HUDSON – Betsy is a little girl who lives with a teal dragon and a brown bear.
They have unique personality traits, and even though the dragon and bear can appear scary or overwhelming, they both love Betsy very much. Betsy even wears a bear headband and a dragon wing-cape to be like them.
And, while brown-haired, blue-eyed Betsy is a fictional character in a children’s book, she was inspired by a real-life girl of the same name: the almost-5-year-old daughter of Anna McCabe, who is the author of the upcoming “The Dragon, The Bear and Me.”
A Hudson resident and mother of Betsy, 4, and Brianna, 3, McCabe said, “I have two very spunky little girls. They are basically my sole inspiration for everything I do.”
She was inspired to write “The Dragon, The Bear and Me” when she started reading to her girls. She said she realized there are many books for children that were not as well written as they could be.
She said, “So many children’s books aren’t very good. … They have little to no story line, and the characters are often underdeveloped.”
Her daughters were involved in the writing process as she read each book through every step of the editing phases. They would suggest details like the color of the dragon or the things they choose to do in the book.
“I wanted to make sure it was relatable, funny and captivating. They even helped me craft some of the characters,” McCabe said.
McCabe, who described herself as a good creative writer in high school, never envisioned herself as an author. Yet “The Dragon, the Bear and Me” is a passion project.
She was in an outreach program at Manhattan School of Music, where she earned a master’s degree in voice and opera. She had to write and compose two operas, including the words and dialogue.
She said, “Those were really fun. One of them was called ‘Alice in Operaland,’ and the other was ‘The Secret Music Garden.’ ”
As a part of the work, she had to rhyme in sync with the music. This love of language bloomed, she said, into her first book, which features rhyming.
The book, which features many rhymes, is a new adventure for her.
“I never meant to be an author of children’s books,” she said.
It is illustrated by Artist Dago Baute, who McCabe said was “beyond talented.”
She said the dragon and bear each have their own characteristics and parenting styles and represent different family dynamics. She tried to show the dynamic by separating different traits into the two characters. She found that there is usually a rule-maker and a comforter.
McCabe said, “The perfect representation was a dragon and a bear.”
She would like for “The Dragon, the Bear and Me,” and her next two books, “The Traveling Teeth” and “The Thousand Mile Slide” to be relatable to children and parents in terms of experiencing similar feelings and situations.
She added, “My inspiration is for them to be relatable. I want them to have some sort of lesson.”
The lesson in her first book was that every family dynamic is unique, and the things that seem scary sometimes are not at all. She said there is the lesson that “the people in your life who take care of you, love you deeply.”
She said it was surreal to realize that she would soon be a published author and was proud that “something that came out of my brain” has turned into a creative outlet for others to enjoy. The idea brings a smile to her face.
She said, “I am proud. I am excited. I am hoping I can release ‘The Dragon, The Bear and Me’ on Betsy’s birthday, Aug. 1.”
She thanked her editor Kathleen Krueger for fleshing out her ideas into “an actual story with action” happening to all of the characters.
Second book
Her second book, “The Traveling Teeth,” is based on when her brother Anthony lost his two front teeth in a bicycle accident and had to use a flipper, or retainer with two fake teeth, until his jaw healed and he could get permanent replacements. Their dog Coco found them and bit the flipper in half.
She said, “Any time my brother got mad or tried to yell at you or sneezed or any of those things, the teeth would go flying out of his mouth.”
He lost them in the ocean, spit them out a car window and left them in a trashcan, and his best friend David, the superhero of the book, was the one who always found them for him.
She said, “That book is mostly about the awkward stages of growing up. We all go through losing our teeth.”
It is also about having a best friend who is going through the same awkward changes and taking responsibility for something important, according to McCabe. She called it a “laugh out loud, hilarious story.”
Her second book will be released in fall 2024 sometime in September or October, while “The Thousand Mile Slide” is in development. A girl repeats a rhyme and rides down a slide into an “imaginative play land” where she can go anywhere like the North Pole or to meet mermaids.
Brianna will be the model for the little girl in the story, McCabe said.
She hopes to stand out from the crowd and write and publish creative stories that are imaginative, relatable and make kids and their parents laugh.
McCabe’s books will be available on Amazon, and she can be followed on Instagram with @authorannamccabe to stay up-to-date on release dates and events.
