Groovin’ with Creativity: Pete the Cat and Eric Litwin
Join Kassi Kincaid for an engaging conversation with Eric Litwin, the original author of Pete the Cat. Discover how creativity brought this beloved series to life and learn about the powerful messages that inspire us to embrace joy and imagination in our everyday lives.
Transcript:
Kassi Kincaid (00:01):
Welcome to The Edge of Creativity Podcast. I'm your host, Kassi Kincaid. And joined with me today is Eric Litwin, a song singing, guitar strumming, New York Times bestselling author and original author of Pete the Cat. Eric, thank you so much for being here today.
Eric Litwin (00:21):
Thank you, Kassi. I'm happy to be here.
Kassi Kincaid (00:24):
I am so excited to have you on today's episode. Your Pet the Cat books are some of the most amazing books I think out there in today's modern children's literacy world. So it is such an honor to have you.
Eric Litwin (00:41):
Well, thank you, and I'm excited that you want to talk about creativity, which I think is key for helping children learn to read, but also really important for teachers and grownups and all of us to keep that creative spark alive and help it grow, and so many benefits come from that.
Kassi Kincaid (01:05):
Absolutely. And I'm so excited to talk specifically with you today about creativity because your books are just so creative and we will get into that in a little while. But let's kick off today's episode. Can you share with our listeners where your literacy journey began and how it has progressed to where you are today?
Eric Litwin (01:26):
So I began my literacy career, well, it began with a different career. I was a teacher and I was interested in policy. I'm a real policy nerd. I have a master's in public administration and a master's in education. And I was teaching students in the third grade and fourth and fifth grade. And what basically is I became very aware that many of my students did not love reading and showed kind of a disinterest. And there are so many reasons why this is a concern. And for all teachers and any grownup who is passionate about education and has sat in front of a third grader who no longer loves reading, there's a certain heartbreak. I can try and say it in words, but it's something you experience because you realize that so many doors are closing for them because they don't love reading. So much of school is based around reading almost really most of it.
Eric Litwin (02:39):
And if you love to read, you're going to read more and you're going to get better and better at it. If you don't love reading, you will obviously read less and you'll get worse and worse at it and fall further and further behind. And this affects everything. It affects how you do in school, but that affects your self-esteem. And this will also affect for a certain degree how much money you can make. Also, reading more than any other activity expands compassion, imagination, focus, and all of these doors when you hear them and watch them close, you think, what can you do? And for me, I started thinking I want to start writing books that are going to help young children love books and fall in love with books. So I started focusing not on third grade, but on preschool and kindergarten. And the basic idea is this, the world has changed around us. Reading for a while had very little competition. It was the most fun thing you could do, grab a picture book, but this is before TV and electronics and video games and all these different things. And I felt in today's world we needed to make reading more engaging, more multimodal, more interactive between child and caregiver. And that's what I set out to do.
Kassi Kincaid (04:11):
So Eric, in the world of children's books, can you describe a little bit what sets apart your work and made it a bestselling endeavor?
Eric Litwin (04:22):
Well, I think there are a couple of things. So the first is that I incorporate music into the stories. And the idea is that music is obviously engaging and it's fun. And when you blend early literacy and music together, you are optimizing the two of them. There's a synergistic impact. So the book becomes even more fun. So if we have Pete the Cat, and I'll take, what I did is I took certain blue songs and rhythms from music and I started incorporating them into the style of writing. So let's say with Pete the Cat, we'll get like a rhythm. Like Pete the Cat was walking down the street wearing his brand new white shoes. Pete loved his shoes so much, he sang this song. So I want to get the kids singing right away for many reasons. But one is that when you have a repetitive verse, it really entices the children and it really results in them participating in the book.
Eric Litwin (05:34):
And this is key, we want engagement, but it also brings the parent in, right? Or the teacher. So we'll keep the song nice and simple. I love my white shoes, I love my white shoes.Not too much melody here, right? More rhythm. So something everyone can do. And so there is one part, we're going to have a certain rhythm and a certain rhyme. When I describe the rhythm components, you take an old blue song by Muddy Waters, go something like, What's the Matter with the Middle? Okay, well, I had a little corn mill, put it in a sack, brought it to the mill, I had to bring it right back. What's the matter with the mill? And the answer is, you can try it. I'll say, what's the matter with the mill? And you say, it done broke down. Are you ready? Okay, what's the matter with the mill?
Kassi Kincaid (06:29):
It done broke down.
Eric Litwin (06:32):
What's the matter with the mill done? I can't get my fill. Okay, so you have that back and forth, right? So these techniques, and they're so fun. It's so fun to sing these old blue songs and to have the audience participate. And that's where a lot of the magic came from and these old in the folk and blues. So let's compare that. Compare to here comes Pete walking down the street rocking red shoes on his four furry feet too. Had a little cornmeal, put it in a sack. I brought it to the mill, I had to bring it right back. So I found a lot of these rhythms and I'm thinking they've been around for a long time for a good reason, right? They're contagious, they make you feel good. It also turns out, and I was someone who was very interested in reading a strong rhythmic underpinning helps with fluency, which is one of the five pillars of reading.
Eric Litwin (07:40):
So we also want to get everyone involved, right? So when you hear Muddy Waters tune say, what's the matter with the mill? And the audience says, it done broke down. That's similar to Pete saying, did Pete cry? The kids say, goodness, no. Right? So this is what I'm doing. I'm blending what I've learned from being interested in music and old just basically Americana music, and I blended it into early literacy. So that's one part. The second part is it's my feeling, and it was when I started 15 years ago, but now as much as then maybe even more, that we need to focus on positivity and happiness more directly. We need to incorporate these ideas into our books, into our stories, into our lessons, into everything we do. Because what we're finding out about people is that there's a certain organic negativity that happens. You don't have to work for it.
Eric Litwin (08:57):
You just can be negative without working hard. But positivity requires effort and it requires wisdom. So I took some of the wisdom ideas from mindfulness and also wisdom ideas from positive psychology and learning from neuroscience and things such as that. And I very subtly put them into the story. So with Pete the Cat and his white shoes and that, he steps in strawberries and they're red, but now he loves red and he sings, I love my red shoes. What's happening here is he's looking for the positive. That's in a very western American optimistic, positive thing to do. You look at Pete the Cat, his four groovy buttons, and that's loss. He has four groovy buttons and one pops away. Right now he has three, but he's grateful for three and then he has two, and that pops away. Eventually, he has none, but he still has his belly button. Those are ideas for mindfulness that we learn to accept and work with change, and we're still grateful for what we have. It's not so much about getting what you want, but loving and cherishing what you have. So I would say those are the two things that I focus on. Reading techniques to make reading more multimodal, more exciting, more engaging, more human, more interactive, and the sharing of positivity and love and acceptance built into the nature of the story.
Kassi Kincaid (10:47):
Well, I have read that book or both of those books so many times and hearing you talk about the mindfulness of it, my mind just went like, of course you know that subliminally. But to hear how you were so mindful to make the book like that, it wasn't just about the music. It wasn't just about the kids having a good time and all the different things you were trying to go for, but that was really interesting hearing all the different things you were trying to put in these books for the kids. And it's so true. I mean, it's just so positive. Every time a button pops off or Pete steps in the different colors, it just doesn't rattle him. And that is such a profound life lesson that I feel sometimes we're always going either personally or professionally. We're trying to attain certain things. And it's not so much about focusing on the things that we want or the things it's focusing
Eric Litwin (11:46):
Well, it's a combo.
Kassi Kincaid (11:48):
It is a combo. It's a combo.
Eric Litwin (11:49):
But here's why that felt confusing. In my opinion. We are doing two things at the same time that are somewhat different. So yes, it is about making life better. We do want to make things better. And interestingly, that idea comes from the enlightenment. And although that sounds historical and who cares, our constitution and the culture, American culture is founded in the Enlightenment. So this set of ideas, we can make things better. We can see the positive in them. It's very modern in a sense that it's only about 400 years old. It's very American, and it's part of all of us without our knowing. But at the same time, if you only try to make your life better, you're going to run into walls. There are some things we can't make better. I mean, there are changes. Something as simple as I used to have brown curly hair and now I have gray hair, and that's okay. And I now have a 4-year-old, and that's wonderful. But my wife and I also miss having a baby, having a little one. And both of these things happen at the same time. So the ideas were balancing making things better, seeking the positive with accepting and loving and being grateful for what we have and recognizing that we can't control everything and things change. And the two books kind of contain each of those ideas.
Kassi Kincaid (13:38):
And I love too, and it's not just for kids, but for adults to being able to overcome disappointment. And disappointment happens on every level of life. Little things. Oh man, I got a flat tire, or I lost a job, or whatever it is, things unexpectedly happen in life, or we didn't get that promotion or just whatever it is that it's a profound life lesson.
Eric Litwin (14:03):
Or you do get the promotion and you're still not happy afterwards, right? Or whatever it may be. There's so many complexities to it.
Kassi Kincaid (14:12):
I love how you just internalize that in the book. It is not just for kids, but it is so important for kids to internalize that at a kid level, right?
Eric Litwin (14:23):
At their level. But they totally get it. And so I've had parents tell me they're sitting in the car and their little three-year-old or 2-year-old looks at them and says, you know what, mommy? And she'll say, what? And they'll say, buttons come and buttons go. And they totally get it. They get it. And then I think as far as, it's interesting because in terms of these ideas being helpful for adults, of course they are. But they've always been presented from more complicated analogies and stories and approaches. And I've actually recently been starting to give a presentation called Happiness Simplifier, where the basic ideas, I'm going to explain the ideas and mindfulness, positive psychology and neuroscience through my children's books, and to walk away with little more fun participatory ways of conceptualizing these ideas. Again, with the notion that modern life is just different than the world is changing quickly. How we are able to receive information and have it sink in has changed. Never before has there been so much information overload. So how do you cut through the overload and get to the parts that really make a big difference as we're all adapting and trying to live a good life in a very changing and challenging but exciting world.
Kassi Kincaid (16:01):
And I love how you just explained that your children's books, your Pete the cat stories are just so universal for people that think that children's books are just if they have kids or not. I mean, really, children's books are for everyone, and everyone can learn something from them, even if you don't have kids. The stories and the morals and everything that comes across in children's books, I love that, that they are just so giving to adults as well.
Eric Litwin (16:33):
I think so too. It's a wonderful art for 'em, for one, having words that are very often poetic combined with art that is a reflection of the words. There's a story which is very helpful for people. It truly is beautiful. And as a children's book author, I can say that when I go to schools or give family performances, the grownups are just as enthusiastic.
Kassi Kincaid (17:06):
Oh, absolutely.
Eric Litwin (17:10):
And recently, and this is a new phenomena for me, which I'm very excited about, is that teenagers now want to come to my presentations. They grew up reading my books. And so I also see this as an opportunity to perhaps write a book, a nonfiction book on positivity and mindfulness for teenagers with the same approach as, let's understand this through simple stories. But let's see how these ideas when applied in our life can be very significant. But let's understand it in a way that's fun and simple, and we can apply it.
Kassi Kincaid (17:50):
You hit the nail on the head. So awesome that I feel like children's books, they just hold a special place in people's hearts, no matter whether they're kids, whether they're teenagers or adults. Somehow we're all connected through children's books. We have a great memory. It almost takes us back to a simpler time.
Eric Litwin (18:10):
I do, I do agree with that. But I look at it as children's books as the foundation, because then that leads to all the other reading that follows and all these books that we've read from when we were teenagers, maybe I was a big Harry Potter fan, or today I do a lot of deep reading into mindfulness and positivity, but as well as early reading instruction and reading is the antidote to the stressors and over information of our world today. Reading is the antidote. Reading helps us focus, whereas the rest of the world is just screaming for our attention. Books don't scream for your attention. You have to go to them. The rest of the world is flashing images in front of you. Books don't have images. Children's books do, but adult books in your mind, you create that image. You create the imagery, you create the expression, right? So if there's a sentence you read that says, I love that messy little puppy, how you read it changes everything, right? It could be, I love that messy little puppy. Now you're talking about you are yourself and the mess. Or you can say, I love that messy little puppy. Now you're talking about love.
Eric Litwin (19:49):
The author has the words on the paper. You create the expression, you create the imagery. And this is why reading is one of the only thing that lights up nearly every neural network in your brain. So I mean, it is healing, it is essential. It also helps us take a little vacation from ourselves, right? Most people are thinking about themselves. It's what we do, and we think about ourselves. In the past, we ruminate and in the future we feel anxiety and we're trapped in this self ruminating, anxious state. And we want out. We desperately want out. But it's hard to get out. Now, you can get out, you can get out through meditation, through walks in the woods, but you can also get out through reading. And reading is available where you are, using your mind, your brilliant, but not just to think about yourself, your past and your future. You go into, perhaps it's someone else's world you're reading about or it's nonfiction, and there really isn't a self, and it's a way to repurpose the neural networks in your mind in a manner that is healthy. You end up more compassionate, more knowledgeable. So I would argue that what you are describing, that foundation of falling in love with picture books is essential for itself, but also because then it leads to loving books and reading, which I think we all need in today's modern, noisy, busy world.
Kassi Kincaid (21:39):
Absolutely. Wow, that was so profound that I absolutely agree with all of that. So wrapping up today, Eric, what would be one word of advice that you would give to adults on reading on impact? Any tip on the betterment of their life from all the experience that you have had?
Eric Litwin (22:05):
I get, one of the things I would say on the topic of reading is if you want to love reading, if this conversation has been of interest and you say, you know what? I'd like to start reading again some more or focus a little more on reading. The best way to read more is to love reading. And the best way to love reading is to read what you love. So whatever you love, whatever topic or interest is just really inspires you. Just deep dive into that, deep read into that. And then I'd also encourage everyone to think creatively, to take things that maybe didn't go together before, like 1940s, post World War II blues and early literacy. Blend them together. You never know what you're going to end up with, and maybe it'll be something new and exciting. And that's kind of part of creativity. Also it's the remixing of ingredients that we know those ingredients. We just never kind of put 'em together this way or that way.
Kassi Kincaid (23:13):
Absolutely. Well, Eric, thank you so much for being here today. This has been, your story is literally the edge of creativity and everything that you have created and has just made such a profound impact in children's lives for so many years. So thank you so much for your time today.
Eric Litwin (23:34):
Thank you. I appreciate and really enjoyed this conversation.
Kassi Kincaid (23:37):
Thank you so much for listening to today's episode on The Edge of Creativity Podcast. Be sure to follow so you don't miss any of our upcoming conversations. We'll see you next time.
