Author/illustrator Brendan Wenzel’s newest book is “They All Saw a Cat.” In a recent interview in “The Horn Book,” Wenzel discussed his writing/illustrating process.
“They All Saw a Cat” is about perceptions. The child in the story sees the cat in a very different way than the dog or the mouse or the bee. Wenzel says he decided to tell this story of differing perceptions by using a cat because people tend to react strongly to cats, one way or another.
He did a fair amount of research studying as much as he could about how animals see things.
After that part of the process, he let him imagination soar.
The text is a bit like a folktale. The author admits that he loves folktales, and he hopes his readers get the sense of folklore traditions from the story.