Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

  Illustrator Tom Lichtenheld visits 7-Imp this morning to share the backstory of the illustrations for Beth Ferry’s Stick and Stone, released earlier this month by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. It’s the story of two friends who stand up and look out for each other, and it’s been met with positive reviews, Booklist writing that the […]

I’m so pleased that author/illustrator Tom Lichtenheld is visiting today. I’ve wanted him to visit the blog for a while, and we just haven’t pulled it off. (Till now!) I enjoy his work. Did you all see Exclamation Mark (Scholastic, March 2013), his most recent collaboration with Amy Krouse Rosenthal? It’s exceedingly clever, that one. […]

Will someone hire me as librarian-for-the-day just so I can share Chris Barton’s and Tom Lichtenheld’s new title, Shark Vs. Train, with a group of children, followed by Bob Shea’s 2008 title, Dinosaur Vs. Bedtime? I think it quite possibly could be the Loudest and Most Entertaining Story Time in Recent History. But I’m here […]

  One of my favorite things is when illustrator Tom Lichtenheld stops by 7-Imp to talk about the thought processes that go behind his work. (He’s done that at least once before.) Today, he visits to talk about creating the artwork for Sherri Duskey Rinker’s Mighty, Mighty Construction Site, released earlier this year. This is […]

  I’ve got a review over at BookPage of Matthew Cordell’s January 2017 picture book, Wolf in the Snow (Feiwel and Friends). That review is here, and I invited Matt for a chat that we started early in the year to talk about the book, how it’s changed over the years (you’ll read below that […]

It was just a while ago that 7-Imp readers and I were discussing the art of non-busy illustrations. However, sometimes, as noted then, books call for them. Elisa Chavarri, today’s featured illustrator (wave to her and her tiny friend to the left here)—who was born in Peru, who is still fairly new to children’s book […]

Alfred and I are here to look back on What Happened at 7-Imp in 2010. I’ve done this for the past two years every December, and—as I explained last year—I question my own sanity when I pull together posts like this, since it’s not a trivial thing to do and takes quite a bit of […]

“Sandy’s tail got longer until Gregory saw a tiny ghost crab scurry sideways into his dark, round hole. Gregory went round and round the hole. Sandy’s tail went round and round, too. But Gregory did not go into the water, and he did not leave Sandy.” “Uncle Nigel stopped in his tracks. ‘I say! Footprints! […]

“Four happy bears / on four small chairs. / Not a bear / has to share.” It’s time to take a Sunday once again to appreciate those illustrators who can entertain the youngest of children through picture books without also inducing headaches, brought on by excessive cuteness, in those adults reading the illustrated titles to […]

Early this year, I did a 2008 7-Imp retrospective post — merely because, evidently, I’m crazy. (These things take a bit of time to compose.) I decided this week to write what you see here, yet another retrospective post — this one for 2009, of course. I don’t know why I do this. I find […]