Fuse 8 n' Kate

This is going to strike you as a little strange. Lord knows it wasn't something we noticed. So... you know how we've done 376 episodes of this podcast until now? That's 376 different books. Of those books, we have done books both written and illustrated by creator Eric Carle precisely one, singular, solitary time. That book? The Very Hungry Caterpillar (duh). Listener Megan recently pointed out th...

Dear lord. If Betsy thought she was about to give Kate a lovely birthday present with today's recording, then she was SORELY disabused of that notion from the start. She never expected Frances to fall into Kate's obliterating list of "brats", but them's the breaks in this, one of our more contentious episodes. Listen in as we tackle our second Frances book (after Bread and Jam for Frances). Along...

In honor of Tomi Ungerer and the current Three Robbers exhibit at The Rabbit Hole going on right now (to say nothing of their upcoming symposium celebrating The Three Robbers and Tomi’s legacy and featuring presenters from around the world on November 14 and 15, 2025), I thought it prudent to revisit Mr. Ungerer once more. And what better way to do so than to look at what may be one of his few boo...

As American-born sisters, neither Kate nor Betsy grew up knowing who Action Man was or what his life entailed. None of that has stopped us from truly appreciating Mini Grey's lovely ode to a kid, his toy, and their various adventures. Did it come out after Toy Story? It did. Was it derivative? It was not (though there are some Buzz Lightyear similarities). British to its core, Mini Grey was in the...

This week Kate challenged Betsy to come up with a summer book to do on the podcast. And sadly, the book Betsy initially came up with was originally published in 2006 (and we have a 20-year rule on the books we can consider). Betsy found an alternative title instead, and it involves the combo of a Newbery Award winner (Hesse) with a Caldecott Award winner (Muth) (though we don't think either had wo...

A Quick Note: At the beginning of this week's podcast Kate's microphone went out and only recorded Betsy instead. So Kate starts off strong, then she's gone, then she comes back after the background information section. As a result, you'll hear a slightly off recording just in the first five minutes this week, and we apologize for the inconvenience. This is a particular pity since this week's book...

Maybe Betsy is still riding high from the last American Library Association conference she attended, but we're feeling like libraries deserve lots of lovely attention. And what better book to use to that purpose than this well-known collaboration between Patricia C. McKissack and Jerry Pinkney? Can you believe that we've never done a McKissack book before? Pinkney we've definitely done before (inc...

Since Kate went and had a baby, the time has never been better to highlight the original "interactive book" for small children. Is it not nutty that we've never covered Pat the Bunny before? Originally published in 1940, the question before us today is to determine how the book stands up compared to so many other books out for young readers today. We discuss historical picture book apps, button bo...

As promised, here is the SECOND caterpillar-and-tadpole-are-friends book we’re featuring, two weeks in a row. I would like to point out that in both cases, the caterpillar is 100% the problem friend in the relationship. This probably says more about human attitudes towards fancy folks than anything else, but feel free to write your own insightful thesis on the subject if you so choose. As we go th...

Jack Kent returns! Not content to rest on his laurels following our episode on There's No Such Thing As a Dragon, we've decided to use one of Kent's books in our VERY FIRST two-part series. And folks? I want you to guess the #2 in this series. Now this book was turned into a Weston Woods video but that's not why it's remembered today necessarily. If we had to make a guess, we'd say that this book...

Here at Fuse 8 n' Kate, I'd like to clarify a few points before we start to discuss today's podcast. First and foremost, this podcast was recorded approximately two weeks ago, well before the events in California right now started to occur. It would not, in a million years, have occurred to us that a discussion of the events that take place in Smoky Night would have had any bearing on the current...

The Queen of Board Books is in the house! I would argue that to be the board book king or queen, you need to work primarily in the genre of board book. And Sandra Boynton is that queen. Fight me. Now I agree that Moo, Baa, La La La might have been a better book to do today, but don't worry. We'll get to it eventually. Today, we look at one of my favorite Boyntons. It has everything! Running around...

Back we return to the words of Doreen Cronin! We'd done her Click, Clack, Moo in the past (and Duck for President too), but not her other massively successful picture book series. This is also our first Harry Bliss book to boot. We go through all 18 different journal entries of this title and discuss its finer aspects. Along the way we speculate about dated elements like playing marbles and hats w...

With Kate newly mommified, we try out recording our podcast with baby in tow to see how it goes. So if the episode is a little burbly this time around, you'll understand why. Along the way we also decide to do our VERY FIRST Emily Gravett title. Her debut no less! In reading it, Kate has to deal with this unexpected Kate Greenaway Medal winner and all that that entails. Now we know that a lot of y...

Periodically on the podcast we'll consider picture books that could be called "cult classics" in some manner. You know the type. Who Needs Donuts? The Lonely Doll. That sort of thing. They're books that may not be a part of the cultural zeitgeist but for a significant contingent of readers, they mean the world. Bill Canterbury was recently interviewed on Betsy's site in conjunction with the releas...

It's baseball season! And baby season! Kate just had a baby (her first!!) almost a month early, and now that she has her brain back in order, we're finally tackling a baseball picture book for the spring. Now to our minds, this book is significant because as a work of historical fiction, it was one of the first picture book titles for kids to address a moment in American history that we, as a nati...

Recently Kirkus Reviews came up with their own list of the Best Books of the 21st Century (So Far). And it seemed to Betsy that it would be a good idea if we tackled one of those books that neither of us knew. Looking into it, they included the 2005 title Martha by the illustrious and highly talented Gennady Spirin. This autobiographical title was never placed in the nonfiction section of any libr...

"I want to do something with my life, but with minimal effort." "He's the hero our children need today." Today, there is a mystery at work. For the past two years this 1983 beginner book publication has hit #1 on the Publishers Weekly list of top selling picture books around Easter time. But why? What caused this particular P.J. Funnybunny book to become quite so popular again? We endeavor to find...

It's been a day or two since we did a Mo Willems book on the podcast (and you can believe I'm counting down the days until one of those Elephant & Piggie books turns 20). What absolutely kills me is that we did today's title in complete ignorance of the fact that it was recently adapted into an incredible looking stage production in D.C. with a Chicago-based theater company.... which just closed....

Kirkus released its list of the Best Picture Books of the 21st Century and we wanted to do one of the books they included! So Betsy went to GREAT LENGTHS to get her hands on today's book. Folks... she had to go all the way.... to Skokie. That doggone beautiful library system. But it was worth it! Our very first Lauren Child is on the podcast! We talk about how Charlie and Lola were the Bluey of th...

It's the 20th anniversary of the publication of Llama Llama Red Pajama, and you know how we've chosen to celebrate? With none other than Anna Dewdney's own daughters, that's how! Berol and Cordelia Dewdney join us as we explore a Llama Llama book for the very first time. For the full show notes please visit: https://afuse8production.slj.com/2025/03/31/fuse-8-n-kate-llama-llama-red-pajama-by-anna-d...

Remember when I was constantly trying to find picture books with tidal waves in them for Kate? Somebody somewhere (forgive me for not writing it down) suggested we try good old Ducky from 1997. It's been a day or two since I picked up the book, so I gave it a whirl and discovered that it would definitely be an interesting title for the old podcast here. As such, we're talking rubber ducks, plastic...

Happy St. Patrick's Day! You know, this year our library decided to reassess their holiday section and in the course of things St. Patrick's Day got booted from the roster. Why? Because, to be perfectly frank, the number of decent St. Patrick's Day books that come out for kids in a given year is next to none. Smaller than small. For that reason (and because we've covered SO MANY of the usual suspe...

Kate gave Betsy a challenge and Betsy.... kinda met it? We've somehow managed to do two picture books in a row on the podcast that involved tidal waves. Betsy was charged with finding a third. To her utter amazement, today's book was not one that we'd done before. Time to buckle up, folks! Kate and Betsy haven't disagreed about a book so much in quite a while. We talk His and Her Preciousses, whet...

How is it we've never done an Oliver Jeffers book on this podcast? Well, that stops today, folks. Kate wanted something light and goofy, and by gum we'd say this book fills the bill. First off, it came out in 2005 (which means it just barely crests our 20-year rule). Second, it's cute and it's what, we truly believe, put Oliver Jeffers on the map in America. Today we're talking about penguins in a...