Tag Archives: Sanae Ishida
seven stellar board book sets
Have you met these stellar board books sets? If not, it’s my pleasure to introduce you!
Little Sumo series by Sanae Ishida.
SUMO COUNTING and SUMO OPPOSITES are companion board books that are totally charming, like all of Sanae Ishida’s creations—I’ve featured her Little Kunoichi series before here and here. These two total cuties illuminate and delight in Japanese culture. Adorable characters and pleasing surprises are in store for every kid (every one!) who reads them.
Happy Hair and Cool Cuts series by Mechal Renee Roe.
This joyful, colorful board book duo celebrates many styles of Black hair as well as the wonderful kids who rock those styles! Full of affirmation, self-love, and, yes, HAPPY HAIR and COOL CUTS for kids!
Little You and We Sang You Home (not technically a series, but from the same duo) by Richard Van Camp, illustrations by Julie Flett.
From a wonderful pair of Native creators, the first, a gently rhyming lullaby to a little one, bursting with admiration. The second, another song to a child that contains an origin story brimming with love.
Both are featured in my Julie Flett’s Picture Book Life post.
Monster Food & Monster Clothes by Daisy Hirst.
These Monster Books from a perennially quirky author-illustrator are, while about monsters, totally toddler-relatable and completely hilarious. Just looking at those covers makes me smile.
Storytelling Math series by Grace Lin.
This board book series is simply fabulous. It combines reading words and pictures, everyday math concepts, and real-world activities in packages that are engaging and fun.
Leaders and Dreamers series by Vashti Harrison.
Beautiful companions to Vashti Harrison’s Leaders & Dreamers picture books profiling visionary, change-making Black American women in history and women around the world, this board book series is for the youngest set to dream and think and be inspired by those who’ve come before them.
Little Plane, Truck, and Boat by Taro Gomi.
Taro Gomi totally gets kids, and this transportation board book series is further proof. Darling, bright illustrations in pleasing palettes combine with succinct and straightforward text to tell cheerful stories of a character on the move.
What are your favorite board book series to share?
cover reveal! Chibi Samurai Wants a Pet by Sanae Ishida
There’s going to be a second installment in Sanae Ishida’s Little Kunoichi the Ninja Girl series! (I posted about the first book here.)
Sanae Ishida‘s watercolors are enchanting—sweet, colorful, and full of humor and whimsy. In the first book, Little Kunoichi meets Chibi Samurai while they’re both in training at ninja school and samurai school respectively. In the end, they wow the crowd at The Island Festival because they practice—not to be perfect but to have fun.
In Chibi Samurai wants a Pet, Kunoichi’s best friend Chibi Samurai indeed wants a pet, one as sweet and super-duper as Kunoichi’s pet ninja bunny. So he sets off on a quest around the island to find a companion, encountering creatures both real and mythical. He meets a giant salamander, serow, cloth-weaving crane, magical tanuki, and mythical Kappa—but none is quite right! Until he realizes his perfect pet has been close at hand the whole time, just like other things we might seek that have—sometimes—been there all along.
The ending is absolutely charming, but I won’t spoil it!
This book delights with creativity and surprise. Plus, there’s a visual glossary at the back with all the elements of Japanese culture and folklore the story mentions.
Here’s the cover!!
Chibi Samurai Wants a Pet will be out August 8, 2017!
Here’s what Sanae Ishida says about the process of creating the cover:
For the cover, I wanted to show Chibi (as I affectionately call him in my mind, a slang word for “little” or “short” in Japanese) in search mode. I presented several cover ideas, but this swamp version was my favorite because the greenery felt mysterious and dramatic and allowed me to partially hide Little Kunoichi and her pet bunny in there. The swamp is also one of the areas that Chibi actually searches in the book, so I loved the tie-in with the story too. I’m so glad that the publisher liked this version!
My general illustration process starts by painting every element by hand with watercolor and gouache paint. I don’t do a whole lot of sketching or pencil renderings and just dive in with paint. For example, I painted the helmet, the armor, body, outfit, hair, face, and expression of Chibi all separately. I then scan everything in and assemble the elements collage-style with Photoshop. Sometimes I’ll modify the colors in Photoshop or amp up the saturation or add transparency. I often have to clean up smudges and mistakes or alter the scale of different elements. Working this way has been great for me because it makes incorporating changes when I get feedback from the editors and art department so much easier.
Everything about the first Little Kunoichi book was magical for me and I will love it to pieces forever, but this time around Chibi has stolen my heart and this story resonates with me on a whole different level. I hope kids (and adults reading it to them) enjoy it as much as I enjoyed creating it!
And a couple of sneak peeks inside the book:
(click image(s) to enlarge)
Big thanks to Sasquatch Books for images!
Sanae Ishida grew up drawing princesses, reading Japanese comic books, and writing stories she never shared with anyone. She enjoyed stints in wide-ranging fields including illustration, education, technology, retail, and theater arts. When not creating on the page, she sews, frequents coffee shops, and overly shares stories on SanaeIshida.com. She lives in Seattle with her wonderful husband and fabulous daughter—inspiration for Little Kunoichi.
You can check out my feature of Kunoichi, The Ninja Girl, the first in the series as well!
a pair of girl power picture books
Today I’m pairing two picture books with strong girl characters—one mechanic and one ninja-in-training.
Interstellar Cinderella by Deborah Underwood, illustrated by Meg Hunt (2015).
The rhyme really shines in this girl power book. It’s a Cinderella retelling of a character who dreams, not of a prince, but of fixing rockets. Yes!
No gown for her, but a bejeweled space suit and sonic socket wrench. And a mouse named Murgatroyd. Yes, again!
In the end, she does win the space prince’s admiration, but it’s by showing she can fix his ship. And the happy ending doesn’t involve wedding bells. Instead, the resolution is summed up in my favorite line of the book:
“She thought this over carefully.
Her family watched in panic.
‘I’m far too young for marriage,
but I’ll be your chief mechanic!'”
Thanks to Chronicle Books for images!
Little Kunoichi: The Ninja Girl by Sanae Ishida (2015).
The artwork in this one is what really gets me. Those watercolors are so sweet, dainty, and colorful; I want to live in this book! The illustrations match the whimsy of this story as well as its message of fun without rigidity or perfection.
Little Kunoichi goes to a secret ninja school but she is not a very good ninja (yet!). She meets a little boy who attends a secret samurai school and together they get better at their respective skills in order to wow everyone at the island festival. How do they do that? Practice.
Practice is really the message of this book. Referred to here as shugyo, these two characters become friends and spur each other in their “training like crazy.”
This kind of heroine is so relatable because she’s not perfect but is persistent (which is more important). She’s also not someone who goes it alone, but who learns from others and has a close friend—all great qualities. Plus, I mean, she’s training to be a ninja. Sooooo, there’s that.
Thanks to Little Bigfoot for images!
You might also be interested in my post on Rosie Revere, Engineer.