Writing Our Childhoods with Tish Rabe
Today’s guest has written over 170 children’s books for Sesame Street, Disney, Blue’s Clues, Curious George, Huff and Puff and many others. In 1996, five years after the death of Dr. Seuss, Tish Rabe was hired by Random House to write for The Cat in the Hat’s Learning Library, a new line of rhyming science books for early readers. A television series based on these books, The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot about That, airs daily on PBS Kids.
She’s also known as The Singing Author and has quite a story about her journey to where she is today.
“The world needs content. There’s all these devices, and something’s gotta be on them. The need for solid content and creative is high.” - Tish Rabe on the need for creators
Rejections
Despite having more than 170 children’s books to her credit, Tish has faced mounds of rejections. It’s been one of the biggest challenges of her career.
Even the original character she created hasn’t seen the light of day from a publisher. However, it did lead to her writing for Dr. Seuss and the Cat in the Hat Learning Library.
So while she faces rejection even today, Tish says the key is to just keep creating.
“I woke up one day and said ‘I don’t have a character of my own.’ So I did. The bad news is that they didn’t publish it. But the good news was that they asked me to write for the Dr. Seuss brand.” - Tish Rabe on the challenge of rejection
Writing for Children
As a young woman, Tish thought for sure she was going to be a jazz singer or opera singer. She’s creative and loves to perform. When she arrived in New York City, she ended up instead working for Sesame Street through a series of events.
Tish was also asked to write a children’s book despite having no children of her own. She had an idea about a story which she pulled from her own experience, which became Bert and the Broken Teapot.
Tish says creating for children doesn’t mean you have to be a parent. She says instead it helps to remember your childhood.
“My mother told me she loved me more than an old broken antique tea pot.” - Tish Rabe on inspiration for writing for kids
Connect with Tish:
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