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What I’m Doing at Kirkus This Week, Plus What I Did Last Week, Featuring Stephanie Graegin, Steve Jenkins, Roger Mello, Christiane Pieper, and Andrea Tsurumi

h1 January 5th, 2018 by jules


— From Steve Jenkins’ and Robin Page’s Who Am I?: An Animal Guessing Game


 


“Put some mustard in your nose, which then, proceed to lick.”
— From Anushka Ravishankar’s Hic!, illustrated by Christiane Pieper


 


“Feather, hidden in a tuft of grass, didn’t make a sound.”
— From Cao Wenxuan’s Feather, illustrated by Roger Mello
(Click spread to enlarge)


 


— From Andrea Tsurumi’s Accident!


 


— From Stephanie Graegin’s Little Fox in the Forest


 

Today over at Kirkus, I write about three new picture books featuring some remarkably talented and fearless women.

That is here.

* * *

Last week, I wrote here about Stephanie Graegin’s Little Fox in the Forest (Schwartz & Wade, February 2017); Anushka Ravishankar’s Hic! (Tara, September 2017), illustrated by Christiane Pieper; Steve Jenkins’ and Robin Page’s Who Am I?: An Animal Guessing Game (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, November 2017); Andrea Tsurumi’s Accident! (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, October 2017); Cao Wenxuan’s Feather (Elsewhere Editions, September 2017), illustrated by Roger Mello; and The Purloining of Prince Oleomargarine (Random House, September 2017), written by Mark Twain and Philip Stead and illustrated by Erin Stead.

I’ve got art today from each book — and, in some cases, some early sketches, etc. — but I’ll have a separate post later about the Twain/Stead book. More on that soon.

Enjoy!

 

From Feather:


 


“A single feather was blown a little while this way by the wind and a little while that way by the wind. And when there was no wind, which sometimes happened for days at a time, she would wait in a tuft of wild grass or a pile of fallen leaves, all alone.”
(Click spread to enlarge)


 


“A strong burst of wind came and once again blew Feather up into the sky. A flock of wild geese flew by. Feather asked the leader of the flock, ‘Am I yours?’ but the goose was so focused on guiding the others onward it didn’t answer Feather. As the flock flew by they created a strong gust of air and Feather was swept along, tumbling and rolling,
but she still didn’t stop asking, ‘Am I yours? Am I yours?'”
(Click spread to enlarge)


 


(Click cover to enlarge)


 

From Little Fox in the Forest:


 


Stephanie: “[These are] small early thumbnail sketches. (These spreads are two inches high.) At this early stage, little fox was actually a little raccoon. He quickly changed to a fox, once I realized how I wanted color to work in the book.”
(Click image to enlarge)


 



Two final spreads from the book
(Click each to enlarge)


 


(Click cover to enlarge)


 

From Hic!


 


“Drink a pail of water, standing on a brick.”
(Click spread to enlarge)


 


“Stand up on your head
and then recite a limerick.”
(Click spread to enlarge)


 


(Click spread to enlarge)


 


“Hold your breath for half a day
and breathe out very quick.”
(Click spread to enlarge)


 



 

From Accident!


 





Preliminary images (early notes, dummies, etc.)
(Click each to enlarge)


 


Title page spread
(Click to enlarge)


 



(Click to enlarge)


 


(Click to enlarge and see spread in its entirety)


 





(Click each to enlarge)


 



 

From Who Am I?: An Animal Guessing Game:


 




Frog spreads, including an early sketch
(Click each to enlarge)


 


(Click to enlarge)


 





Crab spreads, including early sketches
(Click each to enlarge)


 



 

* * * * * * *

ACCIDENT! Copyright © 2017 by Andrea Tsurumi. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston. Images reproduced by permission of Andrea Tsurumi.

FEATHER. Text Copyright © Cao Wenxuan. Illustration Copyright © Roger Mello. First published in China by China Children’s Press and Publication Group. English language translation © Chloe Garcia Roberts, 2017. First Elsewhere Editions Printing, 2017. Illustrations reproduced by permission of Elsewhere Editions, Brooklyn.

HIC! Copyright © 2016 Tara Books Private Limited. Illustrations reproduced by permission of the publisher.

LITTLE FOX IN THE FOREST. Copyright © 2017 by Stephanie Graegin. Published by Schwartz and Wade Books, New York. Images reproduced by permission of Stephanie Graegin.

WHO AM I?: AN ANIMAL GUESSING GAME. Text copyright © 2017 by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page. Illustrations copyright © 2017 by Steve Jenkins. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston. All images reproduced by permission of Steve Jenkins.





3 comments to “What I’m Doing at Kirkus This Week, Plus What I Did Last Week, Featuring Stephanie Graegin, Steve Jenkins, Roger Mello, Christiane Pieper, and Andrea Tsurumi”

  1. Hi Jules,
    I’m very happy that you mentioned the Little Fox in the Forest book. It was on the top of my list of favorite picture books last year.

    I enjoy reading all your reviews and interviews. I hope you and your family have a great 2018!

    Kim R. Bene

         by Kim January 6th, 2018 at 10:00 am

  2. Thanks, Kim! You too.

         by jules January 6th, 2018 at 3:11 pm

  3. Just now read your marvelous capsule on Stephanie Graegin’s master-class wordless picture book LITTLE FOX IN THE FOREST, which I am preparing to write about next. This weeper of a book about compassion and generosity is one that goes in so many directions and quite fluidly too in both a thematic and illustrative sense. The book is making quite a splash in all my classrooms, and I’m thinking it will make a run for the top spot of my Mock Caldecott contest including seven classes. I do believe this deserves the most intense scrutiny from the committee.

         by Sam Juliano January 11th, 2018 at 9:45 am

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