Did (Everyone's Favorite Frenchman) Lafayette Really Save America?

he was a goose rider. But I only know this because my son is obsessed with these history books called Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales, and he keeps quizzing me on all this trivia about historical figures, and I kind of love it. I mean, it is kind of in the family business, if you want to be honest about it. Yeah. But you know, for a long time, Henry was not a reader, and it kind of stunned me because Lizzie and I both read a ton and he just wasn't

excited by reading. But then his aunt gave him this Nathan Hale series, and it was almost like it unlocked a new part of his personality, Like he just started devouring nonfiction and graphic novels and reading all sorts of other books and then telling me about French boys and powdered wigs. But you know the books he keeps going back to and rereading is this Nathan Hale series. Alright, so so why don't you tell us what are the books all about? I mean everything from history, for like,

Harriet Tubman is one. He got really into ironclads, those ships. He started talking about World War one and two. But the character he's completely obsessed with right now is Lafayette. But you know, since we haven't had an author on in a while, I thought be really fun to invite Nathan Hale on to talk about how he draws these books, how he can relate grim history in just such a funny way, and also to thank them for keeping my son occupied for long swaths of time so I don't

have to parent as much. But let's dive in their podcast. Listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson, and as always I'm joined by my good friend Manguesh Ticketer and sitting behind the soundproof glass wearing a tri corner hat that he made from paper mache mangle by hand. Is the fun, impressive and I think he's actually doing a celebritory minuet. Is that right? Tristan it's impressive. That's our

friend and producer Tristan McNeil. So today we're just going to dive right in because we've got the best selling author of the kids graphic novel history series, Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales, on the line with us today. Nathan Hale, Welcome to Part Time Genius. Well, hello, I'm happy to be here. So we want to talk to you about your latest book in your series. It's Lafayette. So I'm excited about that one. It just came out last fall, and it's been interesting to see because of the eighth

in the series. And when I meet with readers with kids to read the books, I always asked them what their favorite is, and lately I've been getting a lot of kids in his favorite one. It's weird how much they've taken off because I did not expect them to be popular. And in children's publishing. The two thousand five is my fourteen year and children's publishing, and I've had a lot of kind of dead ends, and it was shocking when I thought, you know, I'm not going to

chase trends anymore. I'm just gonna do my own thing, and I'm interested in history. I'm just gonna try. It's going to fail, but I'm gonna try it. And then seeing kids just light up and get into American history, that's that's never happened, but it's been fun. And do you do you enjoy the writing word the drawing? Um? There are two such different things. The research so fascinating, and it's hard to kind of take all of these little stories and then have to decide which ones you

have to cut to make it all fit. And then since the books are all dialogue, it's not only how do we cut it, but how do we show it and tell it in just dialogue? So the writing is pretty nerve racking, but the drawing takes forever. So it's kind of a toss up. You know, they're both awful and they're a little fun in their way, but they're

both awful in the Yeah, be awesome. So did having the name Nathan Hale get you into history as a kid or was that just kind of a convenient way in You know how every every day at the first day of school, when the teacher you're meeting your new teacher, My teacher would always be like, oh, we have a famous patriot in our class. And Hale and say, oh what you said, give me liberty or give me death? And I'd be like, no, that was Patrick Henry. I said, I regret that I had but one life to give

for my country every every year. Maybe that's uh, maybe that's where you developed your sense of humor. You know, it's it's it's fun saying that these books are literally gallows humor, and they're you know, narrated by Nathan Hale trying to procrastinate his death and telling all these great history stories. And I was just curious, how did that come about. The funny thing is I had a feel in place for a history series before we came up

with the conceit of the spine. Nathan Hale being are kind of omnipotent narrator, but my editor insist that we have a narrator. So I was brainstorming on ideas for what kind of narrator would be good, and then we were going back and forth on cover elements, and I was like, can we cut one of those things if we combined the opera name into the series title? And then I was like, hang on, hang on, what if you know there was this Spineynhale from British and he

was executed by the British. Hang On, hang on, And my editor was like, I don't know what you're talking about, but I like the sound of it. Hang up and write this now. And that Hangman character is so funny, like and and just breaks up the story really nicely. I am not actually into military history, like I I love history, but some of the military stuff has just

never really been that appealing to me. But it's fine to see my kids just spouting all these facts about various wars and and be so into like iron clads and whatever. And and you know, I am curious, like, how do you choose what stories to turn into books? And how do you balance humor with some of these very serious topics. I never super interested in military specific history either, But every time I find a story that I'm excited about, I go, oh, this is the military story.

And it's funny because I've I've been to some schools, whether the parents are like, we love all of your books. We're a couple of hippies and our children are still militants about this World War One stuff. I don't know if it's terrifying or exciting that so many third and fourth and fifth graders kind of love the structure of a military story. I don't know what it is, and I won't say that our lay that book has anything to do with a certain musical, but that may have

come into plant. Well. Actually that that was my My next question was because I do want to focus on the Lafayette story, which is fascinating, but I guess like he's one of these characters we kind of know about as as a hero of the Revolutionary War, but his really, his full story isn't that well known. When I started this book, I was a little nervous about it because

Lafayette could not be a more privileged person. I mean, he was aristocracy, and you know, the stories people are interested in right now are not stories about the world's wealthiest. The most privileged people are certainly not. But Lafayette himself was in aristocratic French family that went back to the Crusades, back to geordal Vark. He was friends with Marie Antoinette, his friends with all of the wealthiest people in France.

But at heart he was like a country kids who liked exploring, and he liked adventures, and more than anything else, he wanted to be part of his family's the leftest line of you know, warriors, and when he saw that the Americans were fighting the British, he was like, well, maybe I'll go over there. And when he watches up in America because of his back, Barnman as well bumps straight up in the George Washington's company because everybody was like, we don't know anything about this kid, but he is

richer than anyone in this country. Maybe we can manipulate that. And then the crazy Blue kids. He turned out to be pretty talented at battle. Nathan Hale I love hearing about Lafayette. But first a quick ad break. Welcome back to part time Jeeves. We were talking with author Nathan Hale about his book Lafayette and just about writing graphic novels in general. You know, the stories that you tell here,

there's some some pretty wild ones. You know. You've got this story about Lafayette falling on his face on the dance floor and one about him writing a kid's book with Ben Franklin. I'm just curious, you know, in the writing process, how do you find and then fact check stories like those? I read and read and read. I's try to get my hands on as many kind of

primary stories as possible. I read a lot of contemporary books and articles on these people, and I'm always just kind of combing over it for the big picture of the history store, but also for the wacky stuff. The fact that he did team up with Benjamin Franklin to write a story of a picture book for children about how evil the British were. That that's something they talked. They never pulled it off, but they did talk about it.

I do as careful of research as I can, and then when I send it into the publisher, before I do any drawings, basically write the whole manuscripts, and I spend the manuscripts into the publisher, and they do you know, they take it through proop reading and editorial, and then

they kick it over to the publisher's fact checkers. And even with their really excellent fact stecting and all of the research that I do, I'll still run into a third grade if it's like, hey, you got this wrong, and then they'll point it out and I'll find it and be like, you've got kids. Yeah. One of the things I really liked was that story of his being

an orphan really plays into it. Of his admiration for Washington, right, Yeah, So, Um, one of the interesting things about his relations they were very very close. Washington had this this thing. There's a page in the book that I really enjoyed. Um, after one of the longest battles of the Revolutes, they would have been all day, nobody could find Lafanta, Like, where's Laffant, where's the general? Where where George Washington couldn't find either

one of them. And they found them in a little clearing and they had just been fighting and racing them back and forth and doing all this stuff all day. And George Washington had spread his cloaks down on the ground and just znked out and fell asleep, and Laffatte was right there with them, just the two of them, just sleeping with all of the battle gear on. So,

and it's incredibly close relationship. I think a lot of people have read into the fact that Lafayette was kind of looking for a father's figure since he didn't have one, and you know, he saw George Washington is powerful, charismatic military leader and probably saw you know, a father's figure there, and then, um, Washington has lost children of his own. There's a story I didn't get to use in the book that I really liked. I guess Washington was like

that he did not like physical contact. And one of one of his generals was talking and I was like, I will bet you everybody in this room, I'll buy you all a drink. Yes, Washington comes in and I touched him on the shoulder and Washington doesn't care. But Washington came in and you know, he touched him on the shoulder. In Washington jet like gave him just the

meanest cold of stare ever been to drink. And then Lafayette comes into the room and you know, throws his arms around and kisses him on both cheeks and nothing, you know, no problem. They definitely had a that's that's uh, that's pretty interesting. You know. One of the things that struck me about Lafaette's character in the book is that he kind of comes across his both this military genius, you know, being very brave and wily, but it also

comes across a like completely trusting and innocent. And I'm curious, is that how you see him as well? Yeah? I um. One of the cool things about Lafayette is when you have a lot of his letters that he wrote in English that he was learning English as fast as he could when he got to the States, but he did

not arrive with great English. But we have letters that he wrote, so you can read his actual letters, and I don't know if it's just because he didn't have a grasp on the language, but he comes across as really kind of sweet and almost I don't a little bit silly, because you know, he's kind of grabbing it that language, and he's just he's one of these people that when you read his actual letters to people, that

personality just comes shining through. And you know, I could have a totally wrong but to me, he just seemed like just like a fun guy, like a fun and silly but brave and crazy the sweetheart. You know. But maybe maybe that's the wrong read. Maybe he's stut with language and that's way sings across that way, but he just kind of bubbly and enthusiastic and a little bit goofy. I was surprised by um and and really came away admiring how many times he ends up going into battle

just being so incredibly brave. I was curious when does Lafayette actually become a star in France, because I know that's a part of this story too, write like when does news of his bravery end up coming back home and he gets celebrated there. So the slow news going back and forth, you know, traveling by ship, but of course when the news gets to France, they're making a way bigger deal out of it. You know. The by the time the stories getting to f him, you know,

he's practically leading the enemies and he's the biggest deal ever. Um. And so you know when he came to the United thanks be in the United States for years at the time, he did go home for period during the Revolutionary War because they were like, sure, he's great, we like him here, but he'd be more valuable to us if he was talking up um he was getting at that French money,

getting the French alliance put together. I mean, the story is just constantly him wanting to fight and be in the battles, but Washington and everybody else wanting France's armies

to come and help, you know. So it's just a lot of back and forth and they you know, when the French armies and ships finally show up, you know, sometimes it pans out, sometimes it doesn't, but it's you know, I think one thing that's interesting that kids when they read it, it's just seeing how many other, how many of these huge plans put together by Washington, which just

kind of belly flop. You know, France would send a whole bunch of troops but they're all too sick to get off the ship, or you know, they just one. You know, they finally get finally get a French navy to come and help, and then a big storm comes up and you know breaks them all down. Just so many failed attempts, over and over. In fact, I was worried when I wrote the book. I'm like, no, man, so many of these things that they try to just colossal.

To go here more with Nathan Hailer. Right after this break, welcome back to part time, James. We were talking with my kid's favorite author, Nathan him. So, Nathan, I love how you slip in Benedict Arnold's story and as well, like as this kind of like an extended sidebar. But you know, he's actually a much more sympathetic character than than I feel like i'd remembered from history class and

and never quite gets his due right. He is super interesting and when I put him into the book, um, he actually appears in the first book in the series, one that's by as a hero because he was really amazing hero in the American Revolution. For the first several

years of it, he was just great. But you know, through like military jealousy, ees and a long injury that kind of worn down and a feeling of not being thanked enough for what he did, he was kind of put into a position where he was just like, you know what, I'm stick of being was treated by Washington's arty, and he saw a way out and he he took it and he you know, Americans have not liked the name Benedict and felt Benedict Cumberbatch came aloy and we love it. So my son Henry wrote a list of

questions for me to prep me for this interview. He was just so excited that I was going to get to chat with you. But you know, most of the questions he had were things like what is One Trick Pony about? Or what is Alamo All Stars about? Like all the books he hasn't read, he wanted you to summarize for him. But one question I liked was who is your favorite side character from this book? And who do you identify with most? My favorite side character from

Lafaye yet Um Lafayett. That was one of my favorite kind of lesser known American history characters. A guy named Henry Knock who was a big kienda being one of the big kind of He's a major general by the time we get to Lafayett. This guy, Henry Knox was a Boston bookstore owner in his twenties and all his life he's been fascinated with guns and he just read books about them, read books about cannons and artillery. He was so into guns that he blew his fingers off

when he was a kid with a shotgun. But he was just fascinated by them and a lot of bookstore And when the Revolution broke out, he's like, I'm putting the clothes sign on the bookstore and I'm gonna go help Washington's army. And he actually does one of these the crazier things of the Revolutionary War when he gets these guns from Fort Tecton Drug and he's maybe maybe a term at thendfore Tychon run and he marches them just through the impossible odds across frozen rivers and everything

to get these guns in place. And he's got a couple of little cameos in Las Him a lot there are. There's Baron von Steuben, another um for a national who came into help, who's an amazing drill sergeant who does in school stuff. The British con Act was beating the Benedict Donald's traitors wide back to the British guy named John andre It was a really cool guy. And when they caught him and executed him, he put the noose over his own neck. That's how much of a serious

soldier this guy was. Um. There's lots of lots of really good, juicy characters in this story. Yeah. I love the way you depict Barren von Steuben in this book, where he's just but not only super efficient, but he's got this dog with him and he's cursing, and the way the curses are shown in the book is just so funny. It's really very sweet. But I do want to thank you so much for being here today, Nathan, and thank you for writing these books and bringing so

much joy to my kiddo. The books are Nathan Hale's adventurous tales. His most recent book is Lafayette and you can find them everywhere. Thanks for having me this was a lot of fun. Well that's it for today's show from Gabe, Tristan, Mango, and me. Thanks so much for listening to the l