Tuesday, January 21, 2014

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! 

Wednesday, January 8, 2014

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)

Monday, January 6, 2014

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