Stay ConnectedTwo sisters, one in L.A. and one in NYC, both move to the Chicago area and start a podcast. The premise? Picture books and are they really that great? Join Kate and Fuse 8 (Betsy Bird) as they track down a picture book “classic” each episode and try to determine if it deserves to remain in the canon of children’s literature.
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We promised you additional strawberries and additional strawberries you shall have! We start off with a bang on the podcast this week with a fun quiz: Who would you cast in the live action version of three different picture books? Then, we go back to this great work of Don and Audrey Wood, last seen on this podcast in episodes about The Napping House and King Bidgood’s in the Bathtub. Today’s post features a strawberry book that isn’t quite as strange as The Grey Lady and the Strawberry Snatcher, but clocks in at a close second. Show Notes: Betsy admits that she utterly forgot that she interviewed Don and Audrey Wood about this book a mere TWO years ago! In her defense, 2020 was a bit of a lost-COVID year. The post, however, is quite fascinating. It relates a tale about the British-to-American rights process like nothing you’ve seen before. Imagine if you did nine books and they were out of your reach after that BUT their loss allowed you to make The Napping House. Curious? Find the interview here. Betsy Recommends: The Dropout - https://www.hulu.com/series/the-dropout-13988f84-f1c8-40dd-a73c-4e71ab4bbe63 Kate Recommends: She-Hulk - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10857160/ For the full Show Notes please visit: https://afuse8production.slj.com/2022/09/05/fuse-8-n-kate-the-little-mouse-the-red-ripe-strawberry-and-the-big-hungry-bear-by-don-and-audrey-wood/
"It's Catch Me If You Can only with an old woman and a weird blue creature." Full credit today to Lisa Straubinger for today's suggestion. Though we'd done the better known Molly Bang title When Sophie Gets Angry... Really, Really Angry on this podcast, we'd not done any other Molly Bang books. This was Molly's first book that she'd written and illustrated herself and it's a doozy. This is very much like nothing you've ever seen before. It's use of negative space alone is worth its weight in gold. Plus, who exactly is the trickster here? There is much to discuss. Show Notes: Here is where Molly Bang recounts the incredible, name-dropping ridden story of how The Grey Lady and the Strawberry Snatcher came to be. It involves Ursula Nordstrom and Susan Hirschman and OH! It's just a crazy series of events: https://web.archive.org/web/20081212220001/http://www.mollybang.com/strawberries.html Kate Recommends: Transfigure Print Company and this t-shirt: https://transfigureprintco.com/shop/protect-trans-kids-shirt Betsy Recommends: St. John Bread and Wine: https://stjohnrestaurant.com/a/restaurants/bread-and-wine For the full Show Notes please visit: https://afuse8production.slj.com/2022/08/29/fuse-8-n-kate-the-grey-lady-and-the-strawberry-snatcher-by-molly-bang/
Author/illustrators aren't supposed to have favorites but what do you want to bet that there's a special place in Bryan Collier's heart for his award-winning Uptown? Since Betsy lived in Harlem for 11 years, it seemed fitting for her to go through the book with Kate, 22 years after its initial publication. In the course of things Kate finds a prominent male member (if you know what I mean), copious chocolate squares, and a love of golf that surprises everybody. Show Notes: this spread there's a lot of discussion of James Van Der Zee. If you're interesting in reading a picture book biography of him, please check out Take a Picture of Me, James Van Der Zee by Andrea Loney, illustrated by Keith Mallett. It provides a delightful encapsulation of the man's life: https://www.leeandlow.com/books/take-a-picture-of-me-james-van-der-zee For the complete Show Notes please visit: https://afuse8production.slj.com/2022/08/15/fuse-8-n-kate-uptown-by-bryan-collier/
"It's like Freaky Friday but they're both perfectly aware of what's going on." If you were hoping that this episode of the podcast would begin with Betsy doing a variation on the Counting Crows song "Mr. Jones" then BOY do you know us well! In honor of its brand new republication (all thanks to its 40th anniversary) we're tackling this Amy Schwartz classic about finding happiness in a bureaucratic society. How does this book stand up after all this time? Is it still memorable? Does it still have something to say to kids today? We take a deep dive into 1980s Wall Street and all that that entails. Mad Men meets Big! Who could resist? Show Notes: Here's the Reading Rainbow episode of this book, as alluded to in the episode. Very fun, as long as you don't mind the constant whir of what sounds like a standing fan the whole time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0P7Z1kYFKnE Betsy Recommends: Nope - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nope_(film) Kate Recommends: Watch Out for Big Grrrls - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lizzo%27s_Watch_Out_for_the_Big_Grrrls We also highly recommend that you checkout the Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast tribute to this title as well, as it mentions some facts about the newest reissue worth noting: http://blaine.org/sevenimpossiblethings/?p=5635 For the full Show Notes please visit: https://afuse8production.slj.com/2022/08/08/fuse-8-n-kate-bea-mr-jones-by-amy-schwartz/
The New Yorker recently featured rather impressive article called What Should a Queer Children's Book Do? In it K.T. Horning, "who recently retired as the director of the Cooperative Children’s Book Center of the School of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison" mentioned something in her discussion with writer Jessica Winter that today's book was a favorite for years by lesbian families before they had adequate books to turn to. Today we talk mosquitoes, this book, mosquitoes, how Canadian Geese are the worst, and ... mosquitoes. Enjoy! Here's the Reading Rainbow sequence of the reading of this book. What's interesting about this is how they chose to adapt the book. Due to its length, a straight reading would not have been ideal. So we were impressed how they incorporated live action into the mix. It also, if we might say so, kind of backs up what K.T. was saying about its subversive nature: https://youtu.be/TloBLRxH2Fw Kate Recommends: The Rehearsal: https://www.hbo.com/the-rehearsal Betsy Recommends: The 10th Anniversary Edition of Sailor Twain: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250829443/sailortwainorthemermaidinthehudson10thanniversaryedition For the full Show Notes please visit: https://afuse8production.slj.com/2022/08/01/fuse-8-n-kate-three-days-on-a-river-in-a-red-canoe-by-vera-b-williams/
Betsy was in her library's children's room the other day and a staff member saw her looking perturbed in the easy book section. When she asked what Betsy was looking for, she confessed that what she really needed was a copy of Robert the Rose Horse. Though in the business for many years, Betsy's fellow librarian had not heard of that particular P.D. Eastman collaboration with Joan Heilbroner, and could you blame her? Betsy would have probably have missed it too if (A) She hadn't had children that she read to and (B) She hadn't stumbled on the mighty useful "Big" beginner books from Random House that combined many of Seuss's "I Can Read" titles into a single volume. Today's title comes to us via The Big Red Book of Beginner Books, and it truly lives up to expectations. Betsy promised Kate they'd do a goofy book. She may have actually overdelivered. Show Notes: Betsy got all her thymus and T-Cell information from this information from Radiolab and its episode My Thymus, Myself: https://radiolab.org/episodes/my-thymus-myself For the full Show Notes please visit: https://afuse8production.slj.com/2022/07/18/fuse-8-n-kate-robert-the-rose-horse-by-joan-heilbroner-ill-p-d-eastman/
Goofy is fun. Goofy is great. But seems to us that sometimes you just gotta slow everything down and do a picture book that's a little more serious. We had to go meaningful this week and what could be more meaningful than a little drop of Allen Say?. That doesn't mean we don't have time to also talk about a yard full of 12-foot-skeletons, of course. We contain multitudes. Show Notes: - You can read Betsy's 100 Picture Books for Kids Poll write-up of this title (at #46) here: https://afuse8production.slj.com/2012/05/29/top-100-picture-books-46-grandfathers-journey-by-allen-say/ - For the record, Allan Say as a child ran into Lois Lowry though they never exchanged a word. It was only years later that they discovered that they'd seen one another all those years ago. Read more about it here: https://www.bookpage.com/reviews/25028-lois-lowry-horizon-childrens/ - Here's Halfway Home by Christine Inzer. If you need a comic about feeling torn between Japan and America, this is ideal. Bonus: Actually made by a teenager (and check out that well-deserved Jeff Smith blurb!): https://afuse8production.slj.com/2014/12/06/review-of-the-day-halfway-home-by-christine-mari-inzer/ - Kate Recommends: The hard seltzer Press: https://enjoypress.com/ - n episode of the podcast 99% Invisible about Octagon Houses: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/the-octagon-house/ For the full Show Notes, please visit us here: https://afuse8production.slj.com/2022/07/11/fuse-8-n-kate-grandfathers-journey-by-allen-say/
We're back from the ALA Conference, baby! Many thanks to everyone who hung out with us and told us that they liked our podcast. We'll just start off today with a hat tip to author Eliot Schrefer for suggesting today's book. It's one of those rare cases where this is actually a book that Betsy read and reread multiple times as a child. We've done all kinds of William Steig books over the years. Shrek. Doctor DeSoto. Sylvester and the Magic Pebble. Now we tackle one that is very near and dear to her heart. How has it aged? Content wise? We discuss it all. Show Notes: - I mention at one point that William Steig created a character called Poor Pitiful Pearl. Here is her doll. You can find additional information about her (plus a possible lost early Steig book) here: https://vintagedollcollector.com/poor-pitiful-pearl-article-william-steig/ -Betsy Recommends: The NPR Books We Love round-up this year: https://apps.npr.org/best-books/#view=covers&year=2022 - Kate Recommends: Queer Ducks by Eliot Schrefer: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/queer-ducks-and-other-animals-eliot-schrefer?variant=39684198563874 For the full Show Notes please visit: https://afuse8production.slj.com/2022/07/04/fuse-8-n-kate-the-amazing-bone-by-william-steig/
It's our 5-year anniversary of this podcast and to celebrate we're examining something both obscure and of note. Haven't heard of this particular picture book? You aren't alone. Originally published in 1969, the book is perhaps best known as being the last book Langston Hughes, its author, ever worked on. Betsy was just meticulously weeding her library's adult 811s and stumbled upon it. Black Misery is a children's book marketed as an adult title yet in spite of its copyright date it has a lot of similarities to the children's books today that are calling out elements in our own racist culture. Microaggressions and outright racism vie for space on the pages. The central question for us is this: Is this book a picture book for children or not? It's not easy to answer, particularly when you weigh how little change has happened with some of these moments and how beautifully they're called out here verses the use of the n-word and some of the more dated elements. In the end, we do wonder why it hasn't been reprinted in the last few decades. Seems like a forward thinking publisher might benefit from bringing this one back again. Then again, even that sentiment may be overly dated. We live at a time where the need for Black Joy in books for kids is particularly keen. Does it make much sense then to bring out again the true antithesis of the statement? Or does Black Misery have more going on here then its title implies? We take a deep dive into its pages to find out. Show Notes: - Just as a reminder, if you'd like to hang out with us on Saturday, June 25th around 9 or so at the ALA Conference in Washington D.C., just drop us a line at fuse8kate@gmail.com. - Curious about other Langston Hughes books for children? The 1955 publication The Book of Jazz is beautifully remembered by Vox here: https://www.vox.com/2015/4/2/8335251/langston-hughes-jazz-book - You can read what the Missouri Historical Society has to say about Black Misery here: https://mohistory.org/blog/from-the-library-black-misery-by-langston-hughes/ - For the full Show Notes please visit: https://afuse8production.slj.com/2022/06/20/fuse-8-n-kate-black-misery-by-langston-hughes-ill-arouni/
By gum we haven't had one of these since our own mother came on the show. Today it is our infinite pleasure to present to you the fantastic author/illustrator/cartoonist Ursula Murray Husted of, amongst other things, the marvelous graphic novel A Cat Story. A fan of the podcast, it seemed only fitting to ask her to suggest a title for the show today. Her choice? A book that honestly I've never seen before. Lulu and the Flying Babies is an obvious homage to, say, The Snowman by Raymond Briggs, and its creator started out by making comics before she made books for kids. And as it just so happens Ursula started out that way too! This is an absolutely fascinating example of a picture book working with this level of comic book paneling. And, of course, at some point we do include the line, "I had no idea how easy it was to decapitate a cat." Show Notes: You can check out some of the range of Posy Simmonds' when it comes to her darker adult comics here: https://www.lambiek.net/artists/s/simmonds_posy.htm We bring up the question of which Posy Simmonds books are available for purchase in the states. If you're only interested in her children's books then besides this title check out Lulu and the Chocolate Wedding and Fred. It's not a lot but it's what we got! Ursula Recommends: The King of Confidence by Miles Harvey Kate Recommends: Songfinch, Putt Shack, and the new Bob's Burgers movie. Betsy Recommends: Making a birthday cake based on Erin Hunter's Warriors series. For the full Show Notes, please visit: https://afuse8production.slj.com/2022/06/13/fuse-8-n-kate-special-guest-ursula-murray-husted-presents-lulu-and-the-flying-babies-by-posy-simmonds/
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