"Everyone Can Fly" Exhibition at the SAM

I am thrilled to be a part of the lovely group exhibition Everyone Can Fly at the Susquehanna Art Museum in Harrisburg, PA. The show opened on March 20th, and will be up through the end of May. If you find yourself in the Harrisburg area I hope you'll drop by the beautiful museum and enjoy a visit.

photo credit: Jonathan Bean

From the website:

Everyone Can Fly is an exhibition of original illustrations from a group of award-winning children’s books with a focus on literacy and its relevance for the youth of our region. The centerpiece of this collection will be all of the original artwork from Tar Beach by internationally renowned author/painter/quilter/lecturer Faith Ringgold. This magical story was the recipient of the 1991 Coretta Scott King Award for Illustration and a New York Times Best Illustrated Book choice. Another feature of this unique exhibition will be the addition of local and regional illustrators.
 

Artists on view: 

Amy Bates, Jonathan Bean, Lauren Castillo, Megan Lloyd-Thompson, Faith Ringgold, Shadra Strickland 

 

Friday, May 15- Free Family Evening! Join us to meet the illustrators, enjoy light refreshments, music, and hands-on activities. Free admission 5: 30 – 8:30pm.

 

Something something something. Caldecott Honor (!!!)

So many months (and so many adventures) have passed since my last post that I think I'm just going to have to skip over a ton of things and go straight to this:

It is still hard to believe this actually happened. I've been pinching myself a lot.

On the morning of February 2nd I received a phone call from a room of cheering Caldecott committee members, telling me that my book NANA IN THE CITY had won a Caldecott Honor. Wow. Whoa. Oh my gosh.
Stunned.
Overwhelmed.
Elated.
Just a few of the many emotions I've felt these last several weeks.
I am truly humbled.



To know that the committee saw something special in my little book just blows me away. I cannot wait to thank them in person and accept the award at the annual ALA conference in San Fransisco this June.

For now, here's a little Times Square marquee thank you.  ♡♡♡


Thank you, Caldecott committee! from Lauren Castillo on Vimeo.

Book Expo America!

Next week is Book Expo America at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City, and I'm super excited to be making the trip up for it. I get to visit with all my New York buddies, plus share my two new books The Troublemaker and Nana in the City at the conference. It's going to be a fun few days!

·Wednesday, May 28th: BEA kicks off with the 20th Annual Children's Book Art Silent Auction 

This is one of my very favorite events of the year! If you're attending BEA (even if you're not, but happen to live nearby) come to the Javits and bid on some great original art to raise money for the ABFFE (click on the link for all the deets). This little guy below (from Nana in the City) is looking to go home with a new friend.

 

·Thursday, May 29th: day away from the Javits

I'm going to skip the conference to hang out with my friend and former editor, Frances Foster, along with my good friend (and editor extraordinaire) Noa Wheeler. One of the things I miss most about living in NYC is being able to easily take the subway to the UWS to visit Frances and her husband Tony. I haven't seen them since I moved away from the city in January. It's going to be really nice to spend the afternoon with the Fosters :)  

·Friday, May 30th: full day at the Javits

12-12:30 pm -- I will be in the Autographing Area, signing and giving away a buncha Troublemaker's. Info is HERE. Please come snag a copy and say hello!

3:30 pm -- I'll be at the ABC/CBC Author and Illustrators Tea, chatting about The Troublemaker and Nana in the City with a group of awesome booksellers. I wish there was a way to clone myself so that I could also sit at the tables of the other authors— what a lineup (It's crazy to think I'm even going to be in the same room with all these guys)! Info is HERE. Right after the Tea I'll be hopping on a bus back to Baltimore. A short but full trip! I hope that if you are also heading to BEA next week, I will get to run in to you some point . . .

 

Wishing you all a lovely Memorial Day weekend. Hooray, summer is almost here!!!

Playing catch up

Hi, friends!

Man oh man, how I've neglected this blog!
Somehow it is already MAY.
MAY 2014.
How did that happen?
Seriously, the year is flying.
FLYING!

A super quick update:
Since my last post in January I have . . .

-Moved out of Brooklyn, New York, and down to charming Baltimore, Maryland. A BIG change, but a very good one.

-Started and (almost) finished the art for a picture book titled YARD SALE, written by Eve Bunting (!Pinch me!), that will come out in spring 2015.

-Purchased a new sketchbook where a tiny hedgehog showed up one happy day in February. Now, two and a half months later, it is hard to draw anything BUT Hedgehog. I'm obsessed.

-Finally jumped in to the wonderful world of Twitter, where I have had the opportunity to meet and chat with so many lovely and awesome new people. Hooray for social media (mostly:)!

-Received actual bound copies of my new book as author/illustrator, THE TROUBLEMAKER. I am so pleased with how it's turned out. A million thanks to my editor, art director and all of Clarion/HMH for encouraging and supporting me and this book. I'll be doing my first read aloud to a group of 60(!) Pre-K kiddos next week. Please, keep your fingers crossed for me! :)

THE TROUBLEMAKER's book birthday is one month from today. June 3rd, 2014. I cannot wait! You can read more about the book here.
I'll leave you with my first ever attempt at animation, below.

Happy weekend, all! Hope it's a fantastic one.
xo~Lauren

The Troublemaker from Lauren Castillo on Vimeo.

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)

Happy 2014, friends!

Wishing you a BRIGHT and COLORFUL new year! xo~L

illustration from forthcoming book, NANA IN THE CITY; Clarion/HMH, fall 2014

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!!