Ponder Who?

Ponders Books

Coming Soon
Ponder Visits
Past Books

Links and Things
Fun Stuff
Castaway Cats

Castaway Cats
Written by Lisa Wheeler,
Illustrated by Ponder Goembel

A Richard Jackson Book
Ages 4-8
Atheneum Books For Young Readers
June 2006
ISBN: 0-689-86232-6
List Price: $16.95

“Here, from the creators of the witty Old Cricket, comes a wily, wise saga of sogginess, a feline fantasy about drying off (elegantly), shaping up (grumpily), getting along (at last), and loving it.”
— from book flap

Starred Review
“The Cast of characters includes a wisecracking marmalade Tom, an angora diva, and a tough alley cat with a heart of Gold. Goembel's illustrations done in acrylic and ink are fantastic and provide wonderful insight into the side stories developing as the book progresses.”
— School Library Journal

 

A Rare Calico

“I got the idea for Castaway Cats on a road trip to Florida. I was thinking about the wonderful cats that Ponder created in our book, Sailor Moo. The next thing I knew, a line fell into my head: On an island in the ocean/ near the land of Singapore/ midst a storm of great proportion/fifteen cats were washed ashore. I wrote this down in my notebook immediately. Then, I began to wonder about all those cats. Who were they? How would they survive? What's their story? That was the beginning and all those furry felines didn't let me down.”
— Lisa Wheeler

Ponder this:
“I enjoyed designing each of Lisa’s individual catcharacters but soon found I needed a descriptive index to keep track of who waswho. The characters needed to be on an island, one that depicted the cat’s crowdedlittle universe. I wanted the point of view to change from page to page so Imade a model island that could be moved and lighted according to the time ofday. In the end the entire cat island was revealed in the setting sun.”
— Ponder Goembel

  

“Of course, I used a lot of imagination aswell as clay.”
— Ponder Goembel

For more about cats, check out the Links page.

 

 
© Copyright 2006 Ponder Goembel. All Rights Reserved.
 
Website Designed and Maintained by Steven J. Swart. Check out Steven Swart’s Infinitarium for
more information about web design and other computer help!