Fuse 8 N' Kate

Though normally we limit ourselves on the Fuse 8 n' Kate podcast to books that were published at least 20 years ago, we look at a book today that is (restrain your gasps) 19 years old. Worth it. I mean, who could possibly fault us? Ashley Bryan was a living saint of children's literature. Kate points out that with the current racist responses to the Black Little Mermaid, our choice of book today is timely in its cry of "Black is beautiful!" We get into a discussion of what can be considered assimilation or cultural appropriation and things get interesting. Give it a listen! Show Notes: Betsy Recommends: Bluey - https://www.bluey.tv/watch/ Kate Recommends: Harley Quinn - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7658402/ For the full Show Notes please visit: https://afuse8production.slj.com/2022/09/19/fuse-8-n-kate-beautiful-blackbird-by-ashley-bryan/

Having failed to secure a THIRD strawberry-related picture book this week (not for lack of trying) we turn to a heroine we've only seen once before in our previous Olivia episode. The first time Betsy introduced Kate to Olivia shje was shocked by how much Kate liked the little pig. Recall, if you will, that Kate has a tendency to dislike bratty heroines. Olivia, by some unexpected roll of the dice, apparently passes muster. Today's book includes one of our favorite exchanges between a student and a teacher in the picture book form, and is filled with small details you may have missed back in the day when the book was first published. Things like why, precisely, the cover image was significantly changed from its interior original. Or why Olivia is like Moira Rose/Meg White! Show Notes: Hat tip to Lark for bringing us to the Independent article, Animal discovered with ‘transient anus’ that only appears when it is needed. This may explain a lot about how anuses appear in European picture books but seemingly di

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 R

"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

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/wik

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 Reco

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/m

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 te

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:

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 repri

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 brin

Come one! Come all! Come hear Betsy get the tongue lashing of the century! Maybe you listen to this podcast because you just like to listen to grown women talk about picture books. Maybe you like the banter. Or maybe, just maybe, you listen in the hopes of hearing Kate yell at Betsy for her sins. If the latter is your preference then boy howdy do we have the episode for you! Bonus: Kate makes a lot of fart noises. Nothing but class at this joint. As for the book we're doing, this appears to be our first Raschka title, which is funny considering how many Caldecott Honors and Awards he's garnered over the years. Listen in if you want to hear the correct pronunciation of the title of Yo! Yes?, the choices made with the typography, and some truly awful bird calls. Show Notes: The egregious Mackin interview with Betsy can be found here: https://www.mackincommunity.com/2022/05/25/betsy-bird-theres-a-book-for-every-reader/ Lark wasn't wrong. "Puff Daddy" did indeed read Harlem on a cassette tape. This is amazing:

Recently Betsy took a trip to NYC and was, for reasons that will soon become clear, reminded of this great work by Walter Dean Myers and his son Chris. Funny thing is, she has a bit of difficulty figuring out if this book is as well remembered as it used to be. Now when she lived in NYC it was all over the place but that was (A) almost 20 years ago and (B) in the same town where this book takes place. Maybe not the best place to get a unimpeded understanding of its longevity. At any rate, it won itself a Caldecott Honor so we figure it's well worth discussing today. Show Notes: Kate Recommends: Chanel Williams on Instagram or the tikky tok (which is what we call TikTok)- https://www.instagram.com/chanwills/?hl=en Betsy Recommends: The Third Person by Emma Grove. https://drawnandquarterly.com/news/dq-announces-third-person-emma-grove/ For the full Show Notes please visit: https://afuse8production.slj.com/2022/05/30/fuse-8-n-kate-harlem-by-walter-dean-myers-ill-christopher-myers/

Folks, we are shocked and appalled that none of you have ever yelled at us for never having done a Mercer Mayer book on this podcast. We're onto episode #227 and in all this time, Mr. Mayer has never once graced our eyeballs. Today, we correct this longstanding ill. Take a listen to this if you would like to hear Betsy's off-the-cuff recounting of all the Mercer Mayer books that we haven't done. She also go into tangents on the awfulness of feet in early 80s footie pajamas while Kate engages in The Great Tissue Box Theory. Show Notes: Not sure how much credence to give to the working theory that this book is referenced in Alice Cooper's Welcome to My Nightmare. It's a great idea, but the monsters in this don't really resemble the one in the book. Just our two cents: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kum-q6RfPAw Whereas this video of the book is most certainly narrated by Michael J. Fox. So that's all good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpGPYXSPSxQ For the full Show Notes please visit: https://afuse8produc

We continue to dive into the many publications of 2002, so as to determine if the more popular titles of that time have been able to survive two decades. Today's book is a McMullan joint that is still inspiring sequels to this day. We talk typography, readalouds, and more. In the course of things we figure out which of the elements in the trash listed here should be composted and engage in a VERY long discussion of what a yam would look like if it had been hanging around for a year. You know. Important stuff. Show Notes: The best interview we were able to find with Kate and Jim McMullan turned out to be this one with none other than Hamptons.com: https://hamptons.com/the-arts-the-bookshelf-27282-interview-author-kate-mcmullan-and-illustrator-html/ For the full Show Notes please visit: https://afuse8production.slj.com/2022/05/16/fuse-8-n-kate-i-stink-by-kate-jim-mcmullan/

Usually Betsy knows at least a tiny bit about the authors/illustrators we do on this show. But Taro Yashima? She knew literally nothing about him, walking into this one. She got the idea to do this from The Rabbit hOle, who had mentioned recently that they're working on a Crow Boy exhibit. Looking at this 1955 winner of a 1956 Caldecott Honor, it does appear that this is about a kid who suffers from sensory overload and can focus on one thing for hours at a time. As such, Chibi does appear to have some form of ASD or neurodivergent condition. Not that a book from the 50s was capable of being as clear as books today. The book was illustrated by Japanese born Taro Yashima and represents an interesting moment in literature where the cultural stereotypes seem confined to the colors used for some of the skin tones. Is there more going on here? We discuss. Show Notes: Seriously, though, if you can think of any other podcasts hosted by amusing sisters, please let us know at fusekate8@gmail.com. Extra thanks to Ma

Last week we cheated by doing a teacher favored picture book that was a mere 19-years-old. This week we're doing a teacher favored picture book that is a FULL 20-years old instead! It occurred to Betsy that the show has never tried a Teague before. And, as you'll see, there are just loads of teacher resources out there. Kate likes books with details. Dear Mrs. LaRue has that. Will she like this book? Stay tuned! Show Notes: Here is the page for the Teachers Pay Teachers where you can find umpteen bazillion lesson plans for this book: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Browse/Search:dear%20mrs%20larue For the full Show Notes please visit: https://afuse8production.slj.com/2022/05/02/fuse-8-n-kate-dear-mrs-larue-by-mark-teague/

Betsy is a terrible cheat. She broke our rule that we wouldn't consider a book less than 20 years old for this podcast. But today's book is 19 years old so is it really breaking the rule or, rather, stretching it to its limit? Today, we look a little closer at the story where the kid who says they're not into art gets a private showing of 28 pieces. Does this book deserve the sheer amount of attention and acclaim that it's attained in the intervening 19 years since its publication? Gotta listen and see. Show Notes: Today's book may be the first we've done that has its own holiday. Curious about International Dot Day? Check it out at its own website. A bit lacking on its own history, and parts need to be updated, but still cool: https://www.internationaldotday.org/ For the full Show Notes please visit: https://afuse8production.slj.com/2022/04/25/fuse-8-n-kate-the-dot-by-peter-h-reynolds/

At long last we discover what became of Peter Rabbit's sister Cottontail. Sometimes you just want to read a bizarre 1939 feminist take on the Easter Bunny tradition. Right? I mean, am I right? Look, after last week, Betsy wanted to give Kate something old and worth remembering. And this downright magnificent tale of single motherhood, gaslighting, phallocentric patriarchy, and cute bunnies fit the bill. Let's talk about a book that wasn't just ahead of its time but, I'd argue, is the gold standard of Easter picture books in this day and age. Don't believe us? Then you obviously have never read The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes for yourself. Trust me. You're in for a treat. Show Notes: Do be so kind as to check out the Washington Post piece A Brown Feminist Easter Bunny's Inspiring Triumph which really breaks down why this book is so remarkable: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/a-brown-feminist-easter-bunnys-inspiring-triumph/2015/04/02/3fbfced6-d941-11e4-b3f2-607bd612aeac_story.html For the