come join the party!

This Friday evening there is going to be a celebration of all that is good. You should come! There will be tons of artwork filling the walls of the party space, including this piece of mine. (click to enlarge—you'll see Melvin the turtle made it in to the scene!) Details are here. Don't miss it!

MELVIN cover

Here's a bit of the cover progression for Melvin. Veronique Sweet over at Henry Holt did an excellent job designing the jacket...and there's even going to be a surprise case cover! I can't wait to receive my first printed copy. The book isn't out till July, but you can already pre-order here!

All That is Good

Sketch for art I'll have at this celebration :)

spring snow drawing

Sooo, now that it's spring, I get to work on a book about snow...
Geesh, I can't get away from winter over here. It's a good thing I love love LOVE drawing snowy landscapes!! This story, titled THE READER, is written by the wonderful Amy Hest. I'm a big fan of Amy's books, and couldn't be more psyched to illustrate this sweet story of hers. Here are a couple sketches from the dummy I just finished putting together:Happy spring everyone! : )

rain rain go away

Soccer out the door

Last week I wrapped up my project with Candlewick, Happy Like Soccer. The story is written by Maribeth Boelts, talented author of many books including Those Shoes and Before You Were Mine (which is adorable!). Here's a summary of our book, courtesy of Maribeth:

A young girl from the inner city, Sierra, is chosen for an elite soccer team that plays its games at a complex far from her apartment. Sierra longs to have a game in her own neighborhood so people who know and love her, like her auntie she lives with, can attend more easily. Sierra gets courageous enough to try to make that happen.

Happy Like Soccer won't be out till next year, but I will post more as we get closer to the books' birthday. . .

Now off to begin a new project that involves a boy, a dog, snow, and reading. I'm excited! Just too bad I wasn't working on this one during the winter of one-thousand blizzards!

a snowy day stroll

Spring's Sprung?

CCBC Choices 2011!

The Cooperative Children's Book Center has just released their CCBC Choices 2011 annual best-of-the-year list, and both ALFIE RUNS AWAY and CHRISTMAS IS HERE are on it -- Hooray! The Cooperative Children’s Book Center (CCBC) is a unique examination, study and research library of the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The complete CCBC Choices 2011 publication will be available after March 5th, and will include annotations and recommended ages for all of the books included, as well as an author/title/subject index, and a commentary on the publishing year. Many thanks to this years panel of jurors, Kathleen T. Horning, Carling Febry, Merri V. Lindgren and Megan Schliesman!
You can check out the complete list of titles right * here *

SPUNKY

It's been busy over here in the Castillo studio. I recently finished interior art for an awesome chapter book by Ann Cameron, titled SPUNKY TELLS ALL. Here is the synopsis, courtesy of the author:

Spunky is a middle-aged, serious dog, --a thinking dog, a dog with some troubles. His humans-- Ralph and Michelle, and their sons Julian and Huey — don’t speak his language. Even worse, they don’t realize that smells are the center of life’s meaning. Worst of all, they think that Spunky wants a new companion — a cat!

Thus arrives in Spunky’s life the aristocratic Balinese Fiona-- snobbish, supremely sure of herself and absolutely incompetent — who, to his astonishment, gives him a life purpose and a new way of looking at his world.

I loved working on this book, as it was the first time I've had the opportunity to illustrate a non-picture book. Creating black and white art was a really nice change of pace. PLUS, I got to draw a lot of dogs and cats! Always a fun thing.Look for Spunky on shelves this Fall!