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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Merry Christmas Eve! By gum we're going to do at least one holiday book this month, if it kills us. Heck, for that matter, why not go local? You see, Kate and Betsy both live in Evanston, Illinois and it just so happens that one of the most famous Christmas songs out there started its life as a children's book by an Evanston author! Yes indeed, we doing a deep dive into Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer today circa 1939. And not just any book, but a reprint of the original story (pre-song and pre-television adaptation) that was handed out for free in department stores all those years ago. How does it hold up to modern scrutiny? Only one way to find out: Show Notes: Kate would like to correct her earlier statement that this scene is set in Chicago (though Chicago is mentioned). That said, here's the scene she refers to, early on in our show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxtLxqBolJI FURTHER CORRECTION: At one point in the podcast Betsy says that Robert L. May wrote the book for Marshall Fields. She then almost immediately says it was Montgomery Ward. The correct department story was, in fact, Montgomery Ward. Here's an NPR piece on the behind-the-scenes tale of Rudolph: https://www.npr.org/2013/12/25/256579598/writing-rudolph-the-original-red-nosed-manuscript We find it interesting that Rudolph began his life as a department store's character and this year Macy's is doing the same dang thing! https://youtu.be/DwIUIrk56cQ Betsy Recommends: The New Vic production of Emmet Otter's Jugband Christmas in New York City!: https://newvictory.org/tickets-and-events/2122-live-performance-emmet-otters-jugband-christmas/ Kate Recommends: This link to the article about ostrich cells used to make COVID detection: masks: https://tanksgoodnews.com/japanese-scientists-use-ostrich-cells-to-make-glowing-covid-19-detection-masks/ And this Etsy artist that makes ostrich ornaments: https://www.etsy.com/shop/AnimalsThatGoPlaces?ref=simple-shop-header-name&listing_id=180973083 And these socks: https://outofprint.com/products/the-monster-at-the-end-of-this-book-socks For the full Show Notes please visit: https://blogs.slj.com/afuse8production/2021/12/24/fuse-8-n-kate-rudolph-the-red-nosed-reindeer-by-robert-l-may-ill-denver-gillen/
Hanukkah ends today and do you know what happened? We missed our chance to do a Hanukkah picture book on the show (and I've one on order but it won't come in in time). So, feeling guilty, I thought we should do a good Jewish children's picture book classic. And to my horror, somehow it took us 207 episodes for me to realize that we didn't do today's book. Are you ready to hear us right a great wrong? Because it's Simms Taback time! Yes, the man who designed the world's first Happy Meal is here with a GOLD Caldecott Medal. "Look at how it gleams in all its goldy goldiness!" Kate digs deep into the Sholom Aleichem references and we both thoroughly enjoy how well Simms sticks that ending. Enjoy! Show Notes: Yeah. You know you want to hear the song they sang in the Weston Woods video (which, I should note, according to Kate is NOT the same tune as the one printed on the sheet music at the back of the book): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZ37_s7X3jA For the full Show Notes please visit: https://blogs.slj.com/afuse8production/2021/12/06/fuse-8-n-kate-joseph-had-a-little-overcoat-by-simms-taback/
Starring . . . MOM! Yes indeed. Susan Blackwell Ramsey herself has come to guest star. Thanksgiving arrived and Kate had the brilliant notion that she and Betsy should take advantage of their #1 fan and finally do one of her favorite picture books (the one they've always avoided). So, if you've ever listened to our podcast and thought to yourself, "These two ladies sound too similar. I wish there was a THIRD voice that sounded a lot like both of them to join in," then your prayers have been answered! In short, if you'd like to hear two daughters ribbing their mom, this is the podcast episode for YOU! Show Notes: Mom and Betsy discuss a Slate article that provides a rather magnificent rundown of the history of Donald Hall's poem and its transformation into a book. It does not, however, include the info about his Caldecott Room loo: https://slate.com/culture/2018/07/how-donald-hall-changed-ox-cart-man-from-the-poem-to-the-childrens-book.html Here's the Reading Rainbow episode where Lorne Green reads Ox-Cart Man: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXHZARNpBZM For the full Show Notes please visit: https://blogs.slj.com/afuse8production/2021/11/29/fuse-8-n-kate-ox-cart-man-by-donald-hall-ill-barbara-cooney/
After his recent death, Betsy wanted to do a book with Kate that paid homage to Jerry Pinkney. But having already done Mirandy and Brother Wind and Sam and the Tigers, why not go in a different direction? Jerry was a huge fan of fairy tales, and Little Red Riding Hood has always stood out as one of his more interesting books. Setting the book in winter was a fascinating choice, maybe even a challenge, for the artist. The storyline is very faithful to the original Grimm tale with some notable changes. This book is peak Pinkney. But is it classic enough in the end? Only one way to find out. Show Notes: Betsy mentions in the course of the show that a big influence on Jerry was cartoonist John J. Liney, who worked on the "Little Henry" comic strips. William H. Foster, author of the book Looking for a Face Like Mine: The History of African Americans in Comics offers this piece Henry: Not Black Like Me to argue that the strip was less racist than its contemporaries. Not sure if the examples he cites completely back up that statement, but it's an interesting article: https://www.hoganmag.com/blog/henry-not-black-like-me For the full Show Notes please visit: https://blogs.slj.com/afuse8production/2021/11/22/fuse-8-n-kate-little-red-riding-hood-by-jerry-pinkney/
Thinly veiled racism! Drug-sniffing monkeys (that are actually apes)! Roving hoards of wiener dogs! A Cervantes-esque arc! Oh, we have just loads to talk about in this episode, that's for sure. More questions are raised than answered in this latest episode of Fuse 8 n' Kate and that's okay. We return to the world of Curious George with all its peculiarities. There's a lot to discuss here and we're ready for it. Show Notes: Be sure to check out this year's fabulous picture book, Strollercoaster. Yay, crediting spouses that color! This is the moment when I need to praise Furious George by Michael Rex, which is the only picture book to make perfectly clear what's really going on in this and other Curious George books. We do urge you to seek out and read The Unexpected Profundity of Curious George by Rivka Galchen for The New Yorker which touches on many of the issues we've mentioned here: https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-unexpected-profundity-of-curious-george For the full Show Notes please visit: http://blogs.slj.com/afuse8production/2021/11/15/fuse-8-n-kate-curious-george-takes-a-job-by-h-a-and-margret-rey/
Now starring special guest, Ian Lendler!! Author of 2021's new picture book Nia and the New Free Library, and creator of such books I've adored as The Fabled Life of Aesop and the Stratford Zoo comics, to name but a few. Once in a while we'll have a guest on. Of course the challenge is for our guests to come up with potentially "classic" picture books that we haven't done already. But when Ian and I talked about having him on the show, the book he mentioned was Bill and Pete, a.k.a. a book that I myself didn't really know all that well. Now we already did Strega Nona and Oliver Button is a Sissy, so this will make our third Tomie dePaola book to date. But that's okay. We loved that guy. And now we get to talk about the weird dynamic between these two friends, its David Lynch-esque dream sequences, and how this is, as Kate calls it, "Bill and Pete's Excellent Adventure". Show Notes: Here's where you can find the Strega Nona is a Not a Communist post we mentioned: https://www.gawker.com/culture/strega-nona-is-not-a-communist For the full Show Notes please visit: http://blogs.slj.com/afuse8production/2021/11/08/fuse-8-n-kate-bill-and-pete-by-tomie-depaola/
The final Halloween-inspired episode of October is always a bittersweet time. And once more, pity Betsy's sister. Betsy happened to notice that there's a Clifford the Big Red Dog film out in theaters at the moment and it got her to thinking. Clifford = creator Norman Bridwell. And didn't Norman Bridwell do a Halloween book of his own once? One that Betsy happened to remember from her own childhood? Alas for Kate, this means that the show is doing a THIRD witch and broom-related picture book in a row. We're in a witch rut! We can only do witches!! Show Notes: -It's not fancy, but if ever you want to create a Witch Next Door cupcake, here's the recipe: https://sprinklesofhistory.com/witch-next-door-cupcakes/ -Kate Recommends: Muppets Haunted Mansion: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14602326/ - Kate Also Recommends: The Haunted Mansion Game: https://www.funko.com/shop/details/disney-haunted-mansion-call-of-the-spirits-game - Betsy Recommends: Evanston Public Library's 101 Great Books for Kids: https://www.epl.org/announcing-evanston-public-librarys-101-great-books-for-kids-list-of-2021/ For the full Show Notes please visit: http://blogs.slj.com/afuse8production/2021/10/25/fuse-8-n-kate-the-witch-next-door-by-norman-bridwell/
"If this really is the ghost of the broom, I hope it hacks the men to pieces!" The search for potential Halloween classics continues!! This week Kate and Betsy turned their eyes back to good old Chris Van Allsburg. Previously seen on a Halloween-centric episode of the show with The Stranger, he has returned! This book is from 1992, and it's had a relative amount of success. What Kate and Betsy end up loving about it, though, is how female-centric it is. It's all about women helping women helping women. Look at how the men in the book are even treated. A fascinating tale that passes the Bechdel-Wallace Test with flying colors. Show Notes: Please, if you get a chance, you MUST check out Slap Happy Larry's relatively recent blog post The Widow’s Broom by Chris Van Allsburg Picturebook Analysis. This will occupy you all day, and is a great deep dive into the subject matter: https://www.slaphappylarry.com/widows-broom-chris-van-allsburg-picture-book/ If you're interested in this claim that there's a bog not far from Evanston, Illinois, here's the link that Shannon provided: https://www.friendsofvolobog.org/?fbclid=IwAR1J173DD8fjEU5aRr_YCBZRICy3GYZ9YLaZ0RB2-9whLcpFPFeUlH--zHg For the full Show Notes please visit: http://blogs.slj.com/afuse8production/2021/10/18/fuse-8-n-kate-the-widows-broom-by-chris-van-allsburg/
Poor Kate. All she wanted was a halfway spooky picture book. Instead Betsy gives her a book from Team Gruffalo. This week's choice of book for the Halloween season has appeared year after year on the Bestseller Lists here in America. It's a book that features a kind of Mr. Gumpy's Outing meets There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly energy on its pages. Never read it? Never fear! We've done it for you and found some tidbits worth discussing. Show Notes: You may hear us mention that Julia Donaldson's career in picture books began because of a song she created called "A Squash and a Squeeze". Who are we to deny you a vision of her performing that song herself? https://youtu.be/MXa888kw7GY Once we heard it was turned into a stop animation film, we had to check it out. Here are some scenes. We hate to say it, but this is utterly UTTERLY charming. Better than the source material, perhaps: https://vimeo.com/59083888 Betsy Recommends: The new NPR podcast Book of the Day Kate Recommends: The H.H. Holmes Murder Castle Puzzle For the full Show Notes please visit: https://blogs.slj.com/afuse8production/2021/10/11/fuse-8-n-kate-room-on-the-broom-by-julia-donaldson-ill-axel-scheffler/
"Oh no! We don't have a fish to protect us now!" Success! Fuse 8 n' Kate has managed to reach episode' two HUNDRED! Now the topic turns to a famous feline-centric sequel. Betsy and Kate don't shy away from the controversy surrounding Seuss and his cat in this episode. Bonus: They also get to bandy about sentences like, "The chain of signification is interminable and, being interminable, indeterminate." In the end, they realize once and for all that while this cat may come back that doesn't mean they'll ever have to see him again. Show Notes: To celebrate the 200th episode Kate and Betsy did a live recording of this show. Want to see it? Thanks to the power of Vimeo, now you can: https://vimeo.com/621640559 Kate Recommends: The Hulu streaming show Only Murders in the Building Betsy Recommends: 19th century ukiyo-e prints. More specifically Takiyasha the Witch and the Skeleton Spectre or Mitsukuni Defying the Skeleton Spectre Invoked by Princess Takiyasha. It is, definitely, Kate's 12-foot-tall skeleton. For the full show notes please visit: http://blogs.slj.com/afuse8production/2021/10/04/fuse-8-n-kate-200-the-cat-in-the-hat-comes-back-by-dr-seuss/
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