Today on Growing Up with Books – Dear friend, may I invite you to a reading session of Cat’s First Baby?
I am sitting on the big reading chair in my daughter’s room. Serai picks up the book from her shelf and brings it over to me. We cuddle together – me, her, the book and her stuffy lamb, Bun Bun. I love giving her context on the first page – Dada and Mama arrive home with a little sleepy bundle of their baby. They greet Cat who lives with them. Cat says hello. And so the story begins.
We often point to Fiona who rarely enters the room and enjoys sitting in the hallway, getting the full view. Sometimes, Dantes pops by and we point to him. We love the pages where Cat is having zoomies. We have a special gesture just for that.
Serai knows cats, their routines, the things they do thanks to this book. I love this book because it lets me see cats as protagonists while gently depicting the changes a new child brings to a family. My little furry friends also have to adjust to the new member.
When I bought this book, I had hoped that it would become part of our reading lives. I love that it has! I have the pleasure of chatting with Natalie Nelson, the storyteller and illustrator behind Cat’s First Baby, to get a glimpse into how this book came to be. Let’s welcome her!
Get to Know the Author of Cat’s First Baby: Natalie Nelson
Natalie, welcome to Armed with A Book! Please tell me and my readers a bit about yourself.
Thank you for having me! I’m an artist, illustrator, and author living in Atlanta, GA with my husband, 5-year-old son, and 3-year-old daughter. I’ve been illustrating professionally since 2014 for all kinds of clients. I illustrated my first picture book, The King of the Birds, in 2016, and went on to illustrate several books for other authors in the years after that. In 2020 my first self-authored picture book came out, and since 2021 I’ve been the author and illustrator of the Dog and Cat’s First series. There are 5 books in the series, with the 6th arriving in Spring 2027.
Was this story born from observation, from imagination, or from living through a transition yourself?
All of the above, sort of! This book is the companion book to Dog’s First Baby, which I wrote and pitched when I was pregnant with my first child. I was contemplating all the coming changes that would take place in our life and our home, and kept wondering how our dog (a beagle named Coach) would feel about it all too. Most of the story of Dog’s First and Cat’s First were written before I actually became a parent, but as I lived it out in the months and years later, a lot of what I wrote and imagined did end up being pretty accurate!
Did you grow up with cats in the household? I did not and watching my daughter and cats together is such a unique experience.
I’m allergic to cats so I’ve never lived with one! To write this story I had to do a lot of “research”, i.e., I asked all of my friends with cats about their unique behaviors and quirks. In the end, there were definitely some overlapping traits with dogs, but many differences too. It was a really fun creative challenge to compare and contrast the Dog story with the Cat story, and to arrive at two distinctly different books that also do have some similarities as well.
When you were shaping the story, did you hear it aloud in your mind? Were you imagining lap-sized readers, cozy chairs, and household cats as part of the experience?
A lot of the story is shaped by certain images that kept coming to mind initially, and then forming the text in concert with those images. For instance, on the opening spread I knew I wanted the Cat to be eying the new family member with a lot of skepticism. As opposed to the opening spread of Dog’s First Baby, where the dog is already wagging his tail before he’s even met the new baby. Or the image where the cat is climbing way up high, staring down at the baby—I knew that needed to be in there because it’s such a unique thing that cats do in the house. And how funny it would be to show the cat using that skill to spy on the new family member.
And yes I did picture families and pets snuggled up reading these books together, and I’m always so thrilled when I hear it’s working!
What do you hope happens between the adult and child while this book is being read?
I hope it can provide some moments of wonder and recognition of the similarities between our pets and ourselves. And also moments of giggles and joy as they notice the funny differences.
Do you see the book as a bridge during family transitions?
Definitely! Many parents tell me they received the book as a baby shower gift. They read it with or to their pet before the baby arrives, and then later as the baby grows, they read it regularly with them. I hope it helps parents and children think about big and small changes that might occur during new seasons of life.
What does it mean to you to write for children at the very beginning of their reading lives?
Babies love books. They love the tactile activity of turning the pages, the cozy feeling of sitting with their grown up and hearing their voice read to them, they love the colors and shapes of the illustrations long before their eyesight is even fully formed. It is very special to know that my books are part of these earliest stages of a child’s life with books!
Change in a household is subtle and cumulative. How did you decide what to show from Cat’s perspective as the family shifts?
I imagined the story taking place throughout the baby’s entire first year of life. So, in the early spreads, Baby is still swaddled, very immoble. As the story progresses, we see Baby starting to sit up, crawl, giggle. So I wanted to show those milestones and let them guide the story. Having the story take place over a year also nods to the fact that it can take quite a while for a pet to get used to a new family member, but the hope is that they eventually grow to love, or at least respect, each other.
Do you think children’s books are as much for adults as they are for children?
Absolutely! I don’t think anyone is ever too old to read a picture book.
If Cat faced another big family change, would their response look the same, or would they have learned from their first baby?
Well, funny you should ask. There is another book about Cat and Baby: Cat’s First Halloween. In this book, Baby and Cat are established pals, discovering the delights of Spooky Season together.
For dog people, there’s also Dog’s First Christmas and Dog Loves Baby.
Is there anything else you would like to add?
Thank you for the thoughtful questions! I’m not very active online, but if anyone wants to keep up with my work they can follow me on Instagram: @nelsonknatalie
As I read Natalie’s words, I find myself returning to our reading chair. To Serai bringing me the book. To Fiona in the hallway, watching from a distance, just like Cat did in those early pages.
What I didn’t fully notice when we first started reading Cat’s First Baby was how gently it holds change. Not as a single moment, but as something that unfolds over time. At 15 months now, Serai is becoming best buddies with both the cats. Maybe she learned some ways of interactions from this book. 🙂
You can check out Cat’s First Baby on Goodreads. If you have a little person with a dog/cat in your life, be sure to gift them one of Natalie’s books! Find them all on her website.
This post is part of Growing up with Books, a series where I document the tiny, tender, surprising reading life unfolding beside me. It is a miniature library within the larger story of my reading life. Cat’s First Baby is one of the books that I found for my daughter.
Be First to Comment