Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

“A blinding light came. A roar. A vibration. / And after that, silence.”
(Click image to see poem, “Takeo,” in its entirety)

 
Over at Tennessee’s Chapter 16 today, they have a double feature for fans of Lois Lowry — a review I wrote of her new novel, On the Horizon: World War II Reflections (Houghton Mifflin, April 2020), illustrated by Kenard Pak. And they also have a transcription of a phone chat she and I had, during which Lowry talks about writing this book and lots more.

The interview is here. The review is here.

And here today at 7-Imp are a few illustrations from the book.

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It’s the first Sunday of a new month. The days may be running together, but I’m pretty darn sure it’s the first Sunday in April. A first-Sunday means I feature the work of an illustration student or newly-graduated one. Today, I welcome Avani Dwivedi, who graduated, as she tells you below, from MICA last spring. She’s here to tell us a bit about herself, as well as share some of her richly colored, vibrant illustrations. (Pictured above is part of an illustration from her thesis project, which she discusses below.) Let’s get right to it, and I thank her for sharing today.

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As I was reading this book for about the fifth time the other day, knowing that I wanted to write about it, I started making notes about what I was seeing. They ended up being joyous grunts, like: “The textures! The colors! The DETAILS!”

Yes, you get all of this — and more — in Raúl the Third’s ¡VAMOS! Let’s Go Eat (Versify, March 2020), colored by Elaine Bay. This is the follow-up to last year’s ¡Vamos! Let’s Go to the Market. We revisit Little Lobo and his dog Bernabé in this bilingual adventure; this time they discover on page one that they are needed at el Coliseo right away. Lucha Libre 5000 will be taking place there that night, and we all know from the first book that Little Lobo loves wrestling — and wrestling star El Toro, who appears in this new book as well.

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Early sketch and final spread: “TAKE COURAGE! I must keep the black snake away
From my village’s water. I must rally my people together.”
(Click each image to enlarge)

 
Today, illustrator Michaela Goade shares some process images and final art from the making of Carole Lindstrom’s new picture book, We Are Water Protectors (Roaring Brook, March 2020). I am so pleased she shares these images; I feel like I’m standing right next to her drawing table, which is thrilling (and not just because I haven’t left my home in over two weeks).

Carole, born and raised in Nebraska, is Anishinaabe/Métis and is tribally enrolled with the Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe. Michaela, who makes her home in Alaska, is of Tlingit descent and is tribally enrolled with the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska. Their new book is a rallying cry for environmental justice from indigenous peoples. Writes Carole in the book’s closing note:

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I’ve three glorious spreads below from Dianne White’s Green on Green (Beach Lane, March 2020), illustrated by Felicita Sala. In a spare and eloquent rhythmic text, White takes readers through the seasons of a year — from spring to winter. “Yellow the flower,” the book begins. “Yellow the seed. Yellow and black the buzzing bee.”

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I don’t know about you all, but I’m in the mood today for a light-hearted, free-spirited kind of tale, and you can find that in Sophie Dahl’s Madame Badobedah, coming to shelves in early April from Walker Books and illustrated by Lauren O’Hara. Lauren visits today to talk about illustrating this story, and she shares some process images and art.

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“What do things look like? Really? I often think about that.”
(Click spread to enlarge)

 
I’ve a few spreads today from an illustrated novel, originally published in Swedish in 2017. Sara Lundberg’s The Bird in Me Flies will be on shelves in May from Groundwood books and has been translated by B. J. Epstein. This lyrical, deeply felt story (which received Sweden’s August Prize, as well as the Snöbollen award) was inspired by the paintings, letters, and diaries of Swedish artist Berta Hansson, who was born in 1910 and died in 1994.

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(Click image to enlarge)

 
Today’s art is from illustrator Susanna Chapman — who, lucky me, is local to me. (She lives in Nashville.) She recently shared this drawing on Instagram — I love the idea of deferred hugs — and I secured her permission to share it here. She also has a time-lapse video of the drawing to heighten, as she puts it, the time-based hug experience. Susanna says the time-lapse video is more meaningful to her, since she misses the time element of hugging people. So, here it is, the drawing in action:

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Today, illustrator Rob Dunlavey visits to talk about illustrating David Elliott’s In the Woods (Candlewick, April 2020), a poetry collection that explores 15 creatures in their woodland habitats — from little (the millipede) to large (the moose). Elliott kicks things off with the bear and wraps it all up, gracefully, with the deer. In between, there’s awe, humor, and always keen observation in these short, exquisitely crafted poems. Rob’s illustrations eloquently capture the light and shadows of these homes in the woods, and today, he talks about the creation of some of these spreads.

I thank him for visiting. Let’s get to it. Read the rest of this entry »

 
Here’s a post to showcase a couple of spreads from Jonah Winter’s Mother Jones and Her Army of Mill Children (Schwartz & Wade, February 2020), illustrated by Nancy Carpenter. Winter doesn’t approach this story in a traditional picture-book-bio kind of way. That is, we don’t start with the birth of Mary Harris, a.k.a. Mother Jones, and end with her death. Instead, Winter kicks things off with Mother Jones in the midst of her fervent anger: “My name is Mother Jones, and I’m MAD. And you’d be MAD, too, if you’d seen what I’ve seen.”

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