Erin Bailey: I am sitting down today with author and illustrator, Nick Brule, who recently presented his book.
It's Right Behind me.
If you're watching the video, A Bad Kitty goes to the beach at the rally to read Reading Inspires event in New York City.
And welcome Nick.
Nick Bruel: Well, thank you for having me.
I'm flattered you'd ask.
Erin Bailey: So I wanna learn a little bit about your background, and I'm sure our listeners do as well.
You are a New York Times bestselling author and illustrator, best known for the Bad Kitty series, which I mentioned.
Can you share a little bit about your journey into children's literature and how your own experiences as a reader shaped the creator that you became?
Nick Bruel: Sure.
I think my journey might be a little bit it might be unique in, in many ways in the industry I'm thought of as the guy who went from one side of the table to the other.
Because prior to doing what I do now I worked as a bookseller for over 15 years, and those last seven or so years were at a children's bookstore that still exists.
It is called Books of Wonder in Manhattan.
And for much of that time I was the guy who ran a lot of the signing events for children's book authors and illustrators who came into the stores both informally and for formal occasions.
During the time I worked at that store, I was a cartoonist.
I spent a lot of my free time writing and drawing these short stories, these cartoons I would send to newspapers and magazines around the country and around the world.
And in order to support this radical lifestyle, I worked.
In book retail and working in that children's bookstore meant that I had to read as many of those books as I possibly could because my mission while I was there was to put as many of those books into as many hands as I could.
And during that time, I started.
Contemplating how I could integrate these two sensibilities I had as somebody who was a cartoonist, and as somebody who was getting more and more entrenched into this format of picture books.
That's when I started creating manuscripts of my own book, dumb Rings that I could show to editors potentially.
And honestly, once I started creating my own stories based on what I was learning from working in that store and what I was reading, it actually happened fairly quickly.
The woman who would become my agent and still is Jenny Dunham.
She was a regular customer at the store who had heard this rumor that I was working on something that she might wanna see the man who had become my first editor.
He was good friends with a former store manager who saw what I did and said, you gotta show this to Chail.
So that is kind of the story, the trajectory that I took, which honestly did begin with my being surrounded by children's books.
For my job,
Erin Bailey: That's a great story.
You had real life market data right there that you could draw from and the, and you could see what children were interested in their reading.
So I am going to slip a few trick questions in that were not in the questions I sent.
These are from my daughter who's five years old, and she wants to know, do you always start with pencil when you draw your cartoons?
Nick Bruel: Oh, that's great.
Yes and kind of no.
So first what I will do is I'll just take regular paper just from the printer and if I have an idea.
Even if it's for a cartoon or if it's for a page of a bad kindie book I will use ballpoint pen to just start writing and sketching really quickly.
And I use pen because I don't want to waste time erasing
Once I have a sketch that is going to act as like the frame of what the.
The final artwork is gonna look like for me.
Then I'll take the paper where the artwork is going to appear the final piece.
And I will use pencil to, to draw it out loosely.
Then I will go over that pencil with ink for the final line art.
Erin Bailey: Okay, so pen, pencil, and then ink.
I.
Nick Bruel: Yeah.
And for, because I love process questions in case there's anyone out there who, any, especially kids who are looking to to be illustrators themselves.
It's important to use waterproof ink.
So I use two different types of pens.
I use these sort of Japanese brush pens, but I also use these very common micron.
Pens.
I even see them in Target nowadays.
They've become so ubiquitous, and that's important because they use permanent ink, their waterproof ink.
And that's because I'm now gonna go over the drawings, the line art with watercolor paint.
And even for something like Sharpies, if you go over it with water or anything that's wet, that line will bleed a little bit, but it won't bleed if it's permanent ink.
Also known as Waterproof Inc. So that part's important.
Erin Bailey: That's really fun and what a great experiment for families to try out at home, you know?
Do a drawing in Sharpie, let's say, and see what happens when you go over in watercolor and then use these waterproofing pens that you're sharing and go over and waterproof.
It gives children a example of the process that goes into it and what they would prefer.
I.
Nick Bruel: It absolutely.
It could remind me of an interesting craft you can do as well where you get multicolored sharpies.
And you do, you gotta make sure you got protection under the paper or under the fabric.
You could do this on a t-shirt but ink will run through onto your table if you're not careful.
So that's why you gotta put a lot of protection under it.
But what you do is you do a drawing and you can do this on a t-shirt, which is kind of makes for an interesting effect.
And once you've done the drawing with the Sharpie.
It's gonna look like it's pretty permanent, but it isn't real.
'cause what you can do then is take rubbing alcohol in an eye dropper and drop it over the sharpie drawing and it'll, you'll actually watch it bleed.
What's cool about that is you can get some really interesting designs and effects that way.
You know, adult supervision, of course.
Erin Bailey: almost.
Yeah.
Always.
Almost like tie dye in a way.
Nick Bruel: A little bit, you get a little bit of an effect like that.
Yeah.
Erin Bailey: Cool.
Well, thinking about your own reading journey as a child, do you remember a specific book or moment from your childhood that made you fall in love with reading?
And how has this influenced the types of stories that you write today?
Nick Bruel: Yeah.
I think I'd have to think about, I'd have to answer with the very first book that I ever read because my mother did something very clever.
When I was very young and learning to read, we're talking pre preschool, like three, four.
And what she did was every day she'd written out these flashcard, this index cards, and she'd written on big, bold letters, words like tree, car, hat, dog, and I was learning.
You know, one or two words a day for I don't know how many weeks, maybe even months.
I just can't remember.
And then one day my mother hands to me, go, dog, go by PD Eastman.
And she says, I want you to read this book.
And I go, what are you talking about?
I don't know how to read.
I mean, you gave me these words here and there, but that's kind of, that, that's a pretty big leap, mom.
And she said.
Go ahead, try it.
And I opened it up and what clicked was, oh, she taught me all of those words individually that make up this book.
And it, it was a moment that I remember quite distinctly, kind of feeling triumphant that I could actually open this.
This book and I can go page by page and all those words that she taught me.
Now they're there together, making sentences and a story.
This is kind of great.
I want more of this, please.
As to how influenced me later on.
I don't know if, I mean that book I is just a seminal work.
It is one of the greatest books for kids ever made.
And I don't think I'm alone in this being a ver a first book for a lot of kids.
I th it is perhaps notable that I would make a career out of writing stories about cats.
And my first book is all about just a massive collection of dogs.
But I think I'd have to go forward in time to a book that I discovered while I was in school.
It's out of print now, called fat Cat.
And Fat Cat was a beautiful picture book.
I'm going to describe it to you if you don't know it.
And your viewers, your listeners will think.
This is just a nightmare fuel.
Why would you even think about sharing this with us?
But bear with me for a moment.
Fat Cat was written by Jack Kent and it was based on a Danish folk tale about a cat that really is hungry as always hungry.
This cat and the cat wants to eat whatever stew is being made inside his owner's pot.
And the owner says, no, you've eaten enough.
You don't need any.
So the cat does what the cat wants to, which is eat the stew, eat the pot, then eat.
The owner then goes outside and eats everybody and everything in sight until it explodes in Jack, he's hands, it's charming.
It's hilarious.
It's even cute.
So that.
Book always stayed with me.
And you could trace, you could make the argument that what I do now as somebody who again, makes a career out of telling stories about this cat.
Back to that book about that cat.
Erin Bailey: I. Love it.
What a great start from dogs to cats.
And you know, speaking of cats, your most popular series is The Bad Kitty books.
They're wildly popular.
They're especially popular though with what we term reluctant readers.
Children who don't always see themselves as.
Readers but are, you know, everyone's looking for a good book, whether you realize it or not.
So why do you think the humor and the visual storytelling are such powerful tools in building literacy skills?
Nick Bruel: I so love that you asked me that question the way you did, because.
It justifies a lot of my efforts from very early on.
So now I'm speaking, I think you're speaking of the the chapter books that come after like the first bad Kitty book and.
When I came up with the idea to start creating early chapter books about this character that I'd already developed as a picture book character in all sincerity rather than target an age group or a grade level, I decided early on that my target would be in fact, reluctant readers and to, so.
What I decided to do was to create what would be like a bridge from picture books to chapter books.
And to do that, I thought, well, what I'll do, and this is especially true for those first ones, like Bad Kitty gets a Bath and Happy Birthday, bad Kitty and so on, create chapter books that use the picture book format.
I mean, they're small, they're digest sized, but there'll be.
About 140, 50 pages, but every page will be illustrated along with text.
So that I feel me, felt like I, I need to target reluctant readers.
And one other thing I did in order to target reluctant readers.
Was to incorporate into them sections that I would actually kind of separate from the story.
So they'd be freestanding sections of nonfiction.
And that's why I did those Uncle Murray fun facts.
And this came early on from thinking about my nephew who when he was very young, was something of a reluctant reader.
I recognized early on, however.
Just, you know, interacting with him that he was a reluctant fiction reader to him.
Fiction didn't make a whole lot of sense, or it wasn't especially useful.
Whereas if you handed him the Guinness Book of World Records, he poured through every page of it and he'd come to me, say, uncle Nick did you know the longest earthworm ever recorded was seven feet?
And it's like he couldn't get enough of that.
So that's why I have.
In I would say, I think it's the first 14 of the, those books, these sections of Uncle Murray's fun facts.
So reluctant readers can actually turn to those pages specifically if they chose to, because nonfiction seems to have a certain appeal to certain kids that we think of as being reluctant readers, but fiction readers.
Erin Bailey: I could not agree with that more.
I, you know, I was a reading specialist, so I. Worked with students who were struggling with reading.
And a lot of times these students, of course, became reluctant readers because if something's challenging for you, you're not going to want to do it.
And I use that approach as well.
It's so interesting that you said it that way, but if you can find out a topic that a child is interested in and then find a great nonfiction text about that topic, it's a great way to hook them.
For some reason, nonfiction does resonate well with.
So I appreciate your approach to those books.
Nick Bruel: Well, thank you.
Erin Bailey: so in your view, why is reading so important for young people, not just academically, but socially, emotionally, and what does literacy unlock for a child?
Nick Bruel: that's a heavy topic.
Let me um, I mean, my first thought is why libraries and perhaps in particular school libraries are so important for kids, right?
Because yeah, they are completely filled with.
Thousands of books, which are gonna cover nearly every topic and imaginable.
But libraries are useful, and those books are useful because that's the room kids can go into and make their own choices.
Libraries are a place of freedom.
I mean, it certainly was for me when I was a kid and I would go to my school library and I think back on it.
It's like, all right, you know.
First period, I gotta go to music.
Second period, I gotta go to science third period.
You know, even though I love to draw, I gotta sit down and draw.
You know, where you're told when you're a kid, what you're supposed to do each and every moment of every single day that you're inside the school.
But then you go to library and maybe there's a lesson involved, but whatever book you choose to pick up and take out of the room and maybe home with you.
That's your choice completely.
And that's kind of wonderful.
And I remember embracing that notion as a kid that's like, oh, I. Here's the moment in the day where I actually get to do what I want.
I get to make that choice.
For me that's like that and recess.
That's about it.
You're even told what you have to eat for lunch when you go to school.
But that and recess, those are the two, you know, times where you really get to let loose.
Erin Bailey: I love the way you described library as freedom and choice is very important to reading as fundamentals model.
But if you think about it, it is true in many classrooms throughout the US there are not a lot of choices.
Even during the literacy block or the English language arts block, oftentimes you're reading a text as a whole class or as a student, you're guided towards which text to choose because maybe it's the phonics pattern that you're working on or you know, some kind of other contrived convention that you're working on.
And yes, this is needed, but then the library acts as that kind of counter space where you have freedom and choice in what you want to read, and you can just explore.
Nick Bruel: Yeah.
And you're encouraged to explore when you're in the library, right?
It is not even that you go in there you, and you're just sort of like wandering around.
I mean, there's some of that component where you just kind of wander around aimlessly, but.
You're kind of given the tools necessary to learn how to explore productively, right?
It's like if, so, if you're that kid who's into mythology like I was actually in fourth grade you can go in the library and you can, you're given the tools not only to make those choices for yourself, but also to explore where the mythology section is so that you can actually, surgically aim your exploration and your exercise of freedom, and that's great.
I love that part about what libraries do.
Erin Bailey: Great.
So our next topic I actually bring up a lot on the podcast is around visual literacy and graphic storytelling.
It's two things that I am very passionate about.
I see myself as a visual literacy person.
So can you explain to us how illustrations and graphic elements support literacy development and how this helps build confidence in for children?
Nick Bruel: I can try.
I mean, I'm not an educator, but so I, but, so I can come at that some, something like that.
As somebody who uses words and pictures to tell stories, now I do that because it's kind of how I think too.
And I, and this may stem from the fact that I was a huge comic book reader when I was a kid.
I still am.
It's still my favorite.
Format to sit back and relax.
I just still love to just get a big collection of Batman stories and sit back and read those in an afternoon.
What I will say is I mean there are the, we know those kids exist who, because I was one of them that who need, you know, graphic storytelling.
They need to see their, they need to have stories.
That are told with both words and pictures what I do with the bad kitty books.
'cause they really have moved from the sort of hybrid format where every page is an illustration with text up top to now they're much more the graphic novel format.
Where I am.
Focused, or I should say I'm aware of is for a lot of kids, bad kiddie books might be their first foray into graphic storytelling.
And if you were to go into a comic bookstore today and even get comic books that are for younger audiences the graphic storytelling elements with all the frames.
Can be a little bit intimidating 'cause they can compact a lot of language and frames and storytelling into just one or two pages.
So I go outta my way, lemme see if I can get an example.
I try to go out of my way to keep the frame telling.
Yeah, here we go.
Very simple.
I it's basically very linear from top from left to right, top to bottom.
There's not.
Even when I have, you know, four frames, I try to keep 'em more or less going from top to bottom.
And there'll be a few exceptions because I want the kids who are, you know, going into graphic storytelling as a preferred form of reading in a gentler way.
They'll get to like the big complicated Batman, you know, mult 20 frames in a page pages soon enough that's going to happen.
But for now, I try to keep the bat kitty ones simple in their storytelling.
What's interesting is is as I was starting to create.
This type of storytelling myself, because I didn't start using frames with any regularity until maybe book number 7, 8, 9, I think bad kid takes a test.
It's the first time I ever really used frames is something I didn't realize until I started to tell these stories myself, is that the more frames I use, the more panels I use on a page, the slower the storytelling.
So I, I can actually tell a story and if I feel like I need to pump the brakes a little bit in the pacing of how the story goes, I add more frames.
It's interesting.
So, if I, and if I need a big burst, you turn the page and it's two pages.
There's no frames.
It's just a big two page splash.
So that was a bit of, that was something I learned.
About how I tell a story.
I think it's also gonna be how kids are gonna read it too.
It's like they can slow down their own reading pace with, by having more frames.
I think the tr the I guess the obstacle you run across though for is the more complicated graphic novels are gonna have way too many frames for a younger audience to to read.
And that's what I try to avoid.
Erin Bailey: You know, I've noticed that in reading comics with my daughter, as I mentioned, she's five and we do read comics.
You know, we have some Spider-Man ones and other comics.
But I've noticed that she asked me if I can point to the speech bubbles.
On the, in the different frames when I'm reading it, because otherwise, with so many frames on a page, her eyes might jump around and she might not be following the story in the order that it's being read.
Because she, without being able to read what we call conventionally, the words on the page, she wouldn't know who is saying what and in what order that they're reading it.
So I do appreciate that it's like a first step into graphic storytelling.
I, you know, I'll also share, we recently had a webinar on how to teach children writing skills through graphic storytelling and comics.
And what the presenter, Shannon Live shared is that those gutters, which are the spaces between the frames that you were referring to, that's where inferencing happens.
So if you think about it, if you have less frames on a page, it requires.
Actually larger leaps in the inferencing, whereas what you're describing, if you put more frames on the page, you're guiding the reader a little bit more.
Nick Bruel: Oh, that's interesting.
I never con consider it that way.
It's, yeah.
All right.
That makes sense to me.
Erin Bailey: Yeah, it matches very well with what you're describing.
So next I wanna ask you for families who are listening or educators, librarians trying to nurture a love of reading, what practical advice do you have?
How can you help children see reading not as a task, but as a joyful experience?
Nick Bruel: You know my answer to that one, it well actually stems from my years as a bookseller because I would occasionally get you know, parents mostly who would come in and they want, they're coming into a bookstore because they want to encourage their own kids to read more.
And I think the distractions today are even more, you know, are even multifold, you know, greater than they ever were when I was a bookseller.
And my advice to them was always the same, read the same thing as they are reading.
I mean, you are, for picture books, it's obvious you're reading it to them, their lab books.
It's an intimate experience.
But if you're coming in, you want to buy books for a 10-year-old to read on their own.
You should read that book too.
Because one of the, one of the things, what was it?
I think it was Marshall McCluen who would talk about like cold media and warm media and he'd say that, you know, books are very warm media because everybody on the planet can sing this, can read the same book, and then you can have a conversation about it.
And whereas, you know, television's a cold media because there's really no interaction.
Between you and the medium.
But, so if you can read the same book that your kid is reading, then you can actually have a conversation.
Then it's a, an experience you're both sharing and you can share it long after you've both finished the book.
And that's where series books actually come in Helpful, I suppose, because you can move on to the next book together.
It's funny, I hadn't thought of this in a very long time, but I think my father must have understood this because we read several of the l Frank Baum Wizard of Oz books, together.
I hadn't remember, I hadn't to this moment.
I hadn't thought of this in decades.
But so yeah, I guess my dad must have understood this intuitively.
'cause we read a lot of those Oz books and they were bonkers and talked about them you know, afterwards.
Erin Bailey: I think what you're also describing is reading as a social activity, which we talk about a lot too at reading as fundamental, when you make reading a social activity it's more enjoyable for children and it's.
And it's more sustainable, but that's great advice.
It's simple, it's actionable.
Read what your children are reading.
I know when I was a teacher, I tried to, I had a professor who encouraged us to do the same, and luckily when I first started out teaching, I also had teacher roommates, and so we would read what the popular series were.
At the time, when I first started teaching, hunger Games just came out.
So all of us teachers who were living in a house together, we all read Hunger Games, we talked about it, and we were.
Right there.
When students would ask us, do you have hunger Games?
Do you want to read Hunger Games with me and talk about Hunger Games?
So, it's great advice.
Nick Bruel: You know, I'll just add that these books are phenomenal.
I mean, my favorite books are the, are middle grade and maybe slightly older, not quite young adult type novels.
Erin Bailey: Mm-hmm.
Nick Bruel: They're out of this world.
I mean, so what?
Hunger Games?
Oh, who's the author on that?
Erin Bailey: I'm gonna have to link it below.
I do not know off the top of my head.
Nick Bruel: but her previous series I'm pretty sure is Gregor the overlander.
And it's a phenomenal series and it's such good reading.
These are spectacular stories that even if you're an adult you won't necessarily be, you are not the target audience, so you're not gonna be, you know, compelled to pick them up off the shelves.
But they're phenomenal storytelling and they also tend to be the type of storytelling that I appreciate more where there's more focus on character development and on.
And propelling the story forward.
So you, if you're gonna read the same thing, your kids are read, you know, Beverly Cleary, I don't care what age you are, Ramona and Ramona Bees, they're phenomenal stories that, that any age is going to appreciate and embrace.
I don't care who you are or how old you are.
Erin Bailey: I, I couldn't agree more A few years ago.
We launched a middle school program and so to do so, my coworkers and I had to sit down and read a whole bunch of middle grade and YA novels, and they're fantastic.
I enjoyed them myself.
And I will link Hunger Games down below.
That's Suzanne Collins, who's the author of
Nick Bruel: Suzanne Kane, thank you.
And she did and I'm, I think, I'm trying not mistaken, she did Gregor the Overlander, which is a phenomenal series.
Erin Bailey: Which I can link below as well, and that's a great tip as well.
If you have a series that you're interested in, check out other series that the author has written or other books that the author has written, because if you like their writing style, then you'll probably like those other books too.
I.
Nick Bruel: Yeah.
Erin Bailey: It's a great way to get kids hooked and to keep them, them reading.
Well, Nick, this has been fantastic.
I always end by asking guests, what does reading inspire for you?
I.
Nick Bruel: For me, reading inspires writing.
When I visit schools I get.
Questions similar to, to, to what you just asked, and usually a form of like, what inspires me?
And I say it's always reading.
If as a writer, if you want to be a writer, then you have to read as much as possible.
Having said that, I recognize that I'm saying this on a podcast for reading is fundamental and I recognize that kids who may be hearing this are already hearing this from the big people at home and all the big people at school and all the big people around them.
'cause they're already saying to them, you have to read as much as possible.
Your future depends on it.
Kids, the big people say this because it's true.
And as a writer, this is especially true because of this.
You have to think of it this way.
Let's say you read a book.
You finish the book, you close the book, you put it down, you set it aside.
You say to yourself, wow, I love that book.
That was an amazing book.
I'm gonna tell everybody to read that book as a writer.
I asked myself the question, what was it about that book that.
I love so much.
If you can find that answer, you can use that in your own writing.
Now, on the other side of the coin, let's say you read a book.
You finish the book, you close the book, you put it down, you set it aside.
You say to yourself, oh, boy I was not the best book.
I didn't love that book.
I don't think I can tell anybody to read that book because let's face it, that happens.
It's okay as a writer.
I have to ask myself that question, what was it about that book that did not work for me?
If I can find that, answer it, it will be equally useful to me in the long run.
So the lesson I give to kids, to put it more succinctly, I suppose when I talk to them in schools, is don't worry about whether you think you're gonna love or not love the book that's in your hand.
Read it.
Anyway, because as a writer, they will all be equally useful to you in the long run.
Erin Bailey: I love that.
You know, I've talked to other folks as well about how passion for a book is passion and it gets you talking, it gets you to do an action and sometimes it's the books that we really hate or thought were really awful that actually inspire us to do more things.
So I appreciate that and I appreciate you, Nick.
Thank you so much for joining.
Nick Bruel: Well, thank you for having me.
This was true delight.
Appreciate it.