When you walk into the Appelt home, you’re met by five friendly felines, an aroma of freshly brewed coffee, purple walls, cheetah print carpet, and shelves upon shelves of books. In other words, you find the perfect abode for an award-winning children’s book author.
It’s fitting that Kathi Appelt lives in such an inviting home, as she is well-known for her hospitality. With an offer of homemade cookies, it quickly becomes apparent that Kathi’s home and hospitality are not simply for show — they help tell her story.
Kathi became a first-generation college student when she studied at Texas A&M University. Kathi began with hopes to become a veterinarian but says she quickly found her mind was not wired for the hard sciences. However, she was enthralled by the freshman English course she was required to take. She switched her major to English before her second semester of college.
“I didn’t have a clue what I would do with an English degree, but it felt right for me to be in the English department,” she shares. “The liberal arts courses I took taught me how to think — how to take a material and bring my own sensibilities and stories to it, and then come to a thoughtful conclusion.”
A few years after graduation, Kathi married Ken Appelt, son of one of Texas A&M’s community pillars Les Appelt ‘41, and they settled down as College Station locals, had two sons, and were suddenly tossed into the world of parenthood.
“I started reading to my boys a lot, sort of as a self-defense, thinking that it certainly couldn’t hurt,” Kathi says. “I discovered the world of children’s books through them, and I was enchanted.”
Kathi describes her sons’ childhood years in the 1980s as the “golden age of children’s books” and marks herself as a beneficiary of that period of wonder. During this time, she grabbed lunch with her friend and former professor, Elizabeth Neeld, who happened to be an English professor of children’s literature. When Neeld asked what she was reading, Kathi laughingly responded that children’s books were her current literature of choice.
“Elizabeth looked at me and asked seriously if I had ever thought of writing children’s books, to which I responded ‘no,’” Kathi says. “She asked me, ‘Why not?’ Considering my love for children’s literature, I didn’t have an answer to that!”
As a children’s book author, Kathi aims to keep her younger audience in mind, remembering the voracious reader she was as a child. She also draws inspiration from life happening right around her.
“Most of my books and poems come directly from my own life because that’s what I know best and feel most strongly about,” she says.
But Kathi is also honest about what it takes to be an author; even with dozens of published books, she knows it’s a challenging process. Her first book purchased by an editor was never published. Her first published book, Elephants Aloft, was written two years before it was illustrated and released into the world.
“I would send manuscripts in the mail and would have to wait six months to a year to hear back about it, so I’d just move on to the next story,” she says. “One picture book bounced around and took 17 years before anything happened. Every book has its own journey and history.”
The hard work Kathi has put into her stories has paid off. She’s published close to 50 books and has won numerous awards. She notes the awards she received for her first novel, the National Book Award Finalist and Newbery Honor Book distinction given to The Underneath, felt most significant.
“I got stuck with the plot of The Underneath and had to make myself keep writing it in small significant scenes, so it was great to be rewarded for that,” she says.
Even after such a notable career, Kathi shows little sign of stopping. A teacher at heart, she spent a few years teaching an upper-level course on writing for children at Texas A&M. Today, she continues teaching in the Master of Fine Arts writing program at Vermont College of Fine Arts.
Nestled into their cozy and colorful College Station cottage, Kathi and Ken remain passionate about the arts and humanities in their everyday lives. After all, Kathi is a writer, Ken is in a band, and their sons are jazz musicians!
“The liberal arts has a human core. We are storytellers because we ourselves are stories,” she says. “I think it’s something we’ve really lost sight of … Liberal arts is the study of our human story, which teaches us listening, contemplating, and looking underneath the human experience.”
