While I am a lover of all animals, cats will always have a large part of my heart.

MARTA PANTALEO is a picture book creator who studied graphic design and photography at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome and illustration at MiMaster in Milan. She has created illustrations for children’s books, magazines and international publications that include the New York Times. Her work has been selected and exhibited at the Society of Illustrators of New York, the Shanghai International Children’s Book Fair and the Bologna Children’s Book Fair exhibition. She lives in Rome, Italy. You can learn more about her at her website or follow her on Instagram.

CATS AND US: A TEN-THOUSAND-YEAR FASCINATION is a picture book that looks at the relationship between humans and cats spanning history. Yet it’s not a straight nonfiction examination but almost more of a poetic approach that includes legends & myth, history, and present day oddities (like cat cafes). Cat lovers around the world will love this book.

Welcome Marta!

Me: Can you tell us a little bit about your creative journey? When did you start writing and illustrating picture books? How has that brought you to creating this picture book?

Marta: I’ve always felt a deep connection to the world of picture books.

I’ve been collecting them since I was a child, and they’re still a big part of my life today. I never stopped buying them. Alongside that, I’ve always loved drawing, and I graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome. For me, creating picture books was a natural next step, a space where complex ideas can be expressed with just a few words, while the images carry the weight of the story, enriching and expanding the narrative. It’s a language I find endlessly fascinating, and one I think is often underestimated by adult readers.

Me: I love the poetic approach you have to the history of cats with mankind. What gave you the idea?

Marta: What inspired me to write Dogs and Us and Cats and Us was a strong desire to explore how deeply these animals have become part of our lives, to the point where we actually see them as true members of the family. To understand the roots of this bond, I had to look back and dig into human history. That’s where I realized just how essential our relationship with dogs and cats has been for our evolution. Especially with dogs, our collaboration has shaped who we are, influencing our diet, our habitats, even our chances of survival.

It’s an amazing story, and one I felt was too important not to share with children!

Me: I understand that DOGS AND US was a previous book. Was this book sold at the same time or did you think of it afterwards? Do you consider both of the books to be companion pieces?

Marta: These two books were born side-by-side. I love dogs and my partner loves cats, so we’ve always lived with both. Sharing our life with dogs and cats naturally led to a lot of conversations about how, in their own unique ways, each species offers affection, companionship, and inspiration.

Me:  Your illustrations are so colorful and full of fun tidbits. Can you talk about the media you used to illustrate this book? Are you strictly a traditional or a digital artist?  Or do you use a blend of both?

Marta: For me, color plays a vital narrative role. I like using it as an expressive tool, drawing through color in a way that gives readers an immediate emotional sense of the page, even before they’ve read a single word. I work with acrylics and markers, which I then scan and finish digitally.

I like my illustrations to retain a handmade quality, I don’t want them to feel fully digital. Those little imperfections from traditional drawing are part of what brings them to life.

Me: As you both wrote and illustrated this book, which came first, your text or the illustrations? Or did you work on them in tandem?

Marta: Totally in tandem. For me, writing and illustrating go hand in hand, I rarely separate the two. I usually start with a core idea or image that sparks something, and from there, words and visuals begin to evolve together.  It’s a very fluid process, intuitive, a bit messy, but that’s where the magic happens.

The perfect book is when text and images work in parallel, without repeating each other, but each adding something to the story in their own way.

Me: What is one thing that surprised you in creating this story?

Marta: What truly surprised me was how deeply cats have woven themselves into the fabric of our lives. I always knew they were our companions, but discovering their role in shaping our societies, from being honored as divine guardians in the temples of ancient Egypt to being shrouded in superstition as witches’ companions, was unexpectedly fascinating.

It felt like discovering an ancient partnership that had been quietly influencing us all along.

Me: I love that! Any advice for other aspiring picture book writers and/or illustrators?

Marta: I can suggest more books for cat lovers:

Millions of Cats, written and illustrated by Wanda Gág (1928), a beautiful picture book that is very contemporary indeed.

The Cat at Night, written and illustrated by Dahlov Ipcar (1969)

Passeggiata con fusa (published as The Cat Way in English), written and illustrated by Sara Lundberg (2024)

Excellent suggestions Marta. Thank you for stopping by my blog today.

Dear readers, this book publishes today from Groundwood books. If you too are a cat lover, you’ll want to check it out. This is a book that takes a few surprising twists and turns you wouldn’t expect, just as cats do themselves.