>, Jason Reynolds’s new podcast. <\/p>\n

4)<\/strong><\/font> The delicious mystery that is Iron & Wine’s “Passing Afternoon.”<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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

6)<\/strong><\/font> Sun and water with friends. <\/p>\n

7)<\/strong><\/font> Sam Phillips posting a recording from her archives of singing only my second favorite song of hers EVER. (And it’s hard for me to narrow.) “I’m a lever pulled down. \/ I’m a flipped switch. \/ I’m a lever pulled down \/ from the fire in the air.”
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A post shared by Sam Phillips (@samphillipssongs)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n