It's not every podcast episode where Kate is capable of turning me around, 360 degrees, on a title that I thought I had an opinion on. On paper a book by the guys that brought us Viola Swamp and that uses the term "Stupid" to great effect should be one of my favorite titles. What I didn't understand was that in spite of appearing on ALA's Banned List for a long time, it actually has a great number of problems. It's possible it really hasn't aged well... and not in the ways you might expect. For ...
Dec 05, 2022•31 min
It's our 250th Episode!! You know, when we first started this podcast we didn't really have a plan in terms of how long it might go. Nor did I lay out a carefully considered explanation from the start of which books we would do, and in what order. All we had was the premise, a catchy theme song, and an unending supply of titles to choose from. Case In Point: We have never done a Richard Scarry book before. Can you believe it? It's true though. You see Richard Scarry's best known books are (how s...
Nov 21, 2022•32 min
If you looked at the title of this week's podcast book and thought to yourself, "I've never even heard of that one before" then you may know what time it is . . . IT'S CULT CLASSIC TIME! With periodic regularity Kate and Betsy will discuss on Fuse 8 n' Kate those picture books that are, as they like to call them, "cult classics". That means that they are popular with some segment of the audience, if not the entire world. Today that "segment of the audience is" [checks notes] Germany. Yup. German...
Nov 14, 2022•30 min
We heard the call and we have responded! It was noted by more than one reader that we've done very few nonfiction picture books on our podcast. We did do So You Want to Be President earlier this year back in February but that was pretty much it. So today, we consider a book produced back in 2001. We know that the standards to which we hold nonfiction picture books has changed in the intervening 21 years. So how does this particular title stand up today? Spoiler Alert: Surprisingly well! Betsy to...
Nov 07, 2022•30 min
Happy Halloween! It's the last day of October and that means a final spooky scary picture book is up for discussion. Hat tip to Stephanie Lucianovic for suggesting today's title. Kate and Betsy learn that apparently Judith Viorst is a big time fan of extra long titles (something that was hinted at when she created Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day). In today's book they see some seriously fashion forward footwear and hats, the true horror of cream cheese sandwiches, and...
Oct 31, 2022•31 min
"It's like Candyman if instead of saying his name three times you just called into existence each of his bodyparts." Man. Insult upon injury, today's book. Does the reader really have to call Big Green Monster's hair "scraggly"? That's just wrong, dude. Today Betsy introduces Kate to her very first Ed Emberley book. Sure, it's not terribly Halloween-ish, but it's not NOT Halloweenish, amiright? They consider the ways in which Emberley both invokes a scary monster without making it too scary alon...
Oct 24, 2022•30 min
As Halloween draws closer and closer, we delve deeper and deeper into the macabre. We kicked off the month of October with Edward Gorey. Now we're following him up with his spiritual cousin, none other than Hilaire Belloc himself. We're looking at two different editions of the Struwwelpeter-inspired (surely) poem Matilda, Who Told Lies and Was Burned to Death. One edition, illustrated by Steven Kellogg, was produced in 1970. The other, created in 1991 (and originally published in Great Britain),...
Oct 17, 2022•31 min
Proof positive that not everything found in a trunk is gold. Kate's on the hunt for books for Halloween so we took a suggestion and delved into this "lost treasure" from the trunk o' manuscripts of the late Margaret Wise Brown. Betsy will confess to you right here and now that she's kinda out of good Halloween titles to do, so if you have ANY suggestions of other picture book Halloween classics, please oh please suggest them now. We discuss a gender-bent version of Wizard of Oz, why Margaret Wis...
Oct 10, 2022•30 min
"I'm Benjamin Buttoning over here!" When they're not talking about crystal flutes and harmoniums, Kate and Betsy discuss their very first Halloween-seasoned title on this week's episode of Fuse 8 n' Kate. Betsy was charged with coming up with another potential classic for the Halloween season, and now she has located an illustrator who may honestly be called "the granddaddy of haunted books". He didn't do many picture books . . . for children. But occasionally he did one or two when someone else...
Oct 03, 2022•30 min
Banned Books Week may have happened last week, but sadly that doesn't mean that the nationwide scourge of banning has ended. Far from it. As such, we felt like consideration of this, "the granddaddy of the book banned", was long overdue. Interestingly, even though Kate hadn't seen the book before, she took one look at it and said it was "the gay penguins book". So it's clearly in the cultural zeitgeist. We talk Happy Feet, whether or not Tango was actually named after Tango & Cash ("if she'd...
Sep 26, 2022•31 min
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 assi...
Sep 19, 2022•30 min
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 an...
Sep 12, 2022•31 min
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...
Sep 06, 2022•31 min
"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 gol...
Aug 29, 2022•29 min
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 ...
Aug 14, 2022•30 min
"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...
Aug 08, 2022•30 min
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 Can...
Aug 01, 2022•31 min
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 tha...
Jul 18, 2022•31 min
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://afuse8produc...
Jul 11, 2022•29 min
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 h...
Jul 04, 2022•30 min
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 o...
Jun 20, 2022•30 min
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, an...
Jun 13, 2022•31 min
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 o...
Jun 06, 2022•29 min
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...
May 30, 2022•30 min
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 ...
May 23, 2022•31 min
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. Im...
May 16, 2022•30 min
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 ha...
May 09, 2022•31 min
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 umptee...
May 02, 2022•30 min
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 ...
Apr 25, 2022•31 min
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 standa...
Apr 18, 2022•30 min
