Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

“It was a pretty good plan. And so those eight great minds rolled up their sleeves,and they yanked and they tugged.”(Click to enlarge spread)   This morning over at Kirkus, I have a bit of a Shel Silverstein appreciation. That is here. * * * Last week, I wrote here about Mac Barnett’s newest picture […]

How Zachariah OHora’s son inspired the character Nilson from his latest book(Click to enlarge) No … wait just a second here …(Click to enlarge) This morning I’m making lots of room at the 7-Imp breakfast table for Zachariah OHora and Nilson (pictured above), the tantrum-throwing star of Zach’s latest book, No Fits, Nilson! (Dial, June […]

First sketch of Mr. Insomniac 7-Imp readers know I like to ask Seven Questions Over Breakfast with creators of picture books here in 7-Imp Land, but today I’m having a late-afternoon/almost-evening snack with illustrators Ben and Sean Hilts, a.k.a. The Brothers Hilts. Now, I failed to ask them about their favorite late-afternoon snack, though for […]

(Click to enlarge) I’m slowly inching my way toward the holidays. I have to ease my way in, given the rampant commercialism. (Am I just a grinch for letting it wear me out? I guess that’s a question for another day.) But I do gladly share above this work-in-progress image from Steve Light’s The Christmas […]

This isn’t the first time illustrator Erin Stead has visited 7-Imp. About a year prior to the release of her Caldecott-winning A Sick Day for Amos McGree, written by Philip C. Stead (who happens to be her husband), she visited to share some early art and the tools she used to make the illustrations for […]

This is the spellbinding opening of Chapter 4 in author/illustrator Rosalyn Schanzer’s Witches! The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem, published by National Geographic Children’s Books in September of this year. Two terrified men think they see a beast fly up into the air and turn into the spirits of three witches, while the […]

“September ran…. With every step, she could feel her legs getting skinnier and harder, like the trunks of saplings. With every step, she thought they might break. In the Marquess’s shoes, her toes rasped and cracked. She had no hair left, and though she could not see it, she knew her skull was turning into […]

It’s the first Sunday of the month, which means I shine the spotlight on an Illustrator of the Future (Future Future Future … That’s me doing a dramatic echo.) And boy howdy am I happy to bring you the work of Monica Ramos, an illustration student at Parsons The New School for Design, who was […]

I thought I’d check in quickly this week to add to the ever-growing list of Slightly Demented Picture Books. Some of you may remember that librarian and blogger extraordinaire Adrienne Furness and I discussed our favorite slightly demented titles back in April of 2008, and I’m always happy when I see titles to mentally add […]

This is artist Scott Teplin. Or his alter ego. “From when I was sixteen until Sept. 11, 2001,” he told me, “I used to wear insane disguises (wigs, black-eye makeup, prosthetic pimples, bandaids, cotton stuffed in cheeks, weird eye twitches, etc…) for driver’s license photos. Wisconsin, Washington, and NY. After 9/11, it pretty much had […]