Cat & Mouse bits and pieces

I learned a few weeks ago that Cat & Mouse is reprinting. My friends, now is the time to invest in children's books - so get a first printing while they last (but pick up a second printing, too, while you're at it).

Also, in case you need some more convincing, Cat & Mouse has been chosen as one of the New York Public Library's 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing for 2008.

And, speaking of the New York Public Library, here's what Elizabeth Bird (see my previous post) wrote on her blog about Cat & Mouse after she saw the original illustrations (and my reference photos) last fall:

I adore intricacy. I love it when an artist has the ability to use delicate little pen lines to convey a character or scene. In Mr. Schoenherr's case, there were photographs of cats accompanying the art. The cat in the book itself obviously owes its very existence to these very real felines, and I'm looking forward to the publication of the book. It's a picture book that utilizes a variety of different cat and mouse nursery rhymes (like Hickory Dickory Dock) and turns them into a single story. Quite clever, really.

When Ms. Bird finally got to see a copy of the finished book, she wrote :

Ian Schoenherr's Cat and Mouse is an interesting one to keep an eye on too. With the teeniest brushstrokes imaginable, Schoenherr brings to life a cat and a mouse alongside three classic nursery rhymes. What's more, he's somehow able to make a coherent story out of the lot. I'm a cat person myself, so I was particularly partial to the kitty in this book, delicate stripes and all.

For the record, here's a picture of Pistachio - the chief model for the "Cat". He looks somewhat imperious here - or as if I had just wounded his dignity.

Read It, Don't Eat It!

Look out! The (next) "cat" is out of the bag. Elizabeth Bird, a children's librarian at the New York Public Library, very nicely spilled the beans on my forthcoming book in her blog:

Ian Schoenherr's another one of those authors I always mean to review and then never do. Generally he tends to write picture books involving two characters. Pip and Squeak. Cat and Mouse. You get the picture. His newest title Read It, Don't Eat It! walks a delicate line. I sit hunched in perpetual wariness whenever I see a book that looks like it might be pandering to the librarian community. But what sets Schoenherr's latest from the usual gee-aren't-librarians-great stock is that it's actually a book we can use and read aloud to classes with fantastic results! Basically he's written a list of don'ts for books. Don't eat it. Don't chew on it. Don't get it wet. That sort of thing. I may have to rotate my standard readaloud stock for classes once we get this one in. Even young classes would find it easy to follow.

Read It, Don't Eat It! won't appear until next May, so don't hold your breath - yet. And, rest assured, this one is entirely mouse-free, though it does contain a small helping of cats.

Cat & Mouse in Parenting

Parenting serves up this tasty morsel about Cat & Mouse:

A clever rodent gains the upper hand over a feline frenemy in this hilarious tale. Kids will love the oversize, colorful illustrations - and the thrill of watching the little guy win.

Model Cats

Buzz and Pistachio, the models for the cat in my new book, were feral kittens, once. They were born and raised in my backyard before they turned into inside cats. Coincidentally, the day before Cat & Mouse came out another pair of feral kittens came in - and one of them (named Edward Brandywine, at least temporarily) looked even more like the star of my book than my two models. He stayed about ten days before he was adopted out to a new home, but the day he left I couldn't resist making a "trailer" for my new book. The soundtrack (a radio playing in the distance) leaves something to be desired and, frankly, this kitten was more lethargic than I would have liked, but here goes...

Cat & Mouse in Publisher's Weekly

And now a word on Cat & Mouse from Publisher's Weekly (reprinted without permission, but with many thanks):

With a medley of three loosely adapted nursery rhymes as his text, Schoenherr lets loose a romp worthy of Tom and Jerry. "I Love Little Kitty" introduces each burst of action and serves as the wrapup, while also hinting that Cat and Mouse are really BFFs with a healthy sense of irony. In "Hickory, Dickory, Dock," Cat gets leveled by the mechanical bird in a cuckoo clock as Mouse escapes scot-free. The linked vignette "Eeny, Meeny, Miney, Mo" involves green yarn, Cat's big toe and some impressive lassoing techniques on the part of Mouse. Applying ink over acrylics, Schoenherr's technique is painstaking and exquisite - the cat's fur looks sumptuous; the cuckoo clock has the sculptural intensity of a baroque cathedral. Scale works as the images' comic foil: paring background and props to a bare minimum, Schoenherr lets the huge, saucer-eyed cat spill and sprawl across otherwise white pages, while the pink-eared mouse bops around with the grace of an Olympic gymnast.

Cat & Mouse in School Library Journal

A mighty fine review of Cat & Mouse turned up recently in School Library Journal:

Adapting and combining "Hickory, Dickory, Dock," "Eeny Meeny Miney Mo," and "I Love Little Pussy," Schoenherr crafts a wild romp featuring a paper-parasol-equipped mouse leading a cat on a merry chase. On sprawling spreads, the two main characters loom large against a minimalist white background. The insouciant rodent uses its parasol as a tease, a weapon, and a parachute until the cat manages to snag it for its own toy. The mouse then employs a ball of yarn to distract and ultimately lasso the cat's paw to retrieve the prize, and the two friends cavort and nuzzle in the conclusion. The dynamic and realistic ink and acrylic illustrations feature a stop-action energy and changing perspectives that make the characters appear to actually move across the pages. This bright, funny book conveys the joy of play and a welcome friendship between two traditional antagonists. -- Marge Loch-Wouters, Menasha Public Library, WI

Introducing Cat & Mouse & Myself

I'm launching this blog the day before my new book is officially released. At least I think it'll be available in stores on August 26th. It's called Cat & Mouse and, yes, it's about a cat and a mouse. The latter is a relative of the two stars of my last book, Pip & Squeak, and the former is a kind of hybrid of my two cats, Buzz and Pistachio. The text is also a hybrid: I took three nursery rhymes and edited and rearranged them so they would read like a story.

Initially, I only wanted to take the rhyme "Hickory, Dickory, Dock" and stretch it out into a 32-page picture book. It was to be set in an antique shop and the illustrations were to be filled with old objects and visual and verbal puns. But after years of tinkering, I just couldn't pull it off. I showed it to my editor and art director at Greenwillow Books and they suggested I extend it with some other rhymes. We also decided that the myriad knick-knacks were too distracting, so I paired down my sketches to their key elements. 

Once I shored up the pacing of the book - which had expanded to 40 pages - I made careful pencil drawings to guide me as I prepared the illustrations. This way I could avoid making time consuming corrections or changes later on in the process. And, at last, I made the final art with ink and acrylic paint on Fabriano Artistico Extra White 300lb hot press watercolor paper - a smooth, durable paper that doesn't curl or blister the way Bristol board can when it's saturated with water (I found this out the hard way a few books ago). I also hand-lettered the text with ink and my father's old lithographer's graver on separate sheets of scratchboard.

I'll post more about what went into making Cat & Mouse (among other topics), but for now I hope you'll take a look at the finished product and let me know what you think.