{"id":5641,"date":"2022-08-07T00:01:25","date_gmt":"2022-08-07T06:01:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=5641"},"modified":"2022-08-13T09:31:51","modified_gmt":"2022-08-13T15:31:51","slug":"7-imps-7-kicks-806-featuring-liza-ferneyhough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=5641","title":{"rendered":"7-Imp\u2019s 7 Kicks #806: Featuring Liza Ferneyhough"},"content":{"rendered":"

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“Nina has two grandmothers who live on opposite sides of the world. …”<\/em>
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\nNana, Nenek & Nina<\/a><\/em><\/strong> (Dial, August 2022) is the debut picture book from author-illustrator Liza Ferneyhough<\/a><\/strong>. It is the story of Nina, who has a Nenek and a Nana who, as you can see above, live on “opposite sides of the world.” Nina is in San Francisco; Nana is in England; and Nenek is in Malaysia. “If she misses them and wants to visit,” we read, “there’s a lot of figuring out to do.” In the opening spreads, we see her packing. She’s on her way to visit both grandmothers. Ferneyhough \u2014 who created the warm, playful illustrations on “tea-stained paper, using watercolors, many tiny brushes, and a crow quill dip pen” \u2014 dedicates the book to her own British-Malaysian-American family. <\/p>\n

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Each spread captures Nina’s two visits by showcasing England on one side of a spread and Malaysia on the other, which emphasizes the universality of the experience of visiting a grandmother, no matter where she lives, as well as conveys the particularities of each locale. And Ferneyhough fills these moments with details that delight in their specificity, starting with the spread showing a phone call each grandmother receives, the call that says Nina and her parents will visit: “Beep beep” goes Nana’s phone, while Nanek’s is a “brring.” “Welcome,” says the airport sign in England, though on the other side of the spread, in which Nina hugs Nanek, we read “selamat datang” on the wall. And Ferneyhough doesn’t miss a thing (you want to take your time with these spreads): If you look closely at the plane sitting beyond the airport window, the spread’s verso has a sky colored differently from the sky on the recto. <\/p>\n

Ferneyhough showcases each of Nina’s activities in this way. What is it like to dress for the day at Nana’s house? What about Nenek’s? One involves a pinny, mac, and wellies, and the other, a topi, baju renang, and selipar. Readers see the grandmothers’ gardens; trips to the shore; meals; bath time; and more. Each experience is differentiated by the locale, weather, and culture, but what remains constant, no matter where Nina stands, is the love and affection her grandmothers have for her. <\/p>\n

Ferneyhough’s palette has a warm glow to it (it might be that tea-stained paper). Earthy colors dominate with rose, lavender, and apricot highlights. The body language throughout the book is particularly expressive, especially Nina’s. Readers will fall for her. Perhaps we will be treated to another of her adventurous journeys in future books. That would be lovely. <\/p>\n

Here are some spreads. …
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“They make sure everyone has a good breakfast. …”<\/em>
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“Nana and Nenek both get their shopping done in the lafe afternoon,
while Nina takes her nap. …”<\/em>
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“The moon she knows from home glows far outside both windows. …”<\/em>
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(Click cover to enlarge)<\/em><\/center>
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\nNANA, NENEK & NINA. Copyright \u00a9 2022 by Liza Ferneyhough. Illustrations reproduced by permission of the publisher, Dial Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Penguin Random 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> Air conditioning. <\/p>\n

2)<\/strong><\/font> The tofu quesadilla at Nashville’s Taco Mama. <\/p>\n

3)<\/strong><\/font> Everything Everywhere All at Once<\/a><\/strong><\/em>. <\/p>\n

4)<\/strong><\/font> Getting to meet (for a work assignment) via Zoom an attorney friend and colleague of our own kicker Rachel. <\/p>\n

5)<\/strong><\/font> The dialogue in season 1, episode 2 of The Old Man<\/a><\/strong><\/em> in which Chase is taking about a guy he once served with: “This wise old man, he never spoke. And it wasn’t because he couldn’t or because he had nothing to say. It was because he believed that language deceived. That by its very nature, it clouded the truth, so it made the world harder to know. And this wise old man, he believed that the truth lived only in silence. Communicated by other means. That the food he prepared from his garden conveyed his affection, his gratitude or his indifference … far better than any words could convey. And it was said that this wise old man … he could change minds in that way. He could soften the hardest of hearts without ever saying one word.”<\/p>\n

6)<\/strong><\/font> This line from this book<\/a><\/strong>: “In an average life lived by a relatively average soul, what else remains but singular moments of astonishingly framed light?”<\/p>\n

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

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

“Nina has two grandmothers who live on opposite sides of the world. …”(Click spread to enlarge and read text in its entirety)   Nana, Nenek & Nina (Dial, August 2022) is the debut picture book from author-illustrator Liza Ferneyhough. It is the story of Nina, who has a Nenek and a Nana who, as you […]<\/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-5641","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\/5641","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=5641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5641\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}