{"id":5305,"date":"2021-03-16T00:01:48","date_gmt":"2021-03-16T06:01:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=5305"},"modified":"2021-03-15T18:25:09","modified_gmt":"2021-03-16T00:25:09","slug":"tiny-kitty-big-city-a-visit-with-tim-miller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=5305","title":{"rendered":"Tiny Kitty, Big City<\/em>: A Visit with Tim Miller"},"content":{"rendered":"


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\nIt’s a pleasure to have a visit once again<\/a><\/strong> from author-illustrator Tim Miller<\/a><\/strong>, who takes a deep dive here into his newest picture book, Tiny Kitty, Big City<\/a><\/em><\/strong> (Balzer + Bray, March 2021), and shares some process images as well. The story, told in short and punchy two-word phrases on each spread, is one of a stray kitten who eventually finds a home \u2014 but not after wandering, lost and during winter, throughout New York City. It may be crowded and loud and scary for the tiny creature, but kitty is brave \u2014 and survives, thanks to the kindness of strangers. <\/p>\n

This book is a love song to cats and<\/em> New York City. It nearly hums with the magic of the Big Apple in winter, all brought to life in Tim’s vibrant, spacious, and unfussy cartoon style. I thank him for visting today to talk about the gouache (and cat hair) illustrations, how this story was born, and much more. Let’s get to it. <\/p>\n

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Sketches for the cover, endpapers, and title page<\/em>
(Click to enlarge)<\/center>
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Final cover<\/em>
(Click to enlarge)<\/center>
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\nJules<\/font><\/strong>: This was inspired by a true stray-cat story, yes?<\/font><\/p>\n

Tim<\/font><\/strong>: The idea for Tiny Kitty, Big City<\/em> first came to me from a scribble I made just playing around in my sketchbook. I drew a small cat looking up at the giant Chrysler Building, because I thought it was a fun game to contrast big and small.
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(Click sketch to enlarge)<\/em><\/center>
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\nI had recently adopted a rescue cat and was working at the Queens Museum at the time, leading school tours of the Panorama of New York City [pictured below], which is a giant to-scale model of NYC from the 1964 World\u2019s Fair. So, I think the drawing was an unconscious pairing of the two.
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(Click image to enlarge)<\/em><\/center>
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\nI remember that I shared the sketch on Facebook, and since I had to come up with a catchy caption, I wrote: \u201cTiny Kitty, Big City.\u201d And that was the light-bulb moment when I realized, \u201cBOOK!\u201d I toyed with the concept for a while but couldn\u2019t get anywhere with it, so I filed it away and forgot about it. <\/p>\n

About three years later, I found a stray cat and her litter of kittens when I was parking my car in Queens. They were living in a beat-up cardboard box under the elevated subway train. I fed them for about a week until I was able to rescue them. I fostered them all until I could find them new homes with the help of a local rescue called Jersey Cats. It was the experience of seeing how the stray and her litter had to survive and imagining what that felt like through their eyes that reminded me of the idea and helped me understand how to make it work.
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Day one of their rescue<\/em>
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The kittens, once they settled in …<\/em>
(Click image to enlarge)<\/center>
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