A litttle Q & A

A big thank you to Joanna Marple of Miss Marple's Musings for interviewing me on her wonderful blog last week. Here's a link to our full conversation, where I talk a bit about the makings of City Cat, and share some sneak peeks of the art from my upcoming book, Nana in the City.

Thanks again for having me, Joanna! 

The Horn Book likes City Cat!

Many thanks to reviewer Sarah Ellis for such a kind and thoughtful writeup of CITY CAT in the Jan./Feb. issue of The Horn Book~

Horn Book Magazine:

"A small smoky-gray cat follows a family on its trip through Europe. She hitches rides, stows away on boats, cadges food, and invites herself behind the scenes. As is the way of cats, she makes herself supremely comfortable wherever she is, whether bathing in a Parisian fountain or picking her way across the roof of Gaudí’s Casa Batlló in Barcelona. Castillo’s drawings capture both the grandeur of great cities and their human dynamism as people cycle, shop, work, rush, parade, dress up, and even play the tuba. In each picture, we look for the family, and the family looks for the cat. Banks’s text is confident and rhythmic, dotted with rhymes and half-rhymes that bounce off the tongue. “She sits on piers with perked-up ears / and gazes out to sea.” The words pass the read-it-again test with flying colors. A well-traveled child, armchair or otherwise, will spot Big Ben and the Eiffel Tower. For all the rest, an appended spread, both child- and cat-oriented, identifies the cities and the sights, and a map lets us trace the family’s eight-city journey." —sarah ellis (Jan/Feb issue)

Travelers’ Tails

It was a total surprise to discover that CITY CAT had been reviewed in the New York Times a couple weeks ago... and fantastic review to boot! Here is a snippet:

"Banks’s verse narrative is as elegant and lithe as her subject, full of poetic descriptions and playful, sophisticated vocabulary. 

“City cat, strutting down the boulevards,
taking in the city sights.
The skyline, pulsing, bathed in light.
An obelisk, a graceful arch,
a gilded bridge, a sprawling park.”  

 

Castillo, who has worked with Banks before, on “That’s Papa’s Way” (2009), creates illustrations that are a good match for the author’s evocative language. Her street scenes, with all their architectural detail, have the intentionally rough, textural look of lino prints, and her palette is an attractive and fashionable combination of rich neutrals and bright reds and mustard yellows. In all, “City Cat” may appeal as much to parents as to children, but there’s no harm in that. One advantage human travelers have over beasts: If you have to pack a suitcase, you can make room in it for this book as a reminder of why it is we go sightseeing in the first place. 

Many thanks to Sarah Harrison Smith for such a lovely, thoughtful write up!

CITY CAT gets around

My new book City Cat, written by the wonderful Kate Banks, is now finally out in the world! (I began this project back in 2009, so it's been a long long wait :)) We are to happy to have received a number of kind reviews over the last few weeks, including a surprise write-up from The New York Times (more on that in another post)!

Here's what everyone had to say:

Kirkus Reviews: 
"A black cat serves as European tour guide for child readers in this offering from Banks and Castillo. The cat and a family of travelers begin in Rome. Outstanding backmatter later tells readers that the famed Coliseum is home to over 200 stray cats that are protected by Roman law. But before reaching the informational paratext, readers follow the cat from one European locale to another, right alongside the family on holiday. The family seems almost superfluous, even intrusive to the cat’s adventure. First, the cat stows away in the back of the family’s car and ends up in Marseille, and it then goes on to Barcelona and five other destinations before returning to Rome. Banks’ graceful writing describes the sites visited through sensory detail, while Castillo’s soft, yet detailed art deftly fills in narrative gaps by showing how the cat gets from place to place. Some legs of the journey may seem a bit implausible, and it’s quite coincidental that the cat and the family keep turning up in the same places. By book’s end, the nod to the child asleep in his bed and the cat “curled up in a statue’s arm” nearby feels rather forced. Nevertheless, the art presents a veritable feast for the eyes from page to page, and Banks’ narrative is characteristically well-paced and lyrical. A lovely, if unlikely, feline journey." (Picture book. 4-8)

Publishers Weekly: 
"Banks’s verse sees some of the great cities of Europe through the travels of an independent black cat. Making her way by cat, boat, bike, and bus, City Cat romps through the Coliseum, nestles under one of Notre Dame’s gargoyles, and pads across the Bridge of Sighs. The scenery described isn’t pinned to a specific location: “City Cat is on the run from the morning mist/ and the baffled sun hidden by the fog./ She squints into a smoky sky/ and sees a tower rising high.” It’s up to Castillo, who illustrated Banks’s That’s Papa’s Way, to supply the missing information, drawing what’s visible in the fog: Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. In the absence of a character to know more deeply or a narrative to tie the book together, the meticulously drawn spreads take center stage. Castillo takes no shortcuts, drafting each city’s distinctive architecture in soft, pleasing lines. Though there are parallels with Banks’s The Cat Who Walked Across France, this feline isn’t trying to get home; she’s happy to wander Europe’s plazas and cathedral squares, and to have readers trail along." Ages 3–7. (Nov.)

 
School Library Journal: 
"City Cat travels through Europe, paralleling a human family’s vacation. Rhyming verse follows the stray as she hitches rides and wanders through Italy, France, Spain, England, the Netherlands, and Germany. Flags dot the various spreads, giving clues to the locations, which are further described in the endnotes. Lyrical verse follows an interesting rhyming scheme and incorporates rich vocabulary, and lush illustrations capture the atmosphere of each location with plenty of details to invite close study. Children will enjoy the fanciful adventures of this intrepid feline as she explores rooftops, bridges, and ancient ruins, especially when compared to the rather boring, grounded meanderings of the human tourists. However, not much happens in the story and the connection between the cat and the family is not clear. Overall, this is a pretty book for armchair travelers and cat lovers." –Suzanne Myers Harold, formerly at Multnomah County Library System, Portland, OR (Dec.)


Thanks to Kirkus,  PW, and SLJ for the nice write-ups!

The Original Art 2013

Great news! My new book CITY CAT was selected to be a part of this years Original Art Show at the Society of Illustrators. It's such an honor to have my art hanging in the exhibition, alongside THIS amazing roster of illustrators. Thanks so much to the awesome jury for including CITY CAT in the show. If you are in the NY area, please come join me at the opening reception this Thursday evening, October 24th. Details are here. Hope to see you!!

City Cat sketchbook doodles

too many cats

studies for CITY CAT

chat de ville

a tiny snippet from one of the Paris scenes in CITY CAT, written by Kate Banks

 Last month I started on the final art for my next picture book, CITY CAT, written by Kate Banks. My editor Frances over at FSG offered this lovely script to me waaaay back in the spring of 2009, knowing that we weren't going to get things going for a long while. It was so hard to keep this project on the back burner all this time. Location drawing is my absolute favorite thing, and I don't just get to research and capture one beautiful location for this book, but eight! The story takes the reader on a journey through Western Europe, as a cat follows a family on their holiday adventure. I'm in love with Kate's poetic text and selection of cities, and I am so grateful to Frances and Kate for pulling me in to this dream of a book project.

scenes from Le Ballon rouge, The Red Balloon

For the last week I have been drawing the gorgeous city of Paris, and the other day I decided to take a trip down memory lane and watch a movie I remember one of my teachers showing in elementary school: The Red Balloon. This film is magic and a must watch if you have never seen it. The above clips are proof.

Unfortunately I'm not able to go to Paris while working on this, but I did travel there in 2009 for a little inspiration and reference collecting. The above are a few sketches from my adventure. I fell in love with this city, and hope to visit again soon ♥

City Cat

Sorry I haven't posted in awhile! But I have a good excuse — I've been traveling around Europe! Well, uhh, drawing Europe. That's pretty fun too! I'm working on a new book that involves 8 different cities in Western Europe. So far I've wandered through Rome, London, Marseille, and Barcelona . . . Must keep moving!!
Hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season :)

France+Germany=bliss

Well, the time is FINALLY here--I am headed to Europe to do research for a new book project (written by the wonderful Kate Banks)! The travel route will include Paris, to Ravensburg and Weingarten, to Meersburg, to Munich (arriving just in time for the lord mayor to tap the first keg at Oktoberfest!), and finally back to Paris. I am so so psyched to explore these cities and their landmarks, and hopefully fill up some memory cards and a few sketchbook pages! Oh, and my assistant (and official translator!) is pretty excited as well :)
So long, au revoir, tschüss!!! Catch y'all at the end of September~