First Stories…Featuring Cate Berry

Welcome back to another installment of First Stories! School is starting or will be starting soon in many states across the country and in lots of places around the world. With the start of school comes the feel of a new, fresh start and a change in seasons, even though the weather won’t change much (at least where I am!) for another month. The start of school means new experiences, new teachers, new class pets…and new superpowers?

Today, I’m delighted to welcome Cate Berry to First Stories! Cate is the author of the hilarious new picture book, Scorch, Hedgehog of Doom (Page Street Kids), available wherever books are sold and perfect for classrooms, story times, and superheroes-in-disguise. Wherever they are hiding.

And now, a little about Cate:

Cate Berry lives, writes, and teaches creative writing in Austin, Texas. She is the author of numerous picture books, including Penguin & Tiny Shrimp Don’t Do Bedtime!, Chicken Break! A Counting Book, and Thank You, Teacher!. Recently, she co-authored Kobe Eats Pizza! with Ashley Wian. Cate holds an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts and has been a featured author and presenter at the Texas Book Festival and many SCBWI conferences. Visit her at www.cateberry.com.

Me: Hello, Cate! Welcome to First Stories!

Cate: Hi, Heather! Thanks for chatting with me, it’s good to be here.

Me: So, you were kind enough to send along an advance copy of Scorch and it is quite hilarious! I can’t wait to talk about this zany and fun picture book and the inspiration behind it. But often the seeds of ideas are planted many years – and many books – before the one that was just released. Let me start with my standard first question – Tell me about your “first story.” The one that really pushed you to consider publishing. What inspired you to write it? What was it about?

Cate: This is such a great question! It gets to the heart of so many things. Lately, I’ve been thinking about it a lot, too. I aim to write funny and humorous picture books. I teach a lot about humor as well, so I ruminate about it a good deal!

My “first story” tumbled out of me. It was all dialogue between two unlikely characters, a penguin and a tiny shrimp, who refused bedtime in a very vaudevillian style. In other words, they kept topping each other with rapid fire responses and making their case more and more over-the-top. I was in theater for a long time and my dad was very, very funny. I grew up around a huge extended family that had a lot of lively characters, people were always telling funny stories. When I started writing picture books, it felt very natural to draw from a well of funny characters doing outrageous actions. The thing I didn’t realize until later with this story, is that I was also channeling my two kids. I love that even when writing fiction, you can always see a thread of your own life woven into the fabric of the story or characters. At least, that’s the way it is for me.

Me: I love this idea so much! I can see why you had to write it! And reading your bio, I think I might know where it ended up, but I still have to ask – where is this story now?

Cate: I was lucky enough to have it published in 2018, Penguin & Tiny Shrimp Don’t Do Bedtime! with illustrations by Charles Santoso.

Me: Cate! That’s fantastic! I thought it sounded like it might be Penguin & Tiny Shrimp. How exciting that your very first story eventually got published. Were there any elements of that first story that had to be revised? Did you receive feedback on that story? What did that feedback teach you?

Cate: Another great question! Again, I think my characters, especially Tiny Shrimp, were the “hook” for the book’s success. But that’s not much to go on! So I worked to make it marketable in two ways.

First, even though it’s redundant to have a shrimp that identifies as “tiny” that also makes it absurdly funny and appeals directly to a kid’s sense of humor. Second, I think there was an evergreen theme of the book (kids not wanting to go to bed) but I worked on relaying it in a slightly fresh way that made the book work from a marketing standpoint. In other words, the theme felt familiar to parents and kids, so it had a broad connection, but it also had distinctly unique, funny characters that felt new and fresh to readers.

I didn’t get much feedback on the story from my agent. Once it was acquired, my editor had me work on making Tiny Shrimp’s dialogue “funnier” (her words, not mine). To do that, I had to get more specific. I love zeroing in on what I call comedic details, small actions or words that get “funnier” when you push yourself to make them as specific as possible. For example, a dog jumping over a lamp is mildly funny. But a poodle jumping over red velvet lampshade starts getting funnier. At least to my ear. 

Me: I can see that – zeroing in on specific details that are wacky and unexpected could really increase the hilarity. And those kinds of editorial comments – “make this funnier,” or in my case when I was working on revisions to my short story in the Haunted States of America Anthology (Godwin Books/Macmillan), “make this scarier” – can be daunting unless you have a way to attack the revisions. Whether that’s “playing” with structure, dialogue, setting, etc. Or changing the words used. Or making lists of things that would be funny, scary, etc. and seeing where inspiration strikes.

As we’ll see, you are and remain a very talented writer of fun and funny books for kids!

Are there any themes in that story that you can see in your writing today?

Cate: Yes!

It hit me last year that I’m a character writer. My favorite stories are motivated by unique characters that are (hopefully!) funny. They drive the narratives with their voice. Voice is so hard to explain in writing. But it’s the impression or imprint that is left with you after reading a story, the particular way an author phrases and describes things with their words that feels uniquely their own.

Recently, it occurred to me that you can write a funny story (ex. the arc of the narrative follows a funny storyline), or you can have a funny character drive the story by their particular, unique and quirky personality. Of course, it’s great to have both! But for me, once I realized that character driven stories were really “my thing” it became easier to focus on that in my writing for more authentic manuscripts.

Me: Very cool! And yes, I can see how understanding more about yourself as a writer really helps focus your story ideas, drafts, and revisions.

Why is that first story special to you? How was it important for your writing journey?

Cate: Oh, your first story is always special because it feels like home. It’s where I “found my voice” or at least that’s how it feels to me. It’s been important for me, as I look back, to know that I wrote that story mostly from intuition, before I had studied much craft. In that sense, it feels very, very authentic and personal to me. Also, it reminds me of the fun days when my kids (now teens!) were wild, bedtime rebels and we laughed so much, all the time.

Me: I love that – “it feels like home.” What a great way to describe that feel of a first story. Like accomplishment and feeling secure and like it’s “home base.” Even if that first story never gets published (like mine!), it’s still so formative for you as a writer.

OK! Here we come to Cate’s latest picture book! I would love to hear about your latest picture book, with the phenomenal title, Scorch, Hedgehog of Doom!

Here’s the description for this delightful picture book:

Scorch the hedgehog is determined to be ferocious. The doomsy-est, most menacing class pet ever known. She’s not just Scorch, she’s… Scorch, Hedgehog of Doom!

There’s just one problem―Scorch is kind of adorable. So adorable, in fact, that it’s all anyone ever notices.
With each swirl of her cloak, each sharp claw raised high, each baring of her chilling chompers, the kids of room 402 don’t fall back in fear or quiver with tears. Instead, they cry, “Awww! Adorable!”

Tired of being seen as just one thing, Scorch flies into action, determined to show how truly terrifying she can be. But when her flipping, training, and high-flying efforts land her in true danger―the home of the classroom’s other scaled, slithering, cold-blooded animal occupant―Scorch must harness and embrace all the parts of her unique self. Put to the ultimate test, she finds power in being ferociously adorable and killer cute.

Readers will fall for this ferociously “awww”-inspiring story starring a beloved class pet about self-image, identity, and finding harmony among the many different, sometimes contradictory pieces of ourselves.

How did you come up with the idea for this book? Does it relate at all to your “first story”? And how does it relate to SCHOOL of all things?

Cate: Thank you!

As I stated above, once I realized that my strength lies in character driven stories it gave me a lot of direction as a writer. That and having fun while you write! This story came out of a wonderful yearly retreat I do with two pals each year in February. We laugh and share a lot of our work. I was in such a playful space that one day the voice of Scorch just popped into my head with the first few lines, “High on her craggy cliff she loomed, looking out her glass castle…” and at the same time I visualized the juxtaposition of a deeply, menacing villain in the body of an iconically adorable hedgehog. Once I had the “voice” of Scorch in my head the first half of the book wrote itself! And I’d give a million dollars to know where Scorch came from in my mind! It just flew in there and I copied down onto the page as fast as I could. Then, of course, the real work begins with revision. Ha!

As far as its connection to starting the school year: More hilarity came through another juxtaposition – that of Scorch being the class pet for an elementary classroom. All the kids think she’s adorable while she’s concocting these doomsday plans!

I think Scorch and my first story really came from the same place in my soul, if I’m honest. I had a deep need in that first story, and in all my stories, to make kids laugh that I’ve never even met. That feels like magic! And it fuels my writing every day.

Me: What a fantastic end to a super-fun interview! Cate, thank you so much for joining me today!

Cate: Thanks for having me!

Me: I am in love with this hysterical hedgehog! So I have to leave you with one more spread from this delightful book as a teaser and to encourage you to order your copy TODAY by clicking the button below. Perfect as a back-to-school gift, as an addition to a classroom library, and more.

Don’t miss the next installment of First Stories…returning in two weeks with another fun picture book – this one about food. 🙂