author/illustrator interviews

author chat: alan woo on maggie’s chopsticks

~ jama ~ 23 Comments

I’m absolutely delighted to welcome Vancouver-based author, poet, champion noodle slurper and chopstick twirler Alan Woo to Alphabet Soup today!

Alan’s debut picture book, Maggie’s Chopsticks, illustrated by Isabelle Malenfant and published by Kids Can Press, has been receiving glowing reviews and well deserved blog love ever since its release in August.

In this charming, lyrically told story of self discovery, young Maggie learns how to use her new chopsticks as family members scold, laugh, and offer conflicting advice. She watches as each demonstrates the “right” way: Grandma’s “click-clack-clicketing” scrabble and shovel; Mother’s quick, sharp, flip, flop; Brother’s strong, sure grip; Sister’s graceful dancing sticks. Maggie tries and tries — twirling, circling, holding closer to the top, nearer the bottom, but they still say she’s doing it wrong. It’s only with Father’s gentle reassurance that Maggie finally finds her right way and is reminded that since each person is unique, it shouldn’t matter what other people think.

Hungry young readers will easily identify with Maggie’s struggle to master a new skill, enjoy meeting her colorful family, and cheer her victory. And yes, like me, they’ll likely drool at how Isabelle Malenfant, with her warm palette of vibrant reds and oranges, has set the family table with tantalizing Chinese food (cha siu bao! ha gau!), and love the winsome cat who licks its chops while waiting patiently for a piece of shrimp.

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♥ a yummy chat with author natasha lowe on the power of poppy pendle (+ a giveaway!) ♥

~ jama ~ 55 Comments
Coffee Cupcakes, anyone?

What could be sweeter than having a lovely lady bring you a tray of freshly baked cupcakes?

Please help me welcome debut author Natasha Lowe, who’s just published an indescribably delicious middle grade novel that I absolutely adore!

The Power of Poppy Pendle (Paula Wiseman/S&S, 2012) is about a girl with a passion for baking who inherits an extraordinary gift of magic. Poppy’s parents enroll her in Ruthersfield Academy, an exclusive school for witchcraft, with high hopes she’ll follow in the footsteps of her famous Great-Granny Mabel.

But Poppy is miserable. She’s teased mercilessly in school because she’d rather create new recipes than cast spells. She repeatedly tells her parents she doesn’t like magic but they just won’t listen. Frustrated and angry at being misunderstood, and unwilling to give up her dreams of becoming a master baker someday, Poppy takes matters into her own hands, misusing her magic powers to disastrous results.

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chatting about the goodbye cancer garden with janna matthies and kristi valiant (+ a special giveaway!)

~ jama ~ 47 Comments

Since October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I invited children’s author Janna Matthies and illustrator Kristi Valiant to tell us about their critically acclaimed picture book, The Goodbye Cancer Garden (Albert Whitman, 2011).

Kristi and Janna

This sensitively written, uplifting story is based on Janna’s personal battle against breast cancer and is an invaluable resource for families facing similar struggles. Without downplaying the seriousness of this life-threatening illness, the book illustrates the importance of focusing on the positive, acknowledging sadness and worry, expressing gratitude and sticking together.

In January, when Janie learns her mom has cancer and probably won’t be better until “pumpkin time,” she suggests the family plant a vegetable garden:

Watching it grow, and eating healthy veggies, will remind us Mom’s getting better. Then before we know it . . . Hello, pumpkins, goodbye cancer!

They continue to nurture their garden of hope and healing as Mom has surgery and endures chemo, hair loss, radiation, aches and fatigue. Step-by-step, day by day, they move toward their goal with the kindness and support of friends, relatives, and of course, each other. Their harvest time celebration, marking the end of treatment with a bounty of homegrown veggies, couldn’t be sweeter.

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♥ a tasty visit with nikki mcclure (+ a giveaway!) ♥

~ jama ~ 77 Comments
Originally self-published in 1997, this recipe gift book was released by Sasquatch Books in 2010.

For award-winning cut-paper artist Nikki McClure, the perfect day would likely start off with one of her husband Jay T’s homemade waffles. It would be topped with fresh fruit — foraged or farm market blackberries or neat slices of late summer nectarines. Or he might make his giant blueberry pancakes — pancakes that fill the whole pan, flipped with a giant spatula. Mmmm!

These nourishing, homemade mornings are an important part of Nikki’s inspiring, free-spirited lifestyle that’s marked by weekly visits to the farmers market, cooking, eating and playing outdoors with her son Finn, foraging for fruit, afternoon swims, astute observations of her rural environment, and hours of meditative work in her studio, where she captures the essence of bird, leaf, branch, sky, the turning of the seasons, and a myriad of other everyday wonders in her amazingly beautiful, intricate papercuts.

Nikki’s studio: working on her next book, HOW TO BE A CAT

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♥ an apple cake chat with julie paschkis ♥

~ jama ~ 54 Comments

Open the pages of Julie Paschkis’s charming new picture book, Apple Cake (Harcourt, 2012), and you’ll instantly fall in love.

That’s because Julie’s “Recipe for Love” contains the perfect ingredients: a dashing, ardent suitor named Alfonso, a beautiful, kind and brilliant bookworm named Ida, a sprinkling of magic, flights of fancy, and an irresistibly delicious made-from-the-heart cake.

Alfonso loves Ida but she never notices him despite his flamboyant bouquets and serenades:

So clever Alfonso makes Ida a special cake using butter from the sun, sugar scraped from a cloud, an egg from the highest tippy top nest, flour stars, and salt ladled from the sea. He stirs the batter by diving into the bowl himself, adds three wishes, and cooks the cake over fiery dragon’s breath. And Ida — nose-always-in-a-book Ida — smells the apple cake, takes a peek and finally looks at Alfonso!

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