06/12/2026
😾 Bad Kitty! New York Times best-selling author Nick Bruel spent time at George W. Miller and Highview Elementary this week and offered students the “secret to writing stories.”
“Always ask yourself questions,” Bruel explained as he led students through an exercise where they pieced together ideas to create their own tales.
For one third-grade class, that meant developing the story of an angry turtledove yelling at an uninvited squirrel. (Don’t worry — they worked it out.)
According to Bruel, the best way to get past a blank page is to come up with the title first, which helps determine which questions to ask. The title of his latest book, released last month, is Bad Kitty Gets a Job, and students had the opportunity to hear Bruel read a chapter aloud.
Another secret? Bruel said he doesn’t think of Bad Kitty as just a cat. “I think of her as a kid shaped like a cat.”
The visit wrapped up with a Bad Kitty sketch demonstration — and, of course, plenty of student questions.
Thank you to Mr. Bruel and Nanuet Elementary Librarian Jodi Hink for organizing the visit.
Macmillan Publishers