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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Oh, Danny Boy! St. Patrick’s Day is nigh and Betsy is feeling pretty smug about the fact that she actually reserved a St. Patty’s Day title (sorta) weeks in advance so that she’d have something to do with Kate. And voila! Justification! Kate loves it! It helps that it stars a “Kate” and our Kate recently tried (and failed) to dye her hair the color on this cover. In any case, today we delve a bit into Mr. Talbott’s influences but mostly have a high old time discussing cow side-eye, cats singing Danny Boy, and why this ending rules. Show Notes: This was the best Betsy could find when Kate asked for cats singing Danny Boy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5N68I2bsZM Kate Recommends: The "What's More Punk Than the Public Library" t-shirt, which you can find here: https://mtpfriends.bigcartel.com/product/what-s-more-punk-adult-t-shirt Betsy Recommends: The three library videos she's been working on for the past year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ng5G9XLZIeI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01oq0KpNzYo&t=2s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LubRSiupY9I For the full Show Notes please visit us at: http://blogs.slj.com/afuse8production/2022/03/14/fuse-8-n-kate-osullivan-stew-by-hudson-talbott/
This week it's time for a CULT CLASSIC!!! If last week's book was incredibly well-known, this one is not, but it is FABULOUS. And, as you will learn, it utterly and completely charmed Kate, which is tough to accomplish. Consider it a book about feeling embarrassed and worried about your parental units in equal measures. Are you ready for the weirdness? Then enjoy småpapporna galore! Show Notes: Kate Recommends: Come From Away, the musical -https://www.broadwayinchicago.com/show/come-from-away-2020/ Betsy Recommends: The Bologna Book Fiar - https://www.bolognachildrensbookfair.com/en/home/878.html Care to listen to the book in its original Swedish? Well you can see it in its entirety here. And the title, oh yes oh yes, is Else-Marie och småpapporna: https://youtu.be/Y3rSzEG5US0 And here is Pija herself being interviewed about the book!! Anyone care to translate the best parts for us: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRxogNkwRRg And is she still making books? She is! Just check out this interview from October 2021 conducted by . . . yep. That's a priest all right: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbOlVFfiNYM For the full Show Notes please visit: https://blogs.slj.com/afuse8production/2022/03/07/fuse-8-n'-kate:-else-marie-and-her-seven-little-daddies-by-pija-lindenbaum/
While we've been doing some superb picture books as of late, but it's been a while since we've done a particularly famous one. So for a small change of pace we're doing a Big Name today. The kind where your library might have nine copies in its main location. And, bonus, it's not one by Seuss. Peggy Rathmann giveth again to us today with the irrepressible Officer Buckle and the adorable Gloria. We expected many things to occur during our talk but we did not expect for this podcast to devolve into such long conversations about bananas. It may amuse you to hear that Kate made Betsy banana bread at their next Game Night after we recorded this. Sheesh. Show Notes: Betsy calls Peggy Rathmann "the Gary Larson of picture books". Why? Ms. Rathmann walks away from a marvelous picture book career to live with John Wick. Not even kidding about that. And as Betsy mentions on the podcast, there was a piece in On Pasture called Meet Someone Making A Difference to Agriculture and the Climate. So, basically, she's saving the world. Pretty good excuse for not making any more picture books: https://onpasture.com/2021/11/08/meet-someone-making-a-difference-to-agriculture-and-the-climate/ Should you wonder, Officer Buckle and Gloria appeared at #59 on the Top 100 Picture Books Poll back in 2012: https://blogs.slj.com/afuse8production/2012/05/25/top-100-picture-books-59-officer-buckle-and-gloria-by-peggy-rathmann/ For the full Show Notes please visit: https://blogs.slj.com/afuse8production/2022/02/28/fuse-8-n'-kate:-officer-buckle-and-gloria-by-peggy-rathmann/
We just had a blast last week with our Valentine's Day picture book Somebody Loves You, Mr. Hatch, so where next to go? Clearly, this would be the best time to turn our sights upon the upcoming President's Day. So what better book, I ask of you, could we do than Caldecott Award winner So You Want to Be President? Penned by Judith St. George (who was doing non-fiction for kids in the 70s when it was a particularly uncommon job) and illustrated by David Small (of Long Road to the Circus fame), we determine what has aged well with this book and what is glaringly missing (no mention of how many presidents owned slaves?!?). We also speculate about the fact that it won a Caldecott Award the same year as 9/11, but months in advance and how it sort of prefaced a whole wave of nationalism that would occur later. For the full Show Notes please visit: https://blogs.slj.com/afuse8production/2022/02/14/fuse-8-n'-kate:-so-you-want-to-be-president?-by-judith-st-george,-ill-david-small/
You know, for as long as this podcast has been going on, we have never attempted to find a classic Valentine's Day book. It's a tricky proposition. We've done some pseudo-appropriate books like The Pigs' Wedding and The Marzipan Pig. But Betsy thought maybe we should try something love-related that is not hog-related. "It's about a human and it's about love . . . and he's balding. Three for three." This is a book that allows us to question what love truly is. Is love when people only appreciate you for what you can do for them? Or is it something more? Come join us for a journey through cheese and mustard sandwiches and brownies (not together). Stay, if only to hear how Kate reads the line, "I do believe somebody loves me after all," (you'll adore how she does it). Show Notes: Hector Elizondo reads Somebody Loves You, Mr. Hatch (a.k.a. the storytime you didn't know you needed): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGAS_Aj85cA Interested in Aaron Becker's trailer for his latest board book? Look here: https://blogs.slj.com/afuse8production/2022/02/04/adam-becker-board-book-video-premiere/ Kate Recommends: The audiobook of As You Wish by Cary Elwes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dieRrAK9rfM Betsy Recommends: The recent article in the New Yorker, Eat Prey Love about Felix Salten the author of Bambi: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/04/24/eat-pray-love For the full Show Notes please visit: http://blogs.slj.com/afuse8production/2022/02/07/review-of-the-day-somebody-loves-you-mr-hatch-by-eileen-spinelli-ill-paul-yalowitz/
The 2022 ALA YMA Awards were filled with firsts. The first Caldecott Honor or Award winner that's posthumous! The first LGBTQIA+ Honor and Stonewall Honor co-winner (to say nothing of its National Book Award Honor)! And all this reminded Betsy of a "first" from the past. Who was the first Black African-American winner of the Caldecott to win the Award two years in a row? That's right, we're returning to Leo and Diane Dillon. The first Caldecott Award going to a Black man was for Leo and Diane Dillon's Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears. But the SECOND Award went the very next year to the Dillons' work on Ashanti to Zulu: African Traditions. We consider this second Dillon win and find time to indulge in a discussion on why the Sibert Award should be renamed the Cyborg Award (as is right). Show Notes: The bird mentioned in this book but that neither Betsy nor Kate could remember is (naturally enough) the honeybird. This is a bird that leads different animals to sources of honey so that it can have a taste. Here's a page that contains recordings of all the Newbery and Caldecott acceptance speeches, courtesy of ALA and ALSC. Here you will discover Leo Dillon's magnificent New York accent: https://www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/NCWBanquetRecordings As Betsy mentions on the show, one element of this book that hasn't aged as well is the fact that if this book were to made today, it would mention in some way the urbanization of Africa, alongside the longstanding traditions of different tribal areas. This book never dares to touch on that. So if you're looking for a book that does mention both traditional elements as well as some modernization, check out Atinuke's remarkable 2021 title Africa, Amazing, Africa. Here's what Betsy wrote about it for her 31 Days, 31 Lists Older Nonfiction list: https://blogs.slj.com/afuse8production/2021/12/27/31-days-31-lists-2021-nonfiction-books-for-older-readers/ Kate Recommends: The podcast Sweet Bobby: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/sweet-bobby/id1590561275 Betsy Recommends: America Crime Story: Impeachment: https://www.fxnetworks.com/shows/american-crime-story For the full show notes, please visit: https://blogs.slj.com/afuse8production/2022/01/31/fuse-8-n-kate-ashanti-to-zulu-by-margaret-musgrove-ill-leo-and-diane-dillon/
Every year Betsy presents Kate with three Caldecott contenders. And not to brag, but this show has had a pretty good track record. Betsy only shows her three titles, but in 2021 the two discussed We Are Water Protectors which inevitably won an Award and in 2020 they discussed Going Down Home With Daddy, which won an Honor. Will their streak continue? Or will they do as poorly as they did in 2019? Only time will tell. Now let us all chant together: "Beret That Snake!" "Beret That Snake!" "Beret That Snake!" Show Notes: Be sure to follow the ALA Youth Media Awards here on Monday, January 24th at 8 CST. Link to my Pre-Game Show to come. Stay tuned: https://ala.unikron.com/ Kate Recommends: HomeChef - https://www.homechef.com/the-best?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=brand&voucher=3GA90&gclid=Cj0KCQiAoY-PBhCNARIsABcz770QP3kdVq85ul-A2BfrgPeq2aJY1mBPjpiiWmi4kgBOpCMj8syU-eAaAjpxEALw_wcB Betsy Recommends: The 99% Invisible episode Mini-Stories: Volume 13 section on The Jazz Cup: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/mini-stories-volume-13/4/ For the full Show Notes please visit: https://blogs.slj.com/afuse8production/2022/01/17/fuse-8-n-kate-2022-caldecott-contenders/(opens in a new tab)
Maybe Betsy figured that this would be an easy win with Kate since her name is already in the title. So far, Betsy has failed to locate Kate's request of an older picture book classic that contains anyone wearing a mohawk. Perhaps this comes as a close second? And as we say in the episode, the art in this book suggests so much backstory. We discuss inappropriate bidet designs, the first appearance of birth control pills in a picture book, faux Birks, and more. Show Notes: Betsy just wanted to report in that while she did search high and low to find some sort of online version of Bob Graham's French comic strip Les Belles Histoires, nothing came up. Search engine fail! Kate Recommends: Streaming the old Hercule Poirot episodes starring David Suchet on YouTube for free. Betsy Recommends: Buzz Spector, the conceptual artist, will be presenting at the Rockford Art Museum in Rockford, Illinois in early February. For the full Show Notes please visit: https://blogs.slj.com/afuse8production/2022/01/10/fuse-8-n-kate-lets-get-a-pup-said-kate-by-bob-graham/
Happy New Year! It's a new year, but the same old blog, and we wouldn't have it any other way. Today we kick off with a book that we describe on this episode as, "Handed to me in the good faith that we wouldn't like it." A friend alerted Betsy to that old 1999 picture book Hooway for Wodney Wat. Published before bullying became the issue in our schools that it is today, her friend said that this title may not have aged particularly well in the intervening 23 years. Or, as we say at one point, "If your book makes fun of a speech impediment, maybe don't write that book." Today, we're looking at our first Lester/Munsinger collaboration and its take on rhoticism. Show Notes: If you're looking for that particularly good book about stuttering that Betsy mentions in this episode, please check out I Talk Like a River by Jordan Scott, illustrated by Sydney Smith: https://blogs.slj.com/afuse8production/2020/08/27/review-of-the-day-i-talk-like-a-river-by-jordan-scott-ill-sydney-smith/ Betsy Recommends: Don't Look Up, streaming on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81252357 Kate Recommends: The Harry Potter Reunion Special streaming on HBO Max: https://www.hbomax.com/harrypotter20?gclid=Cj0KCQiAt8WOBhDbARIsANQLp97KCyivWfbWH9N_KKZyh5fqFbLkyt-3zWSK48eDsqkqS_alf1D35C0aAuXEEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds For the full Show Notes please visit: https://blogs.slj.com/afuse8production/2022/01/03/fuse-8-n-kate-hooway-for-wodney-wat-by-helen-lester-ill-lynn-munsinger/
"The Secret Garden meets Donnie Darko". Kate would like to warn you that Betsy is a bit of a "Debby Downer" in this episode. This may have something to do with the fact that her immediate family came down with COVID and she had to cancel their trip to DisneyWorld. Of course, you can't keep a good talk about odd picture books of the past down! In the episode the sisters discuss everything from whether or not the bunny in Mr. Rabbit and the Lovely Present betrays Maurice Sendak's love of Mickey Mouse (and suggests he was more of a Bugs Bunny fan)to his pack-a-day voice. Show Notes: Good old Slap Happy Larry takes a real deep deep dive into Mr. Rabbit and the Lovely Present discussing everything from whether or not Mr. Rabbit is a Pooka or owes anything to that great big invisible rabbit Harvey: https://www.slaphappylarry.com/mr-rabbit-lovely-present-sendak-zolotow/ Betsy Recommends: The podcast Sawbones - https://maximumfun.org/podcasts/sawbones/ Kate Recommends: Fear City on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/80218338 And The Mob Museum in Vegas: https://themobmuseum.org/ For the Full Show Notes please visit: https://blogs.slj.com/afuse8production/2021/12/27/fuse-8-n-kate-mr-rabbit-and-the-lovely-present-by-charlotte-zolotow-ill-maurice-sendak/
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