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So what is musician-performer-dancer-composer Lindsey Stirling doing on this blog about children’s book illustration? She’s an artist but she works in a different medium. She hasn’t published a children’s picture book. (Not yet, anyway, but give her time.) I’m sharing this video of her 2011 tune Shadows, because twenty-two million YouTube viewers are not wrong […]

I just love Jake Parker’s contribution to Gallery Nucleus’s upcoming Dr. Seuss Show.

With villain names like Professor Von Evil and the Flaming Eyeball, how can you not be dying to read Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon’s debut picture book THE ASTONISHING SECRET OF AWESOME MAN, illustrated by Jake Parker?  With short text and plenty of derring-do action (take a peek inside), this picture book will be a favorite of kids who love comics, as well as kids in your storytime programs.

In its starred review, School Library Journal said “the depiction of a showdown between Awesome Man and his nemesis-the Flaming Eyeball-is priceless. Readers may notice that there’s a moral peeking out from Awesome Man’s cape, but they’ll still grab this story in their ‘ginormous Awesome Power Grip’ and not let go.”

Monica Edinger (of Educating Alice and Huffington Post fame) recently had the chance to interview Michael Chabon himself!  Here’s how the conversation went:

Photo by Jennifer Chaney

From reading your Pulitzer Prize-winning adult novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, fans probably know you have a long-term relationship with superhero comics.  Can you give us a taste of your own childhood introduction to them and how that might have inspired this story of Awesome Man?

Well, of course I remember seeing Batman and the first animated Spider-Man show on television when I was very small… but my first true plunge into the world of superheroes came through the comic books that my father began to bring home for me, as soon as I could read. He had grown up reading them himself, and felt they were an important part of a kid’s education.

You clearly revel in language and names — Professor Von Evil, Moskowitz the Awesome Dog, positrons, and…pooped (and what kid doesn’t like saying “pooped!”).  As an adult author known for reveling in words and language, how did you manage to balance that with the need to keep things relatively simple for a picture book audience?

I was really thinking about the parents here–how much it meant to me, when I was reading a book aloud to my children for the 33832nd time, if there was a little verve or snap to the language. Probably the all time champ, in that regard–to me, at least–is William Steig. Nobody used English, in kids’ books, the way he did.

You have children of your own — were they helpful in the creation of this book?

I wrote this book for my younger son (I have two, and two daughters), Abe. He was the direct inspiration, in every way, for the main character of AWESOME MAN.

Are you a reader of children’s books yourself and if so, what are some of your favorites?

One of the greatest, and most lasting, pleasures of having children, for me, has been the excuse and the opportunity that bedtime reading has given me to revisit, and re-relish (usually), so many of the books I loved a

Link: Jake Parker's blog

Due to the sheer proliferation of book jackets featuring photographs rather than illustrations, I think the time is right to offer a little ode of praise to our brave illustrators who work so hard to give us great illustrated chapter book covers.  In an age when it feels like all the teen covers are dedicated to giving us variations on the same theme, it’s refreshing to consider that some artists do more than just Photoshop a girl’s dress from pink to blue.

That said, sometimes it’s hard to tell who the cover artist is on an individual book.  A lot of galleys and advanced readers copies may refuse to mention the jacket artist’s name, perhaps because they are reserving the right to choose a different cover at any time. As for the artists themselves, they’re not usually all that prompt with their online portfolios.  With that in mind, these are the only artists I could think of off the top of my head that are doing more than one chapter book cover in the year 2010.  If you can think of someone I’ve missed (or can identify another 2010 cover that is by an artist listed here) please let me know and I’ll add them as time permits.

Scott Altmann

Here’s a guy that sneaks up on you.  You don’t notice him for a while and then BLAMMO!  The dude seems to be everywhere.  This year Altmann’s been impressing youngsters with …

The Smoky Corridor by Chris Grabenstein:

The Death Defying Pepper Roux by Geraldine McCaughrean:

The Shadow Hunt by Katherine Langrish:

The Ring of Five by Eoin McNamee:

On the other side of the pond Altmann gets his own fair share of work.  I was pleased as punch, for example, to see that they had reissued Astrid Lindgren’s Ronia the Robber’s Daughter over there this year.

Not that I don’t still love the original Trina Schart Hyman illustrations from over here.

While fellow artist Brandon Dorman does the Fablehaven books in the States, Altmann is doing them in the UK.  He’s also doing the Charlie Bone series over there as well.  All the more interesting that he didn’t do the UK versi