BUNDLE & SAVE!
Meet the Creator
Who is Katie Pye?
Me!
I am a New Zealand-based author and mum of three, with a daft sense of humor and an uncanny ability to make anything rhyme!
I love writing fun stories. But most of all, I wanted to provide families great memory hooks into resilient thinking, including my own family.
I started writing while travelling the globe with my family, and so the Fairytale Fraud series has been written across four different continents!
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Q and A with Katie Pye
How did you first get started writing children's books?
My small son was upset under his bed. I climbed under with a piece of paper and a pen and no idea what to say or do. I did the first thing that I thought of – I drew a crazy turnip.
Next minute I was explaining his situation through the journey of a turnip, and he stopped crying and listened wide-eyed. What kind of magic had I stumbled on!
That instance with my son morphed into a cartoon series to help us chat through healthy thinking. From there, I did a bit of hobby writing for my kids, all with themes to help them have helpful thinking.
And then, one glorious day, as I was reading through a list of the fundamentals of mental and emotional health, I had the best-idea-ever for teaching wise trust - a retelling of the ‘Three Little Pigs’.
And so began the Fairytale Fraud series. I’m really driven by the idea of creating ‘moments’ for parents and their kids. I find moments of laughter, moments of connection, or moments of learning to be the ‘gold’ of parenting. All my books and resources are driven by wanting to create that for others.
Katie Pye is a pen name. Why 'Katie Pye'?
Like many people called Katie in NZ, 'Katy-Pie' was a childhood nickname! ‘Ke tei pai’, means ‘I feel great’ in the indigenous language of New Zealand, Te Reo.
My pen name links me with my family and the country I love so much. It is also a special something that only my New Zealand fans will appreciate. In fact, I have a few of those scattered through my books, as I wrote some of my series when I was an expat and dreadfully homesick!
Who is your favourite children's book author?
Undoubtedly my mother, Janet Wallis, most known for her title 'The Big Block of Chocolate'. But that is because she is one of my favourite people!
I read and re-read Enid Byton's Faraway Tree series, with Silky, Moon Face, the Angry Pixie, and the Saucepan Man, when I was a child. Enid helped stir my imagination, and I attribute some of my creativity to her.
