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ENTRY TYPE:
WORK TITLE: Stella & Marigold
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: http://www.sophieblackall.com/
CITY: Brooklyn
STATE:
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: Australian
LAST VOLUME: SATA 397
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born in Australia; daughter of Simon Blackall (a journalist and publisher); immigrated to United States, 2000; married; children: two.
EDUCATION:University of Technology Sydney, Australia, bachelor’s degree, 1992.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Illustrator and author of books for children. Ambassador for Measles & Rubella Initiative. Consultant to Save the Children’s U.K. International Children’s Book Initiative. Designer of subway posters for New York City MTA’s Arts for Transit program, 2012; creator of holiday cards for Museum of Modern Art, beginning 2014; has taught at schools and workshops worldwide. Proprietor, with husband, of Milkwood, a literary retreat in upstate New York.
AWARDS:Ezra Jack Keats New Illustrator Award, 2003, for Ruby’s Wish by Shirin Yim Bridges; Society of Illustrators Founders Award, 2005; Notable Children’s Books designation, American Library Association (ALA), 2006, for Ivy and Bean by Annie Barrows; Ten Best Illustrated Children’s Books inclusion, New York Times, 2010, and ALA Notable Children’s Books designation, 2011, both for Big Red Lollipop by Rukhsana Kahn; Best Illustrated Children’s Book selection, New York Times, 2014, and ALA Notable Children’s Books designation, 2015, both for The Baby Tree; Best Illustrated Children’s Book designation, New York Times, 2015, for A Fine Dessert by Emily Jenkins; ALA Caldecott Medal, 2015, and Notable Children’s Books designation, 2016, both for Finding Winnie by Lindsay Mattick; New York Times Best Illustrated Children’s Books designation, 2016, for A Voyage in the Clouds by Matthew Olshan; Caldecott Medal, 2019, for Hello Lighthouse; Advance Australian Global Icon Award, 2020; appointed a Member of the Order of Australia, 2022.
WRITINGS
Creator and illustrator of the blog Mixed Connections.
SIDELIGHTS
A respected illustrator based in Brooklyn and the Catskills, New York, Sophie Blackall was honored with the prestigious Caldecott Medal in 2016 for Finding Winnie: The True Story of the World’s Most Famous Bear by Lindsay Mattick, and a second time in 2019 for her self-illustrated Hello Lighthouse. As part of her creative output, Blackall has drawn illustrations for stories by other authors, among them Judith Viorst’s And Two Boys Booed, Emily Jenkins’s A Fine Dessert: Four Centuries, Four Families, One Delicious Treat, John Bemelmans Marciano’s Runaway Rosa: A Twins Story, and Matthew Olshan’s A Voyage in the Clouds: The (Mostly) True Story of the First International Flight by Balloon in 1785.
Blackall grew up in Australia, where stories by Beatrix Potter and E.H. Shepard captured her young imagination. Deciding on her future career by age twelve, she studied design and developed her artistic techniques independently, painting signs and photo backdrops as well as creating spot art for magazines. She has been inspired by Japanese woodcuts and Chinese poster and graphic designs and works primarily in Chinese ink and watercolor, although her early illustrations also employed collage and opaque gouache. A move to the United States in 2000, which Blackall made accompanied by her husband and young children, coincided with her decision to expand her work in the picture-book medium.
As her picture-book career progressed, Blackall produced several self-illustrated works. In The Baby Tree she introduces a young boy who receives a host of increasingly confusing responses to his questions about his mother’s pregnancy. The characters’ “gently evasive half-answers enable Blackall to unleash her special brand of elegant, pokerfaced surrealism,” wrote a Publishers Weekly critic, while Elissa Gershowitz commented that her “Chinese ink and watercolor illustrations make the most of the narrator’s imaginative flights of fancy.” According to Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books critic Hope Morrison, in The Baby Tree, “Blackall effectively finds the sweet spot between practical and pleasant,” and the critic praised the work as a “lovely new addition to the sex education shelf.”
Set in China during the first part of the twentieth century, Shirin Yim Bridges’s story Ruby’s Wish was one of Blackall’s first illustration projects. In the story, a girl is encouraged by her wise grandfather to pursue her love of learning and eventually attend college. In a review of Ruby’s Wish, Jody McCoy wrote in School Library Journal that “the beauty of Asian art and motifs is captured page after page” in Blackall’s “exquisite” opaque watercolor illustrations. Another Asian-themed story, Deborah Noyes’s Red Butterfly: How a Princess Smuggled the Secrets of Silk out of China, uses Blackall’s delicate images to tell a story about a young girl who is sent from her father’s verdant lands to marry the king of a desert region. Blackall’s “splendid ink-and-watercolor illustrations” here “poignantly capture the princess’s leave-taking as well as details of palace life in images evocative of Chinese screen paintings,” wrote a Kirkus Reviews contributor.
Sibling rivalry is the focus of Big Red Lollipop, Rukhsana Kahn’s story about a little girl who overshadows her older sibling after inviting herself to a party. The author’s “honest, even moving, commentary” on sibling relationships in an immigrant family is captured “in Blackall’s spot-on illustrations,” according to Booklist critic Ilene Cooper, while a Publishers Weekly critic cited the “subtly textured” images as among the story’s strengths. In School Library Journal, Sara Lissa Paulson also bestowed special praise upon the art in Big Red Lollipop, noting that “the beauty of the muted tones and spareness of the illustrations” combine with “stylistic scattering of East Indian motifs” and a use of varied perspectives to make the work “priceless.”
Meg Rosoff’s humorous picture book Meet Wild Boars also benefits from Blackall’s artwork; her depiction of four “hulking, hairy boars … make a wonderful visual articulation of and counterpoint to Rosoff’s arch, mock-cautionary prose,” according to a Publishers Weekly contributor. “Roll-on-the-ground-in-laughter illustrations” bring to life an ill-mannered but “disgustingly delightful group,” asserted Cooper in an appraisal of the same work. The ill-behaved cast of characters returns in Wild Boars Cook, and here Rosoff’s wild and smelly creatures attempt to cook up a giant pudding big enough to satisfy their hunger—for a minute or so. The story’s “tongue-in-cheek text and the full-throttle hilarity of Blackall’s illustrations are a perfect match,” asserted Cooper. Also pairing the talents of Rosoff and Blackall, Jumpy Jack and Googily prompted a Publishers Weekly critic to comment that author and artist “make a waggish team … with Rossoff comically understating the obvious and Blackall providing visual punch lines.”
In Carol Diggory Shields’s humorous Wombat Walkabout, “Blackall uses a ‘less is more’ approach to the art that … allows readers to focus on the animals, their expressions, and the flora around them,” noted School Library Journal critic Catherine Callegari. A Kirkus Reviews writer hailed the “uncluttered, downright adorable watercolors” in Wombat Walkabout as a main strength of the “satisfying” picture book.
Blackall has also teamed with Olshan on two stories set in France. The Mighty Lalouche centers on an unemployed Parisian postal worker who takes up boxing to pay the rent, and A Voyage in the Clouds recounts the first manned balloon trip across the English Channel, a voyage by an egotistical British doctor and his equally vainglorious French partner. “Blackall’s signature watercolor illustrations … amp up the levity with humorous comic strips showcasing the balloonists’ over-the-top arguments,” wrote Sarah Hunter in Booklist. The artist employs a cut-paper collage technique in The Mighty Lalouche, producing what Laura Lutz described in School Library Journal as “eye-catching, textured, three-dimensional [images] … children will love poring over.”
A youngster overcomes stage fright as well as some rude hecklers in Viorst’s And Two Boys Booed. Several critics applauded Blackall’s lift-the-flap illustrations here, noting that they “pace the story and offer unexpected visual treats,” in the words of Horn Book contributor Elissa Gershowitz. Jenkins traces a culinary treat known as blackberry fool through four centuries in her picture book A Fine Dessert, and “Blackall’s elaborate, antique-like watercolor illustrations are stuffed with historical tidbits,” as Hunter explained in Booklist. Kiera Parrott remarked in School Library Journal that “ink and watercolor illustrations, accented with real blackberry juice, provide the details that both unify and differentiate the various historical periods.”
Mattick recounts the true story inspiring A.A. Milne’s beloved fictional character Winnie-the-Pooh in Finding Winnie. The work depicts the relationship between Harry Colebourn, a veterinarian tasked with caring for horses during World War I, and Winnie, the orphaned baby bear he rescued. “Washes of muted colors convey a cozy cheeriness that imbues the book with warmth and comfort,” Jody Kopple explained in School Library Journal, and Hunter remarked that “Blackall’s warm, beautiful gouache-and-ink illustrations capture an impressive depth of feeling.” According to Horn Book reviewer Thom Barthelmess, Mattick’s “evocative and playful language … [is] matched by the period warmth of Blackall’s still, balanced, and carefully composed images” for Finding Winnie.
The story continues in 2018’s Winnie’s Great War. The account relates the tale of a bear who traveled from the wilds of Canada to the London Zoo, where it was put to work during World War I and also became the inspiration for A.A. Milne’s Winnie the Pooh character. The book is narrated by the great-great-grandson of Harry Colebourn and relates Winnie’s personality and adventures around Europe.
A contributor to Kirkus Reviews commented that her illustrations “are sublime as always and will make readers wish that there were more of them.” The same critic found the book to be “a charming addition to Pooh lore.” A Publishers Weekly contributor mentioned that “Colebourn and Winnie’s strong friendship, rendered believably and movingly, is the emotional heart of the story.”
(open new)Another true story inspires the Blackall-illustrated Forces of Nature: A Novel of Rachel Carson. Written by Ann E. Burg, the book profiles Carson, the pioneering environmentalist and author. It follows young Carson, as she attends Johns Hopkins University and overcomes gender discrimination to finally gain respect in the male-dominated sciences. It summarizes Carson’s masterpiece, Silent Spring, and highlights its significance. A writer in Publishers Weekly praised the “delicate and realistically rendered b&w illustrations of birds, flowers, and insects by Blackall.” A Kirkus Reviews critic described the book as “a convincing and charming portrayal of a woman who made a difference.”(close new—more below)
In her work as an illustrator, Blackall has brought to life Annie Barrows’s easy-reading “Ivy and Bean” chapter books, which focus on second-grade best friends. Writing that the art in Ivy and Bean “captures the girls’ spirit,” Cooper added that these images “take … the book to a higher level.” Appraising Ivy and Bean and the Ghost That Had to Go for School Library Journal, Adrienne Furness cited Blackall’s “expressive illustrations,” and Sharon R. Pearce wrote in the same periodical that these “humorous drawings add to the fun” of Barrows’s story in Ivy and Bean Break the Fossil Record. In Ivy and Bean Take Care of the Babysitter, Blackall’s gently tinted ink-drawn images “capture the mood and carefree attitude” of the tale, according to School Library Journal critic Krista Tokarz.
Blackall illustrated Barrows’s Ivy and Bean: One Big Happy Family in 2018, the eleventh book in the series. Ivy is concerned that she may become spoiled since she is an only child. To counter this, she overcompensates with generosity by giving away her clothing. Bean then steps in with a solution to Ivy’s concerns. After Ivy’s mom refuses to have another baby, Bean attempts to bring to life a baby doll so Ivy won’t be an only child any longer. The girls try many different approaches, including charging the doll with a phone charger and asking the gods of the local park to help them. Reviewing the book in Horn Book, Julie Roach observed that “Blackall’s black-and-white spot art deftly captures and builds on the characters’ distinct personalities and the story’s humor.” In Ivy and Bean Get to Work!, the two girls are inspired to become treasure hunters when they learn of an upcoming career fair. They find various items in their yards and present them to their class. School Library Journal writer Amy Lilien-Harper suggested: “Characters are fully realized with age-appropriate thoughts, actions, and attitudes.”
(open new)Blackall and Barrows also collaborated on another series, “Stella and Marigold,” which focuses on a pair of sisters. In the first installment in the series, also called Stella Marigold, older sister Stella and little sister Marigold have a different adventure in each chapter, always involving some form of make-believe. In one, the sisters’ pretend play results in a very real clogged sink. In another, they visit the zoo and make believe that they are lost. Carolyn Phelan, contributor to Booklist, commented: “Often amusing and sometimes endearing, it’s a promising start for the ‘Stella & Marigold’ series.” “The book is a little subversive in the best children’s literature tradition,” suggested Sarah Ellis in Horn Book.(close new—more below)
Blackall illustrated John Bemelmans Marciano’s Respect Your Ghosts in 2017. Nine-year-old Sergio is not known for being a particularly smart kid, yet he manages to figure out a solution to a 137-year-old conflict between two ghosts. After losing the diapers that he was supposed to wash in the river, Sergio is punished by his mother, who sends him to the attic to spend time with Bis-Bis, the ghost of a distant relative who died in an earthquake in 1688. Sergio needs to find a way to get back on his mother’s good side, so he decides to help reunite her with her cousin, Zia Carozzo. The problem is that the Carozzo family’s house spirit and Bis-Bis had a fight many years ago, leading to this estrangement, meaning that Sergio will have to sort through this family-ghost drama. A contributor to Kirkus Reviews described it as being “a droll picture of life yesteryear in a—seemingly—ordinary Italian town.” The reviewer found Blackall’s drawings to be “expressive.”
For Kate DiCamillo’s The Beatryce Prophecy, Blackall illustrated the story of a young girl named Beatryce, who is discovered dirty, ill, and suffering from amnesia in the barn of a monastery, accompanied by a goat named Answelica. Set in an alternative medieval world, the plot follows Beatryce as she goes on a journey to find out who she is and what has happened to her. Julia Smith, contributor to Booklist, noted that the book “includes many glorious black-and-white illustrations by Blackall that one can easily envision stitched upon a tapestry.” A Publishers Weekly reviewer stated that it was “tenderly illuminated by Caldecott Medalist Blackall’s atmospheric, fine-lined b&w art.”
Among her self-illustrated writings, Blackall published Hello Lighthouse in 2018. The book looks into the life of a lighthouse keeper and his wife. His work at the lighthouse is covered, and the personal touches and milestones of the couple’s personal lives give another dimension to living at the lighthouse. As this way of living comes to an end, the keeper and his family are disheartened to hear that a mechanical light will be installed.
A Publishers Weekly contributor called the book “a jewel of a creation and a gift to those who dream of retreat.” The same reviewer found many of the spreads to be “delicate as painted porcelain.” Writing in BookPage, Julie Danielson remarked that “Blackall’s text, capturing years but never rushed, flows rhythmically like so many ocean waves lapping the rocks.” In a review in Horn Book, Martha V. Parravano noticed that “Blackall’s gorgeous illustrations are a mix of homey detail (especially in the interior cutaways of the lighthouse) and spectacular scenery.” A contributor to Kirkus Reviews labeled the book “a fascinating, splendidly executed peek into both the mundane and the dramatic aspects of lighthouse life.” Booklist contributor Sarah Hunter insisted that the illustrator’s “charmingly old-fashioned art style is beautifully matched to this nostalgia-rich story, which imbues an antiquated place with warmth and wonder.”
In her 2020 picture book, If You Come to Earth, Blackall serves up a visual guide to the planet we all share. Written ostensibly by young and curious Quinn, the book is in essence a letter to any alien life forms that might want to visit Earth. Quinn hopes to show such potential visitors what Earth is like, and over the ensuing eighty pages readers are treated to a heavenly view of the planet, a zoom back in to look at the geography and topography of Earth, and further details about where and how people live and what they do. Families, clothing, careers, transportation, and ASL and Braille alphabets are featured in this cornucopia of details about life on planet Earth. “Throughout, diverse people are distinctively, carefully portrayed, emphasizing representation and visibility,” according to a Kirkus Reviews critic, who added: “Blackall balances eye-catching double-page spreads with white space, even focusing on a single powerful image. … Each rich illustration invites return visits to investigate all the small, and big, details it contains.”
Others also had praise for If You Come to Earth. Writing in Booklist, Lucinda Whitehurst lauded the artwork, noting that the “ink-and-watercolor art … is vivid, delicate, and precise.” Whitehurst further commented: “As a two-time Caldecott winner, Blackall is deservedly celebrated, and here she pairs her accomplished artwork with a story children will want to read and a message that resonates. This is one to take your time with, savor, and share with others.” Similarly, a Children’s Bookwatch website contributor remarked: “Delightful and varied skin tones warmed with classic Blackall-style rosy cheeks are a gorgeous depiction of global humanity. There’s so much to take in, and it’s all designed and laid out to perfection. If You Come to Earth is incredibly heartwarming and highly recommended!” An online Publishers Weekly reviewer was also impressed with If You Come to Earth, terming the artwork “dazzling,” and further calling it a book “that can be shared with strangers, visitors, friends old and new—a work in which differences build to reveal an inclusive human family on a single, precious planet.” Online Horn Book contributor Sarah Ellis likewise commented: “The robust subtext is diversity in all the usual areas as well as quirkier ones, such as all the different ways humans can arrange our legs to sit comfortably on a picnic blanket. Sweet, funny, moving, timely, and beautiful.” And writing in the New York Times online, Dave Eggars noted of If You Come to Earth: “It’s far and away the best work she’s done. … No detail escapes Blackall’s attention, though; close reading is richly rewarded. … Though its scope is expansive, If You Come to Earth feels, in the end, intimate.”
In an interview in the online Seven Impossible Things before Breakfast, Blackall remarked that If You Come to Earth was seven years in the making. “It was a very long gestation. Out of curiosity, I just went back to look at the first draft for If You Come to Earth. Most of my manuscripts go through significant metamorphoses and are almost unrecognizable from initial to final drafts, but the funny thing is: This first draft is almost identical to the finished book. … But heavens to Betsy, those drawings took years.” Blackall further commented: “It was a rather ambitious idea—to try to explain the world in a picture book. And I quickly realized, even with eighty pages (EIGHTY!), it would be impossible to include everything. So, I decided that this is one kid’s description of life on Earth. They will leave things out. And maybe the omissions will inspire other kids to think about what they would include in a letter to a visitor from another planet, explaining the world.” In a Booktopia online interview, Blackall remarked on the inspiration for this ambitious picture book: “The idea for If You Come to Earth arrived on top of a Himalayan mountain in Bhutan. I was working with Save the Children and had climbed a zig-zagging path to reach a tiny two-room school with ten students. We couldn’t understand a word each other said, but the children drew pictures for me and shared their lunch, and I showed them some books. I have made books about boars and babies and bears and lighthouses, but what I wanted in that moment was a book that would bring us together. A book about their home and mine.”
In Negative Cat, a child’s parents finally give him a cat after over a year of requesting one. The child is initially disappointed when the cat acts out and turns out to love what the child despises—reading. Eventually, the cat and the child learn how to connect and enjoy each other’s company. A contributor to Kirkus Reviews described the volume as “a humorous tale in which everyone gets what they want—even a negative cat!”
Blackall’s 2022 book, Farmhouse, was inspired by an old, crumbling house on the property she and her husband purchased in upstate New York. Blackall described the book in an interview with Sophie Blackall, stating: “It’s a great, big, long, drawn-out book and it’s all one sentence, and I think that was in my head. It’s a gallop, you just keep going, and it’s life. You realize the stories don’t end, they just keep going, and they’re all overlapping, like the wallpaper, and the connecting rooms, and the one long sentence.” The book focuses on a family of twelve children, who grow up and leave the farmhouse one by one. Some of the images in the book feature elements of items that Blackall collected while exploring in the house on her land. In an interview with a writer on the Musing website, Blackall stated: “As my piles of things grew, I realized I could use these actual materials to make the pictures, that the fabric and wallpaper and pages from school books could be used to build the house in the book. And that I could make the experience of reading this book feel as close as possible to the experience of being in the farmhouse.” A Kirkus Reviews critic called the book “a lovely, tender reimagining of people in a long-past time and place.” Sarah Hunter, reviewer in Booklist, asserted: “The large and vibrant family at the heart of the story, the detail-packed artwork, the touching inside glimpse at the artist’s process, and the lilting verses are irresistible even without a wider knowledge of the world outside the house so lovingly memorialized here.”
(open new)In If I Was a Horse, a picture book written an illustrated by Blackall, a child muses on what life would be like if they were a horse. The child imagines what they would eat and determines that they would not normally wear clothes or take a bath. They consider what it would be like to be a horse on the swim team and to take their sister for a ride to school. A contributor to Kirkus Reviews praised “the colorful, sweet, gently humorous illustrations.” “Charming and whimsical visual surprises are found throughout the impeccably designed pages,” suggested Linda Ludke in Booklist.
Ahoy! finds an adult joining a child in an elaborate imaginary scene in which they are part of a ship’s crew. The two endure a rough ride as the ship goes through a storm. They take a break when real life interrupts, but they resume their play and fight off a giant squid, which is actually a vacuum cleaner. A Kirkus Reviews writer remarked: “Blackall slips with ease between fantasy and reality, and young readers will have oodles of fun.” Martha V. Parravano, critic in Horn Book, described the volume as “brilliantly constructed” and asserted: “Blackall excels at setting the stage for the imaginary play.”
In an interview with Roger Sutton, contributor to the Horn Book website, Blackall discussed the inspiration behind Ahoy!, stating: “Ahoy! began, strangely, with a drawing that I didn’t intend to turn into a book. It was a standalone drawing that I did because the author and illustrator Ruth Chan made me do a horrible draw-off—one of those competitive things where people throw prompts at you, and you have to draw in a minute. They’re torture for illustrators unless you’re someone like Paul Zelinsky. I drew these blobby people; they appeared on the page, and I had no idea how they got there.” She continued: “I had no idea about a book for them; that was not something I was thinking about. Then, in the throes of many, many sleepless nights after Nick, father of my children, died, I was trying to send my mind anywhere that was less dark and sad. I began trying to invent a story for these blobby people, and they kept wanting to be in this story that crossed back and forth between fantasy and reality.” Remarking on her intentions for readers of the book, Blackall told Sutton: “Hopefully, it’s the kind of book that we want to keep when we’re growing up because the adventures we had in our minds when we were reading are somehow integrated in the physical pages, and you want to keep it on your shelf when you’re old. That’s a handful of books for me. I think that those of us in this industry all have our handful of books that we keep on our shelves forever. I hope that this is that kind of book, and that it is fun to go back and see that the socks become the seagulls.”(close new)
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, November 15, 2002, Linda Perkins, review of Ruby’s Wish, p. 608; March 15, 2005, Ilene Cooper, review of Meet Wild Boars, p. 1287; April 1, 2006, Ilene Cooper, review of Ivy and Bean, p. 42; April 15, 2006, Hazel Rochman, review of Summer Is Summer, p. 51; October 15, 2006, Ilene Cooper, review of Ivy and Bean and the Ghost That Had to Go, p. 44; July 1, 2007, Kay Weisman, review of Ivy and Bean Break the Fossil Record, p. 58; September 1, 2007, Ilene Cooper, review of What’s So Bad about Being an Only Child?, p. 130; February 1, 2010, Ilene Cooper, review of Big Red Lollipop, p. 44; August 1, 2010, Hazel Rochman, review of Pecan Pie Baby, p. 61; June 1, 2013, Ilene Cooper, review of The Mighty Lalouche, p. 75; May 1, 2014, Maryann Owen, review of The Baby Tree, p. 100; September 15, 2014, Thom Barthelmess, review of And Two Boys Booed, p. 58; December 15, 2014, Sarah Hunter, review of A Fine Dessert: Four Centuries, Four Families, One Delicious Treat, p. 59; September 1, 2015, Sarah Hunter, review of Finding Winnie: The True Story of the World’s Most Famous Bear and interview with Blackall, both p. 116; March 15, 2016, Sarah Hunter, review of Mischief Season: A Twins Story, p. 62; September 1, 2016, Sarah Hunter, review of A Voyage in the Clouds: The (Mostly) True Story of the First International Flight by Balloon in 1785, p. 117; February 1, 2018, Sarah Hunter, review of Hello Lighthouse, p. 61; July 1, 2020, Lucinda Whitehurst, review of If You Come to Earth, p. 73; May 15, 2021, Julia Smith, review of The Beatryce Prophecy, p. 56; September 1, 2022, Sarah Hunter, “Excavating the Past: Sophie Blackall’s Latest Picture Book Is a Genuine Charmer, But There’s Subtle Depth Here, Too,” review of Farmhouse, p. 67; August 1, 2023, Linda Ludke, review of If I Was a Horse, p. 59; August, 2024, Carolyn, Phelan, review of Stella and Marigold, p. 62.
BookPage, April 1, 2018, Julie Danielson, review of Hello Lighthouse, p. 30.
Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books, October 1, 2002, review of Ruby’s Wish, p. 49; June 1, 2006, Deborah Stevenson, review of Ivy and Bean, p. 440; September 1, 2014, Hope Morrison, review of The Baby Tree, p. 9.
Communication Arts, July 1, 2007, Maria Piscopo, “Getting Published—Myth or Reality?”
Horn Book, July 1, 2008, Jennifer M. Brabander, review of Ivy and Bean Take Care of the Babysitter, p. 438; March 1, 2009, Robin L. Smith, review of Wombat Walkabout, p. 187; January 1, 2010, Jennifer M. Brabander, review of Ivy and Bean: Doomed to Dance, p. 80; May 1, 2013, Sarah Ellis, review of The Mighty Lalouche, p. 69; May 1, 2014, Elissa Gershowitz, review of The Baby Tree, p. 58; September 1, 2014, Elissa Gershowitz, review of And Two Boys Booed, p. 98; January 1, 2015, Joanna Rudge Long, review of A Fine Dessert, p. 66; September 1, 2015, Thom Barthelmess, review of Finding Winnie, p. 129; July 1, 2016, Sophie Blackall, transcript of Caldecott Medal acceptance speech; March 1, 2018, Martha V. Parravano, review of Hello Lighthouse, p. 62; November 1, 2018, Julie Roach, review of Ivy and Bean: One Big Happy Family, p. 75; March-April, 2024, Martha V. Parravano, review of Ahoy!, p. 58; September-October, 2024, Sarah Ellis, review of Stella and Marigold, p. 69.
Kirkus Reviews, August 15, 2002, review of Ruby’s Wish, p. 1217; April 15, 2005, review of Meet Wild Boars, p. 481; May 1, 2006, review of Ivy and Bean, p. 454; May 15, 2006, review of Summer Is Summer, p. 518; September 15, 2006, review of Ivy and Bean and the Ghost That Had to Go, p. 946; June 1, 2007, review of Ivy and Bean Break the Fossil Record; October 1, 2007, review of Red Butterfly: How a Princess Smuggled the Secrets of Silk out of China; April 15, 2008, review of Jumpy Jack and Googily; February 15, 2009, review of Wombat Walkabout; April 1, 2014, review of The Baby Tree; July 15, 2014, review of And Two Boys Booed; July 15, 2015, review of Finding Winnie; January 15, 2017, review of Respect Your Ghosts; February 15, 2018, review of Hello Lighthouse; August 1, 2018, review of Winnie’s Great War; July 15, 2020, review of If You Come to Earth; July 1, 2021, review of Negative Cat; July 1, 2022, review of Farmhouse; August 1, 2023, review of If I Was a Horse;February 1, 2024, review of Force of Nature: A Novel of Rachel Carson; February 15, 2024, review of Ahoy!
Publishers Weekly, August 19, 2002, review of Ruby’s Wish, p. 88; March 28, 2005, review of Meet Wild Boars, p. 78; May 15, 2006, review of Ivy and Bean, p. 72; October 1, 2007, review of What’s So Bad about Being an Only Child?, p. 56; November 19, 2007, review of Red Butterfly, p. 56; May 26, 2008, review of Jumpy Jack and Googily, p. 65; July 14, 2008, review of Wild Boars Cook, p. 65; January 5, 2009, review of Wombat Walkabout, p. 48; March 1, 2010, review of Big Red Lollipop, p. 49; September 27, 2010, review of Pecan Pie Baby, p. 59; March 10, 2014, review of The Baby Tree, p. 63; June 23, 2014, review of And Two Boys Booed, p. 156; October 20, 2014, review of A Fine Dessert, p. 51; January 22, 2015, Sally Lodge, author interview; July 20, 2015, review of Finding Winnie, p. 195; January 25, 2016, review of Mischief Season, p. 208; August 15, 2016, review of A Voyage in the Clouds, p. 70; January 22, 2018, review of Hello Lighthouse, p. 84; June 4, 2018, review of Winnie’s Great War, p. 53; June 14, 2021, review of Negative Cat, p. 72; July 19, 2021, review of The Beatryce Prophecy, p. 216; January 15, 2024, review of Force of Nature, p. 78.
School Library Journal, February 1, 2003, Jody McCoy, review of Ruby’s Wish, p. 102; July 1, 2005, Mary Elam, review of Meet Wild Boars, p. 82; June 1, 2006, Marge Loch-Wouters, review of Summer Is Summer, p. 122; July 1, 2006, Eve Ottenberg Stone, review of Ivy and Bean, p. 68; February 1, 2007, Adrienne Furness, review of Ivy and Bean and the Ghost That Had to Go, p. 84; July 1, 2007, Sharon R. Pearce, review of Ivy and Bean Break the Fossil Record, p. 67; May 1, 2008, Rachael Vilmar, review of Jumpy Jack and Googily, p. 107; August 1, 2008, Judith Constantinides, review of Wild Boars Cook, p. 101; January 1, 2010, Sarah Polace, review of Ivy and Bean: Doomed to Dance, p. 68; March 1, 2010, Sara Lissa Paulson, review of Big Red Lollipop, p. 120; October 1, 2010, Mary N. Oluonye, review of Pecan Pie Baby, p. 97; April 1, 2013, Laura Lutz, review of The Mighty Lalouche, p. 138; April 1, 2014, Amy Shepherd, review of The Baby Tree, p. 112; December 1, 2014, Kiera Parrott, review of A Fine Dessert, p. 103; September 1, 2015, Maria Salvadore, review of The Baby Tree, p. 56; August 1, 2015, Jody Kopple, review of Finding Winnie, p. 122; October 1, 2016, April Sanders, review of A Voyage in the Clouds, p. 82; May, 2021, Amy Lilien-Harper, review of Ivy and Bean Get to Work!, p. 72.
ONLINE
Booktopia, https://www.booktopia.com.au/ (January 12, 2021), “Ten Terrifying Questions with Sophie Blackall!”
Brain Pickings, https://www.brainpickings.org/ (February 4, 2019), Maria Popova, author interview.
Children’s Book Review, https://www.thechildrensbookreview.com/ (September 15, 2020), review of If You Come to Earth.
Horn Book Online, https://www.hbook.com/ (October 5, 2020), Sarah Ellis, review of If You Come to Earth; (March 12, 2024), Roger Sutton, author interview.
Measles and Rubella Initiative, https://measlesrubellainitiative.org/ (February 4, 2019), author profile.
Musing, https://parnassusmusing.net/ (August 24, 2022), author interview.
New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/ (October 31, 2020), Dave Eggers, “In Times of Crisis, Life-Affirming Picture Books,” review of If You Come to Earth.
Print, https://www.printmag.com/ (May 24, 2022), Steven Heller, author interview.
Publishers Weekly, http://www.publishersweekly.com/ (January 12, 2016), Natasha Gilmore, author interview; (July 9, 2020), review of If You Come to Earth; (September 8, 2022), Antonia Saxon, author interview.
Seven Impossible Things before Breakfast, http://blaine.org/ (October 5, 2020), “If You Come to Earth: A Conversation with Sophie Blackall;” (September 12, 2022), author interview.
Sophie Blackall website, https://www.sophieblackall.com (March 6, 2025).
Sophie Blackall, AM is an award-winning illustrator of over 50 books for children, including the New York Times best-selling Ivy and Bean series, the 2016 Caldecott Medal winner, Finding Winnie and the 2019 Caldecott Medal winner, Hello Lighthouse, which she also wrote. She is the five-time recipient of The New York Times Best Illustrated Picture Book Award and has worked with UNICEF and Save the Children, UK on global health and literacy initiatives. Originally from Australia, she now splits her time between Brooklyn, New York, and the Catskill Mountains, where she and her husband run a retreat for the children’s book community called Milkwood Farm.
Instagram: @sophieblackall
Twitter: @sophieblackall
Facebook: Sophie-Blackall
QUOTED: "Ahoy! began, strangely, with a drawing that I didn’t intend to turn into a book. It was a standalone drawing that I did because the author and illustrator Ruth Chan made me do a horrible draw-off — one of those competitive things where people throw prompts at you, and you have to draw in a minute. They’re torture for illustrators unless you’re someone like Paul Zelinsky. I drew these blobby people; they appeared on the page, and I had no idea how they got there."
"I had no idea about a book for them; that was not something I was thinking about. Then, in the throes of many, many sleepless nights after Nick, father of my children, died, I was trying to send my mind anywhere that was less dark and sad. I began trying to invent a story for these blobby people, and they kept wanting to be in this story that crossed back and forth between fantasy and reality."
"Hopefully, it’s the kind of book that we want to keep when we're growing up because the adventures we had in our minds when we were reading are somehow integrated in the physical pages, and you want to keep it on your shelf when you're old. That’s a handful of books for me. I think that those of us in this industry all have our handful of books that we keep on our shelves forever. I hope that this is that kind of book, and that it is fun to go back and see that the socks become the seagulls."
Sophie Blackall Talks with Roger
by Roger Sutton
Mar 12, 2024 | Filed in Authors & Illustrators
Talks with Roger is a sponsored supplement to our free monthly e-newsletter, Notes from the Horn Book. To receive Notes, sign up here.
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I sternly cautioned my old friend Sophie Blackall that there would be no talking-like-pirates in our conversation about Ahoy!, the two-time Caldecott Medalist’s new picture book about an afternoon of imaginary play engaging a child, a parent, and a very nervous cat on the living room carpet the high seas. But talking with Sophie is itself an exercise in imaginative play, with no need for arrghs or mateys.
Roger Sutton: Where did Ahoy! come from?
Sophie Blackall: Ahoy! began, strangely, with a drawing that I didn’t intend to turn into a book. It was a standalone drawing that I did because the author and illustrator Ruth Chan made me do a horrible draw-off — one of those competitive things where people throw prompts at you, and you have to draw in a minute. They’re torture for illustrators unless you’re someone like Paul Zelinsky. I drew these blobby people; they appeared on the page, and I had no idea how they got there. I posted them on Instagram, and my dear friend Anne Schwartz [publisher of Anne Schwartz Books at Random House] said, “I like these fellows. If you ever want to make a book with them, let me know.”
I had no idea about a book for them; that was not something I was thinking about. Then, in the throes of many, many sleepless nights after Nick, father of my children, died, I was trying to send my mind anywhere that was less dark and sad. I began trying to invent a story for these blobby people, and they kept wanting to be in this story that crossed back and forth between fantasy and reality. It was frustrating because the thing that I loved about them — their blobbiness — didn't have any continuity: they were not tight and detailed the way my drawings usually are. They had this free flowing, unpredictable shape. The very idea of having to draw them again and again and again in any kind of format was an antithesis to their nature. And yet, this was the story they needed to be in.
RS: I was looking at that scene with the lighthouse — when the parent and child on the rug come across the lighthouse. On the next spread, we see another parent, maybe Dad, dressed in red and white stripes, the colors of the lighthouse. It gave me such a chuckle because it’s so offhandedly portrayed. The book in general has this improvised quality to it that echoes the parent and child’s imaginary adventure on the living room rug. I see little jokes pop off the page here and there, and I wondered, when does stuff like that occur to you? How carefully do you plan that? How much of it is improvising along the way, and how much do you know from the beginning?
SB: That is a great question, and this is an annoying answer, but it changes for every book and changes along the way. Some of those things feel fairly clear from the outset, and they end up becoming part of the book. And then there are other things you begin and hope that you're going to find some sort of structure to prop you up and support whatever crazy idea you're pursuing. I did think about how you would set about making a ship with the things in your house. Are those things that most people would have in their house? And what are the most fun variations of those things? And toilet paper is always fun. The second parent as lighthouse came in early on. I abandoned it for a while because I resisted the idea of that second parent who is perhaps not the full-time stay-at-home parent or primary parent.
RS: “Honey, I’m home!”
SB: Exactly. The parent who comes home and is suddenly the fun parent because the parent who's been there all day is boring at that point. Or the other way around: the parent who's been at home is beloved and the other one is chastised for being at work. And yet, these characters needed that homecoming. It's an odyssey of a story, and they had to come home. Home is whoever is there waiting for you.
RS: You can go home again.
SB: I did want it to be the kind of book that kids will return to. That is my goal with every book that I make, to make a book that invites repeat readings and new discoveries and rewards a returning reader. Hopefully, it’s the kind of book that we want to keep when we're growing up because the adventures we had in our minds when we were reading are somehow integrated in the physical pages, and you want to keep it on your shelf when you're old. That’s a handful of books for me. I think that those of us in this industry all have our handful of books that we keep on our shelves forever. I hope that this is that kind of book, and that it is fun to go back and see that the socks become the seagulls.
RS: You’d think that would be the first thing you’d want to evaluate about a picture book: “Can I reread this?” As both a caregiver and a child. Years ago in the 1990s, I interviewed Jane Botham for School Library Journal. She was coordinator of children's services at Milwaukee Public Library, and she talked about the difference between books you need in the library and books you need at home. This was during the big picture-book boom of the late eighties and nineties when lots of very glossy, beautiful, but kind of empty picture books were being sold. Jane said that a lot of those books were great, but they're only great once. They look like gift books, but don't ever give them as gifts because they're going to be forgotten after the child goes through them once.
SB: One of the nicest things to hear is a grownup saying that they’ve taken a book out from the library a dozen times, and now they're buying their own copy to keep at home. I love the fact that books are in libraries, they're getting read by multiple people — the books are going into all these different homes — and then they’re going back on the shelves. They have this life of their own. But then even after those readings, that they want to own a copy is a high compliment. It's a very nice thing.
RS: What is a picture book you can’t let go of?
SB: The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes. Do you know this book?
RS: No.
SB: Oh, Roger! It's by DuBose Heywood and Marjorie Flack. It was written in 1939 and is arguably one of the earliest feminist picture books. A little brown country bunny becomes the fifth Easter Bunny. It has this extraordinary defiance; it's a wonderful book. It shows that you can be a mother and have a career; it shows that being an artist is a viable, valid way of spending your days. All those things were profoundly influential to me when I was a kid.
RS: That wouldn't have meant anything to you as a young child, but it's like it predicted the future.
SB: Well, I think it did even then. There are twenty-one little rabbits, and the mother gives them all jobs. She's a single parent, and the only way she can be the Easter Bunny is if she teaches the kids to look after themselves and make them self-sufficient. She gives them all jobs, which keeps the house running. She gives paints and brushes to two of them, and that is as valid a job as putting food on the table. I felt like, Yes! I can do this!
RS: How did you balance having young children and working?
SB: Ah, with great joy and difficulty. I was reminding my twenty-four-year-old son, Eggy, recently about the time I was on an editorial call, and he was ramming my legs under the table in a makeshift cardboard-box car. I was trying to keep my composure and a steady voice. He only drew on my work once. It was a double-page-spread painting that had taken me three days to complete; he found a Sharpie and drew all over it. I was so horrified and exhausted. He was only three, and he was so chastened.
RS: He's never opened a book since.
SB: I know. I'm single handedly responsible for just killing his artistic spirit. Crushing the poor little thing.
RS: I love in Ahoy! that the parent is busy cleaning and trying to vacuum and doesn’t want anything to do with whatever's going on in the corner with the kid and the furniture and the toilet paper. Then the kid says they’ll need a map. And the parent, suddenly interested, says, “Oh, I could draw the map.”
SB: “I could do that.”
RS: A real engagement with the child comes in. It’s not a parent indulging a child’s imaginative play.
SB: That felt very much like when my older child, Olive, would force me to play with them when they were small. I used to take on the roles that would be akin to napping. So, if they wanted to be the doctor, I would willingly be the patient if I could lie down and keep my eyes closed. They could slather me with lotions and bandages. I was fine with that. But if I had to take an active, inventive role, I’d think, Oh, no, don’t make me! I loved it when I was a kid, though. And I still love seeing kids who are that in their heads.
Another part of the inspiration for Ahoy! was watching two kids at a pool in our upstate New York town. They were two sisters, maybe nine and twelve. The twelve-year-old was on that precipice of puberty, on the last edge of childhood. They were playing a survival game in the pool, and it had as many dramatic twists and turns as Homer’s Odyssey. There were mermaids and ogres and sirens — all kinds of things. The girls had secret powers: they could be invisible if they put on their goggles, but only for a minute. There were so many rules, and I was madly eavesdropping and writing it all down. I saw the same sisters a year later, and the older sister was sunbathing, taking selfies on the edge of the pool; the younger sister was still playing, but she was on her own. You could see this trajectory of childhood, with all the poignancy of that imaginative play. I thought, How do we harness that as grownups? For me at least, that's what reading is for. It is to immerse yourself in that other world and use our imaginative powers to color in how people look and what the room looks like, the landscape and everything else. That full immersion when you're reading doesn't happen so much to me anymore in this contemporary life of constant bombardment and interruptions.
RS: Do you still have your illustrators’ commune in Brooklyn? (Not to mention Milkwood, your retreat for the children’s book community in New York State.)
SB: We certainly do.
RS: I’ve wondered how you all create in the same space. You need to ignore one another as much as you need to talk to one another, right?
SB: Brian Floca and I have joked for years that we’ve built our retirement home. Brian, Johnny Marciano, and I have now been in the space together for thirteen years. It's a long time. The number of books that have been made in that studio and the Caldecott announcements that we've all been there for...Doug Salati’s last year for Hot Dog — he's our youngest member, our shining hope for the future. To be there for his celebration and success was wonderful. We were all so invested in Hot Dog from its earliest days.
Having a shared studio like that is not for everyone. Some people say, as you suggested, “I can't imagine being creative and coming up with ideas if other people are in the space with me, I have to be alone.” But we have found a way. We have rules. Nobody plays music there. We don’t take phone calls in the room. I ran home to Zoom with you. We have little signals for “Is it okay to talk right now because I just got this email that I have to share with you all” or “I'm completely stuck on this page turn and I can't tell if this is genius or the worst idea ever.” We are one another's first readers a lot of the time. We're there through every stage of the books. During COVID I made a couple of books away from the studio, and I missed it. I missed having these trusted colleagues to talk through the entire process with. My editors Susan Rich and Anne Schwartz both know that as much as I’m working closely with them on a book, I'm also throwing ideas to the studio. I'll come back and say, “Brian had this idea for the ending, and I think he's right, damn it.” That was the case with Farmhouse. And they all had good ideas for Ahoy! I think that's one of the hardest things with a picture book: to have a satisfying ending that is not heavy-handed, not too saccharine or sentimental. That, as we said before, makes you want to read it again. Leaves some things unanswered.
RS: A note on the copyright page says that this book was created digitally. Have you been doing that a lot?
SB: I have been doing more of that. And one of the things that I’m interested in as I get older is surprising myself. I thought I would be one of the last holdouts to embrace digital media. And if I did embrace it, I would always be slightly embarrassed. Or I wouldn't want to confess to it. But I'm finding ways of using Procreate that allow me to do things I could never do with physical brushes and paints. I will never stop loving the tactile experience of painting by hand and having that finished painting. Like a former studio-mate, Sergio Ruzzier, I collect paper ephemera — I'm a complete sucker for aged paper and discolored paint and watermarks and all those things. Yet, I have completely surprised myself by embracing and thrilling to this uncharted territory. I could have kept making the kinds of books that I was making happily, but it's exciting to be making some slightly different kinds of books.
RS: I noticed when I was reading Ahoy! on my monitor, which is quite big, that I could zoom in and zoom out, and it occurred to me that in creating the illustrations, you have the same powers, which is very different from working on a piece of paper or a piece of canvas, right?
SB: Yes, exactly. And that can be paralyzing.
RS: When do you stop?
SB: Right. My mentor in the digital illustration world is LeUyen Pham. We were at some conference or book festival together, and LeUyen said to me, Brian Floca, and Vera Brosgol, “Give me ten minutes, and I will change your life.” Who could resist that? Even though I’m very happy with my life, I don't really need to change it. She showed us Procreate — at the time this brand-new tool on an iPad. It blew all our minds. At first it enabled me to do things that were extraordinarily time-saving measures; it eliminated scanning and tracing and all of the most tedious parts of the illustration process. I had a hand injury, and it was easier on my hand. Then it turned into something else entirely.
LeUyen should really teach a master class on this. She has two or three rules. One of them is never zoom in beyond print size...which I have not adhered to because I can't resist, but I think she's wise and I think she's right. Another rule is that people shouldn't use this digital kind of drawing unless they've really mastered drawing by hand first.
It sounds like such an old-fashioned, crotchety kind of thing, but I think she's absolutely right. It reminds me of my design teacher back at college, who was an older Scottish woman who made us do all the hand kerning and hand lettering of fonts. We had to learn how to draw Garamond by hand, and we had to know the difference with the serifs. This was in the brand-new early days of Apple, and we thought, Why are we doing this? Look! There’s Apple! And yet she was right. I do have an appreciation for fonts and for typography, and that came from learning how to draw those damn serifs.
RS: You’re still drawing right? It’s not like you’re using AI and saying, Okay, I need some toilet paper and a chair and a rug and a vacuum cleaner. You have to actually draw; you have to compose the pictures. You have to decide what goes where. I would be afraid that I wouldn’t know where to stop. Change the pattern on the shirt or maybe on the shorts?
SB: Different colors, different hairstyles, different hats. There’s something when you’re working by hand, there’s a point where you’ve made a decision and then you stick with that decision. The ability to undo in a digital media is fantastic and alarming because it is infinite.
RS: You like to work on books with other people, but you also like to work alone. You seem at home with both.
SB: Yes, one of the lovely things of being in the stage of life that I like to jokingly call my prime. Having now done however many books that I've lost count — sixty, I think? — I'm thinking about how many books I have left in me — not in a morbid way — but in a kind of I don't want to be the last one at the party. I've got other things that I want to do. If I were to do say, five more books, I want to make them really count. Books that I think need to be in the world, that somebody else couldn’t do, perhaps.
QUOTED: "Often amusing and sometimes endearing, it's a promising start for the Stella & Marigold series."
Stella & Marigold.
By Annie Barrows. Illus. by Sophie Blackall.
Oct. 2024. 108p. Chronicle, $15.99 (9781797219707).
Gr. 1-4.
Best known for their ever-popular Ivy + Bean series, Barrows and Blackall now offer the first volume in a new series featuring two sisters. Stella, a bright, imaginative seven-yearold, still remembers when her baby sister, Marigold, came home from the hospital four years ago. Now Marigold plays with children at nursery school several days a week, but she feels closest to Stella, who shares secrets, explains the world, and makes her feel better. The book's structure is episodic, telling a new story in each chapter. Several of these tales feature one or both of the girls creating an alternate reality that relieves them of responsibility for shenanigans such as clogging the sink drain or pretending to be lost at the zoo. Buoyed by an innate sense of fun, the narrative sweeps readers into a world of childhood misadventures and understanding family members. Blackall, who illustrated two Caldecott-winning books, Lindsay Mattick's Finding Winnie (2015) and her own Hello Lighthouse (2018), contributes bright, engaging color illustrations on every double-page spread. This early chapter book for independent readers would be equally enjoyable for reading aloud in homes and classrooms. Often amusing and sometimes endearing, it's a promising start for the Stella & Marigold series.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
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Phelan, Carolyn. "Stella & Marigold." Booklist, vol. 120, no. 22, Aug. 2024, p. 62. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A808396829/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=6f6df331. Accessed 23 Jan. 2025.
QUOTED: "The book is a little subversive in the best children's literature tradition."
Stella & Marigold
by Annie Barrows; illus. by Sophie Blackall
Primary, Intermediate Chronicle 108 pp. 10/24 9781797219707 $15.99
Stella and Marigold, ages seven and four, are a force to be reckoned with. In eight tightly constructed, linked short stories, we follow the sisters through a domestic plumbing disaster, a visit to the zoo, events at school and preschool, and the construction and maintenance of a close sibling bond. Barrows and Blackall jointly inhabit that authentic childhood territory where the universal ordinary intersects with the specific odd. Stella has the flu. Her mother brings her apple juice. "Stella was surprised at how bad it tasted. It tasted like throat." The text tells us that as Marigold grows up, Stella explains the world to her. The accompanying illustration shows what some of those explanations might involve--pickles, a jump rope, money, infinity, and more. The stories echo and resonate with one another. The fireplace tiles mentioned in passing in the second story? We finally get to see them near book's end. The theme here is storytelling, and the book is a little subversive in the best children's literature tradition, celebrating the thrill of fibbing even as it ostensibly warns against it. Barrows and Blackall walk this tightrope with skill, cheekiness, and palpable pleasure, their tightly interdependent approach to narrative mirroring the supportive and loving relationship of their two stalwart protagonists. SARAH ELLIS
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Sources, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.hbook.com/magazine/default.asp
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Ellis, Sarah. "Stella & Marigold." The Horn Book Magazine, vol. 100, no. 5, Sept.-Oct. 2024, pp. 69+. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A809886560/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=9be79d38. Accessed 23 Jan. 2025.
QUOTED: "delicate and realistically rendered b&w illustrations of birds, flowers, and insects by Blackall."
Force of Nature: A Novel of Rachel Carson
Ann E. Burg, illus. by Sophie Blackall.
Scholastic Press, $19.99 (304p) ISBN 978-1-338-88338-1
In lilting verse, Burg (Flooded) writes, " We must always leave nature! as we find her" quoting Rachel Carson (1907-1964), a marine biologist, conservationist, and award-winning author credited with launching the modern environmental movement. An early writing phenom enthralled by nature, Carson graduated college with a degree in biology. She received a PhD from Johns Hopkins in 1932 and went on to work as an aquatic biologist for the U.S. Department of Fisheries. Though she sometimes struggled to stand out in the maledominated field, Carson eventually broke new ground by publishing several works, most notably the National Book Award-winning Silent Spring, which fluid text asserts is viewed as being the first to recognize "that unchecked progress wreaks havoc on our planet." Blending biographical detail with Carson's field notes and excerpts from her works, Burg crafts a fictionalized telling of Carson's life, which is accompanied by delicate and realistically rendered b&w illustrations of birds, flowers, and insects by Blackall (If I Was a Horse). An author's note expresses the hope that "readers will awaken to the beauty that surrounds us and become thoughtful caretakers of the eatth, and recognize, as Rachel did, that we are part of the natural world." Ages 8-12. (Mar.)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
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"Force of Nature: A Novel of Rachel Carson." Publishers Weekly, vol. 271, no. 2, 15 Jan. 2024, p. 78. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A781251491/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=959cf665. Accessed 23 Jan. 2025.
QUOTED: "a convincing and charming portrayal of a woman who made a difference."
Burg, Ann E. FORCE OF NATURE Scholastic (Children's None) $18.99 3, 5 ISBN: 9781338883381
A free-verse, first-person fictional account told from the point of view of Rachel Carson that relates her remarkable life.
From childhood, Carson was encouraged by her mother to appreciate but not meddle with the natural world. Life was never easy in the Carson household, but the future biologist found a way to combine science with her love of writing. Over time, she would encourage millions of readers to admire and protect our world through several influential and acclaimed books, including her best-known work, Silent Spring (1962), published two years before her death. Burg's narrative follows the events of Carson's life closely, but her relationships with her family members receive the most attention. They, as well as Dorothy, the intimate friend and kindred spirit she finally found, share her love for the natural world. (That there may have been more to the women's relationship than friendship is not explored.) Gracefully written in short, rhythmic lines, the text is pleasing to the eye and ear. Many pages of this beautifully presented celebration are enhanced by Blackall's tiny, hand-labeled, grayscale drawings of butterflies, birds, pond-water creatures, and more, reminding readers of Carson's own sense of wonder. In an appended author's note, Burg notes her sympathy with her subject and explains her choice to tell her story as fiction, so that she could "capture Rachel's indomitable spirit." Her sources are outlined in the acknowledgments.
A convincing and charming portrayal of a woman who made a difference. (Verse fiction. 8-12)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
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"Burg, Ann E.: FORCE OF NATURE." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Feb. 2024. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A780841167/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=b285d0bb. Accessed 23 Jan. 2025.
QUOTED: "Blackall slips with ease between fantasy and reality, and young readers will have oodles of fun."
Blackall, Sophie AHOY! Anne Schwartz/Random (Children's None) $19.99 4, 2 ISBN: 9780593429396
Using one's imagination is a lot easier when everybody is on board.
"What are you playing?" an amused parent asks a small child. The little one cries out resolutely, "I'M NOT PLAYING!" After all, a storm is on its way, and it's time to fit out the ship. The adult's gentle protestations ("Um, I kind of need to vacuum the rug") are no match for the undeniable fact that the rug is, in fact, the ocean. Soon enough the two are raising the mainsail, swabbing the poop deck, hoisting the burgee, and more (a helpful glossary of sailing terms is included). In spite of the occasional cell phone interruption (the child, facedown on the rug, laments, "We are in the doldrums" when the adult takes a call), all is put right when the adult gets back into the spirit of things, fielding an attack against a giant squid (aka the vacuum cleaner). Rescues, distress signals, hungry sharks--it all adds up to a wonderful time. That rug is never getting vacuumed. Blackall slips with ease between fantasy and reality, and young readers will have oodles of fun watching as socks morph into seagulls and paper towel tubes become telescopes. It's also nice to see a book where the notion of turning off your cell phone is aimed more directly at the parents than the kids. All characters are light-skinned.
Avast, me mateys! This be good clean fun on the salty seas. (Picture book. 3-6)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
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"Blackall, Sophie: AHOY!" Kirkus Reviews, 15 Feb. 2024. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A782202579/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=b876ff0a. Accessed 23 Jan. 2025.
QUOTED: "brilliantly constructed."
"Blackall excels at setting the stage for the imaginary play."
* Ahoy!
by Sophie Blackall; illus. by the author
Preschool, Primary Schwartz/Random 48 pp.
4/24 9780593429396 $19.99
Library ed. 9780593429402 $22.99
e-book ed. 9780593429419 $10.99
Picture books about imaginary play can be belabored or overly precious. Not so Blackall's brilliantly constructed latest. The opening setting is a living room (just a suggestion of one--we mostly see an ocean-colored rug). Here we meet a child gathering items needed for a pretend sea voyage while an adult vacuums. As the child exhorts the adult to join in, we begin to see intimations of the coming seascape: the cat, poking its head under the rug, creates swelling waves; patterned pillows evoke shark fins; etc. Then, with a page-turn, we are plunged into the book's make-believe world--child and adult aboard a fully rigged multi-masted schooner on the high seas, about to encounter a storm (and sharks!). The mixed-media and digital illustrations are alternately gorgeous and rich in character and humor. For example, on one spread the adult's cell phone rings ("blah blah blah ..."), temporarily returning us to real life ("we are in the doldrums," bemoans the discouraged child). Blackall excels at setting the stage for the imaginary play with one-to-one equivalents (the vacuum, with its long cord, easily transforms into a giant squid; a paper-towel roll becomes a spyglass) and then making us forget all that, immersing us in the book's imaginary world, wholly capturing the experience of imaginary play. "ANCHORS ... AWEIGH!" Glossary of sailing terms included.
* indicates a book that the editors believe to be an outstanding example of its genre, of books of this particular publishing season, or of the author's body of work. Please visit hbook.com and hornbookguide.com for expanded review coverage, including additional titles and themed booklists.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Sources, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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Parravano, Martha V. "Ahoy!" The Horn Book Magazine, vol. 100, no. 2, Mar.-Apr. 2024, pp. 58+. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A789719357/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=ef44f34e. Accessed 23 Jan. 2025.
QUOTED: "the colorful, sweet, gently humorous illustrations."
Blackall, Sophie IF I WAS A HORSE Little, Brown (Children's None) $18.99 10, 3 ISBN: 9780316510981
Oh, to be a horse!
Shakespeare's Richard III begged for one, going so far as to offer his kingdom. This delightful book proposes the idea--if ever so briefly and if only in the imagination--of being one. Think of what you could try, see, and do--or not do--if you were a horse. What fun! What, ahem, unbridled freedom could be had! Each page in this charmer contains one easy sentence or phrase that expresses an idea about "horsiness," allowing very young listeners or emergent readers to focus on the clear, simple language and to follow up with their own imaginative responses. The young narrator muses about what life would be like as a horse: galloping all day long, rolling around in the mud, giving a (human) sibling a ride to school, and getting to run around without clothes on ("unless I was in a PARADE"). Grown-ups sharing the book in a one-on-one or group setting should encourage children to engage in rich, speculative conversation about the advantages and disadvantages of being a horse. The colorful, sweet, gently humorous illustrations depicting an unfettered horse running freely and also in cozy, familial, and neighborhood settings were created with watercolor, gouache, pencil, fabric, and wallpaper and assembled digitally. The protagonist's human family is brown-skinned; other humans are racially diverse. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
There'll be no neigh-sayers for this one. (Picture book. 3-6)
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"Blackall, Sophie: IF I WAS A HORSE." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Aug. 2023. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A758849047/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=01cdb88a. Accessed 23 Jan. 2025.
QUOTED: "Charming and whimsical visual surprises are found throughout the impeccably designed pages."
* If I Was a Horse. By Sophie Blackall. Illus. by the author. Oct. 2023.32p. Little, Brown, $18.99 (9780316510981). PreS-Gr. 3.
In this fanciful picture-book frolic, a child imagines what their daily life would be like as a horse. Simply stated declarative sentences are delivered with aplomb: "If I was a horse, I would gallop all day. I could go anywhere I want, and I'd come home when I was hungry." Full of deadpan comedic flair, two-time Caldecott medalist Blackall's resplendent watercolor, gouache, pencil, fabric, and wallpaper illustrations showcase a majestic spotted steed gigantically smack dab in the middle of familial domestic scenes, like eating a lunch of sandwiches and carrots at the kitchen table and sleeping standing up on top of a twin bed where pony stickers decorate the headboard. The humorous incongruity continues as the narrator gives their sister a bareback ride to school and impresses the swim team by leaps and bounds in the pool. After horsing around in the rain and tracking muddy shoe prints into the house, the child declares, "Nobody could make me take a bath." Living the dream, with high-hoofing defiance, they also say nay to wearing clothes, unless in a parade. Charming and whimsical visual surprises are found throughout the impeccably designed pages, from decorative floral endpapers to the sparkly tutu and party hat on the cover. An exquisite equine fantasy, this encourages imaginations to giddyup and run wild and free.--Linda Ludke
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2023 American Library Association
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MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
Ludke, Linda. "If I Was a Horse." Booklist, vol. 119, no. 22, 1 Aug. 2023, pp. 59+. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A761981767/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=0c8a872c. Accessed 23 Jan. 2025.