88 Instruments (Knopf Books for Young Readers) is about a kid trying to pick the one -- just one! -- musical instrument he's going to learn to play out of a shop stuffed with dozens of options.
Here's some of what
The Horn Book had to say about
88 Instruments:
"The galloping rhymed text, featuring toe-tapping dictionary rejects ('thrummiest'), is a song unto itself that crescendos with the 'plink!' of a piano, which wins the day: 'I’m going to learn the plinkiest… / the plunkiest… / and, here to there, / the spunkiest.' ... The loose-handed, even jittery illustrations foreground his attempts to play many of the instruments; meanwhile, his parents are a mute chorus of comical anxiety."
Those comical illustrations are the work of Louis Thomas, and
88 Instruments is his American picture book debut -- but just barely. A few days from now, Frances Lincoln Picture Books will publish his
A Walk on the Wild Side.
This month, I'm giving away one copy each of
88 Instruments and
A Walk on the Wild Side to Bartography Express subscribers residing in the US
.
I
f you'd like one of those winners to be you,
just say so in a reply to this email before midnight on August 31, and I'll enter you in the drawing.
In the meantime, I thought you'd enjoy a quick exchange between me and Louis. It's a good thing that I didn't travel to Paris to interview Louis, because --
as the dazzling images he's posted to Instagram lately show -- the poor guy is working seaside in Greece for the next couple of months. So, instead of the usual back-and-forth, I passed my questions along to Louis' agent, and she then passed his answers back along to me.
Chris: A Walk on the Wild Side showcases more than 60 different animals, and the title of 88 Instruments speaks for itself.
Since you first began making art, what have been some of your other favorite subjects to explore in all their diversity and variety?
What attracted you toward the story that we tell in 88 Instruments?
Louis:
I basically love to draw anything with a living character in it...
I love music, especially piano. My mum used to play a lot when I was a kid, and my aunt is a pianist at the conservatory in Paris.
I love jazz pianists more than any other instruments, and Ravel pieces on the piano are my all time favourites...
I own a piano in Paris as well. All this to say I connected with the story really easily. And I am sensitive to book writing, and your way of telling stories is so charming and warm that I had to illustrate that one!
I can't narrow it down to just one favourite artist, so here are several: Quentin Blake, Tomi Ungerer, Jean-Jacques Sempé, Noelle Lavaivre, Ronald Searle, and Charles M. Schultz. Also, Picasso, Cocteau, and Dufy. [Louis didn't say if he meant Raoul or his brother Jean -- and I'm not inclined to interrupt him in Greece just to ask -- so to be on the safe side, check 'em both out.]
My two favourite books would be Crictor by Tomi Ungerer and Les Lunettes du Lion by Noelle Lavaivre.
