Pecan Pie Baby

Pecan Pie Baby, written by Jacqueline Woodson is out in the stores. There are lots of pictures and sketches from the book over at the fabulous Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast.
And two starred reviews already. Hooray!

*Blackall’s apt watercolor-and-ink pictures capture the grounded serenity of a multiracial family (and community) with its priorities on straight. Beloved Gia’s got corn rows and a sweet gap between her front teeth. The fact that a dad or other mom doesn’t figure in renders her conflict more poignant. Cleverly, the story arc spans autumn’s slide into winter—a welcome alternative to all those ding-dang spring-baby plots. Fresh and wise.
Kirkus Reviews

*Gia's narrative voice is prime Woodson-lyrical, colloquial, and imbued with the authentic feelings of a child who might be as old as eight or as young as five, and Blackall's smooth-edged, Chinese ink and watercolor illustrations show the little family of two thriving in their simple, cozy home. Gently, the art clarifies and dramatizes the truth that change may feel threatening even in the most wholesome and loving environment-a familiar message, but a comforting one, delivered here with unusual warmth and grace.
Horn Book

Jackie and I will be reading, drawing, chatting and signing at Bookcourt in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn on Sunday, November 14th at 11am. Hope to see some of you there!

How to Wear a Horse as a Hat

I know Halloween is meant to be for the kiddies, but this year our children preferred not to be seen with us so we were forced to make our own fun. My friends had a cardboard party on their block, so we made ourselves some enormous disguises. Nick, Ann and Flavio, (who was the gigantic and incredible, ghostly, cardboard Don Quixote) helped make the horse and we all went for a ride.

Best American Non-Required Reading 2010

I am thrilled to my core to have my Missed Connections illustrations included in this year's Best American Non-Required Reading. Edited by Dave Eggers, with an introduction by David Sedaris and a cover by Maurice Sendak, I'm brushing pages with heroes. (If you know what I mean.) I have to go and lie down now.

Illustrators' Festival Saturday, October 16th

See that big empty space above in front of the Brooklyn Public Library? Tomorrow it's going to be teeming with illustrators and authors and children and their guardians. There will be reading and drawing and balloon manipulation. There will be signing and singing and a suggestions box. I'm not 100% sure on the suggestions box, but I'm optimistic. I love a good suggestion.
Part of the ongoing Drawn in Brooklyn, tomorrow's event is a family festival to be held in front of the library from 10:30am until 3pm. There are events all day, and Aileen Leiften is doing a drawing demonstration, and Sergio Ruzzier is reading but I will be playing Mr. Squiggle, as promised, from 2:15pm until 3pm. You will provide me with a squiggle and I will do my best to turn it into something vaguely recognizable.
Here is an example.

Sometimes it helps to turn it upside down....

and see if it resembles anything.... there seem to be mathematical symbols in this one...

But I'm going to ignore them...

I'm just reminding you, in red, where the squiggle has gone....

TaDa!

I'm expecting some good squiggles. And I might share my pen if the children agree
not to show me up with their superior drawing skills.
Can't wait.

Subway Poster

A poster for Drawn in Brooklyn with the cover image from Big Red Lollipop is on my local subway platform. For some reason I am enormously excited about this. I may not be in The New Yorker, but I'm on the subway!! I am also quite certain it is only a matter of time before the poster is defaced... I can't wait. I think fangs and a moustache would work nicely. Also, a few feet along was this companion piece. Note the recurring lollipop motif?

Ivy and Bean: What's the Big Idea?

For everyone waiting with bated breath, Ivy and Bean: What's the Big Idea is in book stores now!
It's really funny, at least Annie and I think so. There's a nice review here.
The second boxed set (books 4,5 and 6) is also out and includes paper dolls with stick on (repositionable!) clothes and extra body parts and worms. I had fun with those...

Drawn in Brooklyn

Drawn in Brooklyn opens this week at the Brooklyn Public Library! There is an exhibition of artwork from children's books by over 30 Brooklyn illustrators, including Paul O. Zelinsky, Brian Selznick, Sergio Ruzzier, John Rocco, Sean Qualls, Brett Helquist, Brian Floca, Pat Cummings, R. Gregory Christie, Lauren Castillo, Peter Brown and Selina Alko among others.
There are window cases in the youth wing showing artists' processes and I have two on the mezzanine which are about scrap books and are loosely tied to a Panel Discussion: My Inspiration, in which I will talk about stuffed penguins and mermaids' purses and baby teeth and lost shoes and shadows and indexes and firework labels, with John Bemelmans Marciano, John Rocco and R. Gregory Christie. The panel discussion is Sunday, September 26 at 2pm at the Central Library, Dweck Center.
There is also Family Day: Illustrators' Festival, which will be a fair with workshops and book readings and signings and I think I'm going to play Mr. Squiggle. (I'll try to keep it clean.) That takes place on Saturday, October 16, 10:30am - 3pm at the Central Library Plaza.
On Tuesday, October 12, at 10 am I'll be reading from Big Red Lollipop, also at the Dweck Center.
There's more, but that'll do you for now. Hope to see some of you at the library this Fall!
x Sophie
ps If for no other reason, come and visit Floyd. (I think it's Floyd... the name seems to have stuck.)

I Have a New Penguin

He is going to take pride of place in a window case I'm installing this afternoon at the Brooklyn Public Library as part of Drawn in Brooklyn, an exhibition of art from children's books. (More on that soon.) Only problem is he needs a name. And a top hat. But I have the latter covered. As for names we have Percival, Floyd, Cuthbert, Napoleon and Wiley on the table. He will be in residence until January and I have no doubt people will come in flocks and droves and rabbles to see him (on the mezzanine, towards Science and Technology), so we have to get this right. All suggestions entertained.

Also...

Being obsessed with the stork population of Valladolid (did I mention the storks?) I decided to make everyone a stork picture to take home.
While I was busy with that I was oblivious to the conspiring and whispering and secret production of the most beautiful book of paintings; each student contributing a page. I love it to bits and will treasure it always. And if that wasn't enough, it was presented with musical accompaniment; Mila sang the stork song and clacked her spoons and the acoustics in the museum were amazing and it was an unforgettable end to a very memorable week.

Last Day of Ilustratour

It all feels a bit like a dream now, our week together in Valladolid. We had so much fun drawing and sharing ideas and pencil sharpeners and strange tapas. (Strange to me at least.)
Apart from our daily morning drawing games and collaborations, we also worked hard in the afternoons on individual children's book projects. I offered up my 99 cent Easy Spanish Phrase Book (published in 1958) for inspiration. We plucked about a dozen phrases:
Quiero comprar un paraguas = I want to buy an umbrella
Busco a mis amigos = I have lost my friends
Tengo hambre = I am hungry
Tengo prisa = I am in a hurry
etc
And from these incredibly simple sentences sprang 22 unbelievably imaginative stories.
I finished the week exhausted and happy and sad to leave and enormously inspired by working alongside such a wonderful group of people. Together we sprouted hundreds of beautiful images and hopefully we have all taken home the seeds of a hundred more.

Thank you Natalia for the flowers and Maria for the photo!
The sad empty room after everyone went home.
(Except when I went around the tables I saw the history of our week in doodles and color tests and Spanish/English translations and thumbnail sketches.)

Bosque

Ilustratour, part 4 continued...

Ilustratour, part 4

On Wednesday we considered patterns and clothing (amongst other things) and each made a paper garment or two, which we cut out and attached to la cuerda with las pinzas which Ellen (from Norway) was kind enough to procure (from the Chinese shop).
I brought in cookies for the afternoon, having failed to find a cake shop (I promised cake in the course description). The problem here is that all the shops open at 10 (when we begin class), close at 1:45 (we finish at 2), reopen at 5:30 and close at 8 (we finish around 7:30, which leaves half an hour to rush to a shop). The only place I could find that sold anything close to cake was a bizarre marshmallow shop with boxes of decorative but dry looking, nut encrusted biscuits. I had a feeling it might be like presenting the crowd with an old box of Nilla wafers. Instead they were greeted with joy, and Ainara told me they were regional delicacies made in her own village, and she described the process of painting the white ones with an icing coated brush, and the game you must play when eating them, of putting an entire cookie in your mouth and then attempting to recite some Spanish tongue twister, to the delight of your audience who is sprayed with biscuit crumbs.

Ilustratour, part 3 continued...

Ilustratour, part 3

This morning on our side of the "claustro" in the Museo Patio Herreriano (as opposed to Satoshi Kitamura's side...we sit in the wing just behind the giant king and queen), we dissected a 193os coloring book with glee.
Then we each made a picture around our scrap, of whatever came to mind. (I am still obsessed with the storks. Have I mentioned the storks?) It was fine fun. During morning break some people went outside for a "smoke and meat picnic"... nothing like a hunk of salami and a cigarette to get you going. Apparently.