{"id":876,"date":"2007-09-09T00:54:33","date_gmt":"2007-09-09T06:54:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=876"},"modified":"2007-09-10T06:33:41","modified_gmt":"2007-09-10T12:33:41","slug":"7-imps-7-kicks-27-featuring-julie-vivas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=876","title":{"rendered":"7-Imp’s 7 Kicks #27: Featuring Julie Vivas"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jules<\/strong>: Many thanks to Julie Vivas<\/a><\/strong>, one of Australia’s foremost children’s book illustrators, and Kane\/Miller Books<\/a><\/strong> for our illustration this week. This is a spread from Helen Manos’ Samsara Dog<\/a><\/strong><\/em>, originally published in Australia in 2006 and published this year by Kane\/Miller<\/a><\/strong> in its First American Edition. <\/p>\n

It’s not often that you come across a picture book, geared at young children, which addresses the subject of reincarnation. Manos, a practicing Buddhist, wanted to show this subject matter in as natural a way as possible and wrote this story of a dog who lives many lives — as a wild dog on the streets; with a biker gang; as a sniffer dog; with a street juggler; as a rescue dog; and more — “{moving} through a tunnel of light into his next life” each time. In the spread above, <\/p>\n

Dog was born very small and very sick. <\/p>\n

His tiny eyes never opened. He heard low chanting and a gentle voice say, “Sometimes life is a terrible struggle, little dog. Sometimes we only manage to arrive before we have to move on again.” <\/p>\n

Dog tried to hold on, but the thin thread of this life was fast unraveling. <\/p>\n

“Don’t be afraid. Coming back again and again is how it must be,” said the gentle voice. “When it is time, you will know great love. Go and learn what you must learn.”<\/p>\n

And the sound of the chanting carried him off.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Eventually, Dog is born in a boat shed and finds the boy. The cover illustration you see up there features Dog and the boy, “{c}urled up like two spoons . . . {catching} each other’s dreams.” Dog learns to give hope and comfort “and the gift of great love,” particularly after a frightening accident the boy has, and learns to love the boy more than he loves himself. Years pass, and one day as Dog nears the end of his life, a deep calm settles inside him and, feeling his heart fill with “trust and joy,” he grows lighter and even lighter in the arms of his boy, now a grown man, and never comes back again, having finally learned what he needed to learn about love. Kirkus Reviews<\/em> wrote of this title, “{t}he Buddhist concepts of reincarnation \u2014 and by extension Samsara and Nirvana \u2014 are conveyed with touching clarity . . . definitely deserving of a place on the shelf.” <\/p>\n

Julie has even shared with us some of the first sketches for this lovely spread she shared with us this week. And here’s what she has to say about the process of illustrating this book: <\/p>\n

“For the first six double page spreads of Samsara Dog<\/em>, he was the same dog in a different life; this meant for each double spread, he is living and dying . . . This I found difficult to handle; the illustrations fought with each other (two images near each other can cancel out or impact\/effect one another). Helen Manos’s manuscript had substantially more text and dog had more lives, but this changed through the process of making it work as a whole. It became more of a picture book, there was space to develop images. <\/p>\n

It was a difficult book to illustrate; I kept losing a grip on Dog. Visually, he was always dog but his existence in each life in a way made him a different character so his appearance had to change. When I first read this fantastic manuscript, I was so excited and felt very fortunate to be offered the work to do the images for it. It’s like being at a feast — you see something wonderful and you want to eat it — but this proved to be more than a challenge for me. <\/p>\n

The monk went through many stages of development and you can see a few examples here. I do a lot of rough work first, like most illustrators, and often these rough sketches have more life to them than the finished art work.<\/p>\n

Helen Manos wrote a wonderful story. I did try to do it justice but found it a struggle.”<\/font><\/p>\n

Well, we think she did it justice. Eisha and I are both fans of her work as an illustrator, and this one doesn’t disappoint. Vivas has perfectly captured the warmth and sentiment of this most unusual (for most picture books anyway) story. Big thanks to Kane\/Miller and Julie for sharing that beautiful spread, and thanks to Julie for also telling us a bit more about the process and sharing her early drafts, giving us a fascinating glimpse into an illustrator’s work. <\/p>\n

* * *<\/center><\/p>\n

Before we get to our kicks this week, we would like to acknowledge that we here at 7-Imp were a bit slow in getting to the very sad news about the death of Robert Mercer<\/a><\/strong>, Grace Lin’s<\/a><\/strong> husband, on August 27th, due to cancer. We had the great opportunity to interview Grace<\/a><\/strong> this year, and Eisha has met her a couple of times. She is not only talented but also a terrifically nice person, and our heart goes out to her, her family, and Robert’s family during this difficult time. <\/p>\n

* * *<\/center><\/p>\n

By way of explanation for any new folks (who we hope will leave their lists), our weekly 7 Kicks list is the meeting ground for listing 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. <\/p>\n

* * * * * * * Jules’ kicks * * * * * * *<\/center><\/p>\n

1). Eisha did a lovely post<\/a><\/strong> yesterday about the passing of Madeleine L’Engle<\/a><\/strong> at age 88. The very first web page I made ever ever ever (in library school) was about her (it’s too clunky to even share), and I included this quote from her acceptance speech upon receiving the Margaret Edwards Award:<\/p>\n

Most of the time nowadays we human beings are referred to as consumers. What does the consumer think? What does the consumer want? How ugly. Forest fires consume. Cancer consumes. I want us to be nourishers. To be a librarian, particularly a librarian for young adults, is to be a nourisher, to share stories, offer books full of new ideas. We live in a world which has changed radically in the last half century, and story helps us to understand and live creatively with change.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I have always loved that.<\/p>\n

2). Sara<\/a><\/strong> shared this with me, which I’d seen before with my daughters and which she found via [BB-Blog]<\/a><\/strong>, who wrote in a post entitled “You can’t turn away”<\/a><\/strong>: “As much as I thought I’d sneer at this, after about 5 seconds, I was hooked” (heh). I like the Muppet version of Kate Pierson there. And Sara’s suggestion is that this be the theme song for 7-Imp’s 7 Kicks lists, to which I say word<\/em>: <\/p>\n

<\/param><\/param><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

3). Alkelda<\/a><\/strong>, who is oh-so thoughtful, sent me this<\/a><\/strong> (the video to a song on one of my girls’ beloved Dan Zanes<\/a><\/strong> CDs) for this past week, which was the week my family and I were planning<\/em> on going to see the ocean (the first time for my girls) but weren’t able to, due to an unexpected meltdown of a major household appliance (and that would be the AC unit on a nearly one-hundred-degree day). Anyway, click on it<\/a><\/strong> and watch: It’s Insta-Ocean! But, even though we couldn’t go to the beach, my husband still kept that week off (it was his birthday week, too!), and we . . . <\/p>\n

4). . . . filled it with fun stuff each day. We went here<\/a><\/strong> (and got to see a Jumbo African Millipede and owls and lots of other birds and a hedgehog and other animals up close and personal, thanks to one of my best friends who works at the zoo — we were even right next to the sloth, just like in Pssst!<\/a><\/strong><\/em>, though he didn’t ask us for a bicycle helmet or fall flat on his head); here<\/a><\/strong> (they have penguins<\/a><\/strong> now!); here<\/a><\/strong>, which is what I was talking about last week<\/a><\/strong>, where we got to see the three bears’ cottage, Jack’s beanstalk, and walk into the Secret Garden; and much more. It was a fun but exhausting week, since we also randomly declared . . . <\/p>\n

5). . . . Picture Book Week here at 7-Imp. Why I wanted to declare Picture Book Week on the week that my family and I were busy every day is beyond me. I guess it went pretty well. We kicked things off with an illustration which Jonathan Bean<\/a><\/strong> shared for last week’s list (since visitors were scarce last week, probably due to the holiday, make sure you don’t miss the beautiful artwork<\/a><\/strong> he shared with us); I managed to review fourteen picture books (here<\/a><\/strong>, here<\/a><\/strong>, here<\/a><\/strong>, and here<\/strong><\/a>); and we had some fun interviews with the zazzy Mo Willems<\/a><\/strong> and rockstar (in our world) Adam Rex<\/a><\/strong>, whose first novel for children I really want to read and Eisha covered here<\/a><\/strong> this week. And, speaking of the interview with Adam Rex<\/a><\/strong> . . .<\/p>\n

6). . . . his answer to our how-did-you-get-to-be-so-awesome question made me laugh so hard that my husband came in the room to check on me. I think he thought I was weeping, ’cause tears were streaming down my face and I was every so often making one of those gasping sounds from trying to catch my breath. For serious, I laughed for about five minutes, non-stop. I don’t know why: I think he had me at the little clap in the middle of his push-ups and then he cinched it with the “montage-style” comment about “The Final Countdown,” which, unfortunately, has been playing on the Radio in My Mind all week (and I bet now it’s playing in yours. Mwahahahahahahahaha). <\/p>\n

7). The new CDs from Feist<\/a><\/strong> and Ryan Adams<\/a><\/strong>. <\/p>\n

* * * * * * * eisha’s kicks * * * * * * *<\/center><\/p>\n

Oh, wow, I totally remember that Sesame Street song. I love it. And I’m sorry you didn’t get to go to the beach, Jules, but geez, you guys sure had an awesome week. I’m a little jealous, even – Cheekwood never had anything as cool as that going on when I was always getting dragged there on field trips. Anyway, my week was very low-key, and thus so are the kicks:<\/p>\n

please\u2026 make it stop\u20261* Like Jules, our interviews with Mo Willems and Adam Rex also cracked me up, even though I’ve also had the synthesized nightmare that is “The Final Countdown” running through my head for the past several days.<\/p>\n

2* Our DSL connection was down for a total of, like, 3.5 days this past week, but now it’s fixed.<\/p>\n

3* While it was down, I couldn’t do much blog- or job hunt-wise, so I read. A lot.<\/p>\n

White Darkness by Geraldine McCaughrean4* One of the books I read was as good as everyone else keeps saying it is: White Darkness<\/em><\/strong><\/a> by Geraldine McCaughrean<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

5* More tomatoes.<\/p>\n

6* We went out for yummy Thai food with new Ithaca friends. Mmmm.<\/p>\n

7* We got Season 2 of Extras<\/em><\/strong><\/a> from Netflix. Oh. My. God. I just cannot describe the sensation of seeing Daniel Radcliffe flick a condom onto Dame Diana Riggs head. Hilarious. I saw it when this was first going around on YouTube, but in case you haven’t had the pleasure…<\/p>\n

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Jules: Many thanks to Julie Vivas, one of Australia’s foremost children’s book illustrators, and Kane\/Miller Books for our illustration this week. This is a spread from Helen Manos’ Samsara Dog, originally published in Australia in 2006 and published this year by Kane\/Miller in its First American Edition. It’s not often that you come across a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-876","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\/876","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\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/876\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}