Kathi Appelt: Hi. This is Kathi Appelt. I'm here today to talk to you a little bit about my book, The Underneath. One day I down and wrote a short story about a boy who finds an abandoned kitten in a pine forest of East Texas. Several years ago, I actually lived there in the piney woods when I was a college student and the place has always seemed so mysterious to me and so almost primeval, as if it's been there forever. It's an interesting place. It's an old place and it's kind of a spooky place.

So after I wrote that short story, I set it aside, but it seemed to haunt me in a way. I kept thinking about that boy, and that kitten, and that place. As the story grew, that boy that was the original main character, became less important and the animals of the story actually took over. That kitten became the hero of the story. I just kept tugging away it, kept looking at it. And after three years, it took me three years to write the story, the story as you know it now, The Underneath, finally emerged.

One of the things that happened during the process of writing it was a friend of mine, Tobin Anderson, who you may know as M. T. Anderson, he's written several books, he called me right in the middle while I was writing and he said you should always write what you think you can't. I don't know why that meant so much to me, but I want to share that with you because I think sometimes when we write we're not willing to take the big risks that are required to make a story truly wonderful and truly unique. So I'm passing that on to all of you writers to write what you think you can't. You know, and what that means to me at least is to be willing to venture into uncharted territory, to make things up, to visit places that you might not otherwise in your writing. And it also means don't worry about being safe with your writing. Go ahead and be brave. So that was important to me in the writing that he said that.

What it also did is it gave me total permission to fail. I have to say one more thing and that is that I am a believer in cats. My husband and I have four cats and they're our home entertainment. We don't have a television, and so we rely on the cats for lots of entertainment and they very much provide it.

I want to read to you two little short scenes from the novel that involve Puck and Sabine, and Puck and Sabine are the kittens in the book who become the heroes. The little scenes that I want to read to you are actually chapters. I wrote this in little tiny chapters. So here is the first one. It's chapter 23.

But before Puck and Sabine could be clever and brave, they had to be kittens. Here was Sabine, hiding behind the old wooden fishing traps, the same gray color as her coat. Then quiet, oh so quiet, Sabine made herself small, oh so small, as small as a mouse, as small as a cricket, as small as a flea. She crouched down low, oh so low. Her paws tingled. Her ears twitched. Her tail switched. Patient, oh so patient. Until Puck, unaware, oh so unaware, and attack! Here was Sabine, the mountain lion, Sabine the snow leopard, Sabine the Siberian tiger, up on her back legs, front paws raised, hiss. No matter how many times she did it, she always caught her brother by surprise. Puck's fir stood on end, then Puck stood on end. The chase was on.

Now here was Puck inside the heavy leather boot which was deep and very dark, the darkest spot in all of the underneath. The smelliest spot in the underneath. Sabine will not go in there. Too smelly. Puck waits, smells Sabine. She knows Puck is there. Shh, don't tell Puck. Attack! It was Puck, the pouncer. It was Sabine, the pretender. Dashes. Tumbles. Electric fir. Hisses and spits. Whew. For kittens, life in the underneath was completely perfect.

Chapter 28.

Kittens also need to learn to hunt. The calico cat realized this. Here's a mouse. Here's a lizard. Here is a garter snake. One by one, she carried these home in her mouth, still alive, and set them and front of Puck and Sabine. A new game. Sabine knew just what to do. Chase the mouse. Chase the lizard. Chase the garter snake. She was Sabine the ocelot, Sabine the panther, Sabine the catamount. Puck knew what to do too. Chase Sabine.