Episode 141 - Show Way

06/21/20 • 29 min

Betsy broke the rules. Under normal circumstances she won't consider a children's book for this podcast unless that title is less than 20 years old. But since she made that rule in the first place, I guess she's the one who gets to break it. And today's book is, in its blood, a rule breaker. In the course of this episode Betsy attempts to encapsulate all of Jacqueline Woodson's major awards (this is a difficult thing to even try, by the way), Kate and Betsy honor Juneteenth, and they try desperately to figure out why this book never won any Caldecott love (to add to its Newbery Honor love). Show Notes: Here's the interview with Jacqueline Woodson about the background to Show Way on Reading Rockets with Carole Boston Weatherford: https://www.readingrockets.org/books/interviews/woodson/transcript Toshi (Jackie's daughter) was friends with Trixie from the Knuffle Bunny books. This fact was confirmed by Jackie herself at the blog The Happy Nappy Bookseller in 2011: http://thehappynappybookseller.blogspot.com/2011/02/interview-with-jacqueline-woodson.html For the full Show Notes please visit: http://blogs.slj.com/afuse8production/2020/06/21/fuse-8-n-kate-show-way-by-jacqueline-woodson/

Previous Episode

Episode 140 - Daddy's Roommate

In honor of Pride this month, we figured it would be a good idea to check out one of the first big-time LGBTQIA+ picture books published in America. We've already covered Heather Has Two Mommies in a previous episode, so what's left? Well, if Heather Has Two Mommies came out in 1989, Daddy's Roommate followed just a year later in 1990. It was on ALA's top 10 banned list from 1990-1999. Researching it, we had no idea this would be such a fruitful book to explore. Above and beyond little things like the details Willhoite is just throwing in there there's the fact that Sarah Palin hated it and it was brought up during the 2008 presidential campaign. Plus Betsy gets to tell her Jon Waters purple velvet fainting couch story (which so rarely comes up). Show Notes: If you would like to see the video that Kate was critiquing from, you can watch it here: https://vimeo.com/304030343 As Lark pointed out the Barnes Children's Literature Festival features, amongst other things, Stanley Tucci reading The Tiger Who Came to Tea: https://www.barneskidslitfest.org/whats-on/ For the full Show Notes please visit: http://blogs.slj.com/afuse8production/2020/06/15/fuse-8-n-kate-daddys-roommate-by-michael-willhoite/

Next Episode

Episode 142 - George Shrinks

Funny to think about the authors and illustrators we've never quite gotten to on the show. Sometimes the trick behind selecting a book isn't so much which artist to do but what book to do from a given artist. After much soul searching Betsy decided that George Shrinks trumps Dinosaur Bob and the Family Lazardo in terms of sheer fame. It's a funny kind of book, and you can trust Kate to winnow out every possible detail on the page. Hope you like your kids short, your cats cruel, and your teddy bears creepy, because we're going all in on Joyce's best known today. Show Notes: You can find Bill's account of what happened when his made his last New Yorker cover here: https://apps.centenary.edu/newsarchive/2006/February/B-Joyce-cover-article.html For the full Show Notes please visit: http://blogs.slj.com/afuse8production/2020/06/29/fuse-8-n-kate-george-shrinks-by-william-joyce/