We all have them: Those kids’ books we were gifted or we picked up on a whim because the title was intriguing or the characters were familiar. But then we crack them open, and BAM— total schlock. With the sheer amount of content for children out there, it's increasingly difficult to find the good stuff; the content that inspires wonder. The types of shows, movies, and books WE remember loving as kids. Jon Klassen, father of two and celebrated author and illustrator of I Want My Hat Back, joins us to talk about his thoughts on creating books that kids and parents love. Stick around for the end, where Marc, Adam, and their kids fire off some personal book endorsements and condemnations.
We all have them: Those kids’ books we were gifted or we picked up on a whim because the title was intriguing or the characters were familiar. But then we crack them open, and BAM— total schlock. With the sheer amount of content for children out there, it's increasingly difficult to find the good stuff; the content that inspires wonder. The types of shows, movies, and books we remember loving as kids. Jon Klassen, father of two and celebrated author and illustrator of I Want My Hat Back, joins us to talk about his thoughts on creating books that kids and parents love. Stick around for the end, where Marc, Adam, and their kids fire off some personal book endorsements and condemnations.
The guys open the episode with a conversation about television shows and movies that are made for kids. In an age where the amount of content seems to grow exponentially, it becomes equally difficult to parse through it all to find the really good stuff. The hidden gems seem to be few and far between. Sometimes it’s the tried and true movies or books that stand the test of time and still fill our kids with excitement and wonder, but frequently the best recommendations come to us through people we trust. The guys philosophize a bit as they discuss a couple of their kids’ current favorites, before they introduce Jon Klassen into the conversation. Jon is a father of two sons, and an artist and author who gained worldwide notoriety in 2011 with his picture book “I Want My Hat Back,” the success of which spawned two more books in what would become the “Hat Trilogy.” Jon continues to write and illustrate children’s books in addition to frequent collaborations with authors such as Mac Barnett, Sara Pennypacker, and Lemony Snicket. The guys discuss Jon’s inspirations, his thought process and artistic process for creating books that can be enjoyed by kids of any age, and how his approach to his work has changed since he became a father. Other conversation topics include:
• Creating work that sticks out in the age of self-publishing
• How his work in animation influences his art
• Finding your inner third-grader
• The value of simplicity and minimalism
• Reading alone vs. being read to
• “Quintessential” children’s books
• The importance of independent bookstores
Before closing out the episode, Adam and Marc take turns swapping some rapid-fire book recommendations and… unrecommendations?
LINKS
Jon Klassen Twitter
Jon Klassen Instagram
Mac Barnett
Go! Go! Cory Carson
Bluey
Chrri & Chirra
Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig
Frog and Toad
Here We Are: Notes for Living on Planet Earth, by Oliver Jeffers
One Morning in Maine by Robert McCloskey
Toot by Leslie Patricelli
A Sick Day for Amos McGee by Philip and Erin Stead
Bob the Artist by Marion Deuchars
Katy Hudson, Too Many Carrots
Powell's Books, Portland, OR
RiverRun Books, Portsmouth, NH
Water Street Books, Exeter, NH
Longfellow Books, Portland, ME
26 Independent Bookstores
Red Vault Audio
Spencer Albee
Caspar Babypants
Marc:
Right on the money.
Adam:
Episode, 29? 28? 29?
Marc:
Are we up to 30?
Adam:
Episode 29.
Marc:
Whatta you know, you're right.
Adam:
Why don't you take it this time?
Marc:
Holy hell. Welcome back everyone. This is Modern Dadhood, an ongoing conversation about the joys, challenges and general insanity of being a dad in this moment. My name is Marc Checket. I'm a dad of twin boy toddlers, two and a half.
Adam:
We're going halves.
Marc:
We decided last time we're going halves. Adam, who are you?
Adam:
Well, you-
Marc:
I gave part of it away.
Adam:
Yes. And my name is Adam Flaherty. I'm a father of two daughters who are six and a half and three and a half. Well, Modern Dadhood is a conversation show. It's not an interview, it's not a Q&A typically, right?
Marc:
Sometimes.
Adam:
We look to have authentic, genuine conversations with other dads and occasionally moms as evidenced by our last episode with Courtney.
Marc:
Yeah. Perfect.
Adam:
And today's episode, I am certain is going to be a really solid conversation. You want to share who the guest is today?
Marc:
No.
Adam:
I'll go ahead and tell you.
Marc:
I think today is going to be a pretty fun conversation because we are welcoming an author and illustrator by the name of Jon Klassen, who some of our listeners might recognize better as the guy that made the book I Want My Hat Back.
Adam:
I Want My Hat Back! Three books in the Hat Trilogy as it's become known. I Want My Hat Back, We Found A Hat, This Is Not My Hat. Also a trilogy of shape books.
Marc:
Yes. A trilogy of shape books that he worked with Mac Barnett on.
Adam:
Solid collaboration.
Marc:
Also a name that some of our listeners might find familiar.
Adam:
I'm excited to chat with Jon. He'll be joining us shortly-
Marc:
Me too.
Adam:
On our Zoom.
Marc:
Me too.
Adam:
Marc, I know that we both share the philosophy of trying to limit screen time to some extent, but I'm curious to know if there are any shows or movies in particular that your boys are really into right now.
Marc:
Yes, there are a couple. And thankfully one of them is a show that I also really love. I think it's a Netflix. No, I'm sure it is. It's a Netflix show called Go! Go! Cory Carson
Adam:
I've never even come across it on Netflix.
Marc:
It's wonderful. First of all, it's very funny. The writing in it is really well-crafted and I find myself entertained and oftentimes kind of laughing out loud. I mean, I'm sort of in that mode, if I'm sitting down with the kids watching that show.
Adam:
Because you mean you're high?
Marc:
Yeah.
Adam:
You'll laugh at almost anything.
Marc:
Yeah. I mean, I'm just so stoned.
Adam:
Just sinking into the couch.
Marc:
Come on kids let's get high and watch Go! Go! Cory Carson man. I mean, I'm in that mode where I'm invested in what's coming out of the TV screen so that it's not just the three of us sitting with just unblinking stares. But it's all about a town in which these, all the characters are cars or some type of vehicle. There's some trains and big cement mixers and things like that.
Marc:
But one of the reasons why I love it is that they're tapping into the nostalgia of the sitcoms from shows that maybe you and I used to watch when we were a little bit younger. One of the things that I've picked up on is, all the TVs in all of the houses are big old console tube television.
Adam:
Are they 4x3?
Marc:
Yeah, they're enormous sit on the floor. They're a giant piece of furniture. And I just thought that was a really interesting creative choice. And the houses are all kind of warmly lit as opposed to maybe like today's LED bright daylight type lighting. And it just kind of captures that, the house is a character in the show, much like Family Matters or Step by Step or whatever any of those shows that you could still kind of close your eyes and picture the living rooms of. And so, I don't know, it's like a little extra special treat for me.
Adam:
And that's got to be an intentional move by the creators, right? By the artists and the creators and the writers to keep parents interested in that.
Marc:
Yeah.
Adam:
My girls, six and a half and three and a half watch some really great shows like what you're describing and they also watch some real garbage. They're just drawn to some shows that just the story is so weak and they're just so thoughtless. I mean, we've talked about this before, when it comes to music. We been watching a lot of a show called Bluey on Disney plus.
Marc:
I do remember you mentioning that show to me in the past, and it's on my list to check out and I still have it.
Adam:
It's about a family of dogs. The episodes are short which is nice. They're seven or eight minutes long, but they pack a lot into that amount of time, but it also doesn't feel overwhelming sensory overload. The pace is good, the characters are great, the parents are realistic. The dad is a hilarious character and there's so much that parents can get out of it. And the kids are so entertained by it too. We love Bluey.
Adam:
We just find that recommendations from people who we trust, who have similar senses of humor and similar parenting philosophies usually result in quickly finding the best content to share with our kids. Our mutual friend, Dan Snyder actually turned me on to Bluey, and case in point even this conversation. I mean, you just recommended the awesome Netflix show that I've already forgotten the name of.
Marc:
Go! Go! Cory Carson. We'll put it into the show notes.
Adam:
But now I can go check that out and trust that it's going to be good.
Marc:
Well, yeah. And I mean, sometimes that content or the substance, the really good quality part of whatever it is, you're ingesting book, movie show, whatever, sometimes it does take more than an instant for it to sink in and for you to realize what's good or what's interesting, or what's fun about it. And I think there is a lot of stuff out there, all up and down the board, like kids' shows all the way up to huge money making blockbuster movies, where the story is at the core of it and everything is there to serve the story. And sometimes the story is very, obviously it doesn't matter. I mean, not to take shots at an easy target, but like a Michael Bay movie, the story is secondary, tertiary, but that's not why you go see those movies, right? You go see those movies just for the assault on your eyeballs.
Adam:
Right, the adrenaline rush.
Marc:
Yeah, exactly. Explosions and hero shot after hero shot and that's an awesome car. Cool, there's the logo in front of me now I know exactly what car it is. I mean, it's for all of that stuff.
Adam:
I guess I feel like we do our best to try to sway our girls away from either watching or reading books or shows or movies that we just feel are devoid of any real substance, because we want them to learn to be able to decipher the difference. But at the same time, I'm realizing that's sort of a conflict, because if we're depriving them of the really bad stuff without allowing them to watch it and then saying, "Hey, even though the colors were bright and the characters had funny voices that show is awful." I guess I'm just thinking about how to nurture an appreciation for books or movies or shows that expand their imagination rather than content with no substance that's clearly made solely to cash in on things that kids are “supposed to like.” And that's sort of a catch 22, right? Because that also doesn't mean that it has to be super complex or even designed to be educational. I don't know. Do you know what I mean?
Marc:
Yeah. And I still find myself still like if I have a list of movies on my phone, that when I hear about them or when I hear somebody talk about them and it sounds interesting I write it down and then I look up stuff about it. And I do the same with kids books. I mean, if I find an author that I like, I look into them and then I see what other work that they've done or like with our guest today, who they've collaborated with on what types of projects. In Jon's case, we know him and we're talking about his children's books, but he was an animator for some films in a previous life. And just getting to learn little things like that to me are all really play an important role in whether or not I'm going to take in a book that he's written. I'm not saying everybody should go to that length, but I do hope for my own kids anyway, that they are curious enough to really think about what they're ingesting.
Adam:
Marc, he's here. Our guests is here.
Marc:
I'm excited. I can see him right now.
Adam:
I know you've been excited for this I have too. Our guest is a dad of two young boys. He also happens to be a number one New York Times bestselling author, and the winner of multiple awards, including the coveted Caldecott Medal for his phenomenal illustration work. Today, we welcome Jon Klassen to the show. Welcome to Modern Dadhood, sir!
Jon:
Hi! Hi guys. Thanks for having me. It's cool to be on.
Adam:
Well, thanks for making time for us. How are you doing?
Jon:
I mean, it's all with an asterisk these days, but not bad all things considered. I think that people who work in picture books stuff kind of got a better deal on this one because we're used to being in our houses anyway. All of the quirks that go with working at home are old already.
Adam:
So we would love to hear a little bit about your family. You've got a couple of young people who run around your house?
Jon:
Yeah. We've got a three and a half year old named Isaac and a one and a half year old named August.
Adam:
Great names.
Jon:
Thanks. I mean, August is Augie, which we didn't expect. But I was really a big kind of Gus and I think that's hopefully what he'll grow into, but we'll see how it all goes. I don't know, Augie is working out pretty well so far.
Marc:
That's Chris Ballew’s son's name isn't it?
Jon:
Really?
Adam:
Yeah. Yeah. That's right. I don't know if he's an August or an Augustus or just Augie, but anyway, Jon, Marc and I have been discussing how there's a lot of really great books out there that are made for kids, and that can be enjoyed by adults too, but there's so much content out there, especially now living in this age where you can so easily self-publish and have a tangible thing that feels very legitimate. It becomes hard to parse through all that stuff and figure out what is a book of substance versus what isn't. In my particular case, we came across, I Want My Hat Back because my mother-in-law a few years ago, Chris, was with our daughter who's now six and a half and was probably three or four at the time and she brought it back from the library and a stack of books. And I was reading to my daughter and picked up that book and read it to her and I was like, "Oh my God, this is awesome. This is different than all of the other books in this pile and probably all the other books on her bookshelf.” The writing is so simple. The art is so clever. Can you talk to us a little bit about your process, maybe starting with the illustration process and then speak to the writing?
Jon:
Yeah. Well, my whole trajectory, I came from animation. I went to school for animation and worked at the studios for about six or seven years before I started getting into books. I was working in feature movies, mostly as a designer. And when you're working on those movies as a designer, your work almost has to look like a still from the film. You have to light it and it has to suggest whole worlds outside of the frame. You're doing these big elaborate ideas and designs. And as soon as I got the book gigs on the side, my whole reaction was to clean it up as much as possible. I wanted the simplest thing that was going to hold still and be composed to the page. The camera was never going to move to the left or cut off my weird thing. I had so much control and I just wanted something so clean and readable across the room instead of all these small little details that went into these movies. That's how my illustration stuff sort of got going. I've also never loved drawing very much. I liked storytelling, but I was never... you see some illustrators and people in animation who draw a lot just as a muscular reaction. They'll be at dinner and there's a napkin or you'll be somewhere and they just want to be drawing and that's how they sort of relax because even. And that's the reverse for me is I don't relax when I'm drawing. It's really tense and hard. And so I try to give myself as little to draw as possible so I don't screw it up. And in the books and the writing, just in the field of those books generally the Hat ones, especially because those are the first ones I did by myself, there's so much self-protection going on in terms of how little I want to put on the page, because there's just so much less ways to screw up. My approach to book illustration was that you're choosing a moment either before or after an action, because choosing a still frame in the middle of an action isn't really a great use of the forum. It seems like it's much more fun to choose the moment either before that thing happened. And so most of my books are just characters standing still before they're about to do something. I'm not sure I would have thought of it that way if I hadn't worked in film for so long and wanted that contrast, that things moving all the time versus things standing still, but it leads to an aesthetic I think that a lot of my ideas are hinged on the idea of my characters being allowed to stand still a lot. And so all of that goes into the look of the book and the feeling of the book and my decisions about typefaces and colors are all pretty subdued because I just want the thing to stand still. I just want it to be quiet, at least visually. But then to give yourself permission to do it quietly visually, I think, or at least I thought that you need to turn it up story-wise so you have these characters, just standing still saying virtually nothing, but the story is about murder and revenge and theft and death. And it's like those two things have to contrast. I got to buy permission to have my boring looking book by having an opera happen alongside it.
Marc:
Adam and I were just talking yesterday, both of us had the same reaction to the eyes of the characters that you create and there's so much going on. I mean, you talk about they're just still on the page, they're not moving, but there's so much happening with just the eyes of the characters and the very subtle differences between the eyes being all the way open or being squinting just a tiny little bit. And I just, I wonder, was that something that was a very conscious decision or did you just gravitate towards? How did you come upon that as a device I guess?
Jon:
I think it's the same thing as sort of the idea of the opera story versus the quiet composition is that you need to get permission to have your character standing still. And so something has to be going on for the kid to gravitate to and to connect with. It can't just be looking at, unless you really do your... There's some great stories that involve just a rock on the ground, but you have to build that. You have to build permission for that to be a page in your book. What I like about eyes so much is that they're symbols, right? The smallest movement of a pupil inside, just an oval. I don't sort of give myself high grade for nuance and drawing the eyes so much as it is. If we clear the way, if the drawing is clean and you're able to recognize that small movement, then you just have to think about what you do with your eyes rather than how well can I draw this particular thing.
Marc:
What I kind of wonder about is whether your approach to the work has changed at all, be specifically on the advent of becoming a dad and now you have these beings in your life who are also potential future consumers of your craft, right? But I wonder-
Jon:
That's why you make them, right?
Marc:
Yeah, exactly! I wonder if your approach mentally or otherwise has shifted at all since then?
Jon:
I think so. I think I can feel it. It was already getting gentler I think. It does both things because you see, you want to be gentler because you feel gentle towards your kids at least most of the time, but then you also see what they're capable of taking in and how much they want to challenge themselves and how they like being scared about certain things. And so you're kind of moving in both directions at the same time where you're like, "Oh boy, I don't want to put anything out that's going to be over their heads or alienate them." But then at the same time, they want to hear about the one about where the guy's head gets cut off and so you're like, "Oh, well maybe they do want to hear all this stuff and maybe we can go actually, even weirder than I thought." I don't know where that lands. I think that you probably treat it project to project instead of trying to land all that stuff in one book. The other thing is that I got into this work a long time before I was a dad and I think that you get into the habit, even if you have kids. I think that mostly I talk to myself as a third grader rather than ask the kids questions or think about a certain kid that I didn't really have access to a lot of kids when I started this. We were just hanging out with our friends and stuff. But if I thought about a certain audience member, a lot of the times it was me as the young kid. And you're so used to talking to him once you have access to him and you understand what that conversation is like. I still think you go there pretty often and you even go there more often because now you're seeing like, these are two little boys they're a lot like me. At least so far I see a lot of myself in them and so it reminds me even more about little moments that you'd forgotten about or things in your own childhood that you were like, "That's right. I used to get really into that." You see the amount of focus they put into certain weird parts of their day and the speed of that, the speed of your brain in a moment, or looking at a story or playing with a toy you remember how weirdly focused you were on certain parts of a story or a book that you remember. And so I think it gives you more energy for the importance of your work, because they really do love these books. And they look at, not necessarily mine, but books, generally the ones that they love and you're like, "This is important work." And that's been really nice too, is that, because you can dissuade yourself of that pretty easily. No one's asking me to make these books. If I stopped tomorrow, nothing would stop in the world. And so you wonder a lot about how necessary is this work that I'm doing, but looking at your kids loving these books and them being really important to them, that's been a lot of gas in the tank. So it hasn't changed the work that much practically, but it changes your head space around how you feel about it I guess
Adam:
A lot of the books that we have, or even just the TV shows that we let our girls watch they come through recommendations from people. Because as we've been speaking about, there's so much to parse through. We've read so many books that just feel like they're devoid of any real meaningful content. So much of what we put in front of them is based on recommendations from other people. So I would love to hear from you, what children's authors are you into? Is there anybody that particularly inspires your own writing and art?
Jon:
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Although I try more and more not to look too hard at especially the current stuff coming out, just because it can really throw you for a loop and you end up sort of feeling either competitive in a weird way you weren't before, or just thinking about market directions and that's none of your in your business. And so the newer stuff that I've gotten into, we have a set of books that Enchanted Lion puts out. And Enchanted Lion is a publisher out of Brooklyn and basically anything they put out is worth looking at. They're really good. But they have a series of books called Chirri and Chirra, I think they were brought over from Japan. But the books are almost about nothing. They're about these little girls who go for bike rides in like a stand of grass and then all of a sudden they're very small and they run into animals who are making different kinds of Berry tea or something and then they have a concert in the grass and then they don't even go home at the end, which is really interesting. There's usually like some sort of animal hotel they stay in overnight or something. And I think you're supposed to generally think this is some sort of an imagination trip on their part, but it doesn't ever bring that back around. It doesn't ever say so explicitly or even landed at the end. It's just these weird sensory dreams that are so engaging and there's so much outside of how we think about storytelling I think, especially in States. Older ones I still go back to that hold up like crazy are all the William Steig books. He wrote Shrek, which is what he's known for, which is too bad because the Shrek movies aren't anything like his books. His picture books and his novels, he's written two or three novels. The novels are fantastic, but the picture books are also really, really good. My favorite book, probably my favorite picture book is Sylvester and the Magic Pebble. And that's the one I was talking about actually with a rock, because it's about a donkey who finds a magic pebble and sees a lion almost right away and panics and wishes he was a rock. And he gets turned into a rock and of course the pebble drops in the ground and now the donkey's a rock and there's no way to not be a rock. And so it's about, he has parents, he's like a young donkey and his parents don't know where he went and they spend at least a year he goes through a cycle of seasons. And the book becomes about grief. It becomes about the parents grief at losing this child. And you break down over it, especially as a parent reading it, but the storytelling is so gorgeous and the writing is so beautiful. His writing is nothing like mine, which I think that's why I like reading him is because he's so naturalistic as a writer. You can tell, he just wrote and it just kind of came out of him. He wasn't thinking in parsing these things. And then Arnold Lobel, who does The Frog and Toad books. Those have been in the news, I guess a lot lately because he's actually been revisited. For a while no one read his stuff, I think for a little bit. But then all of a sudden he's gotten a resurgence and it's worth it. He's one of the best to ever do it. The Frog and Toad books, I think are unmatched. They're beautifully done and really deep.
Adam:
That particular reference, Frog and Toad, that inspiration seems to be present in your work, both in the art and in the writing, to some extent, at least in its sort of introducing kids to human psychology, to an extent thinking about that stuff, because there's some of those same elements in your writing. You're thinking about the dynamics between the characters and issues of trust and truth versus lying and all of that stuff.
Marc:
There's something really interesting about giving kids the space to come to a conclusion on their own because kids can have such a wild imagination or like a really pure sense of wonder about the world and the things that they're taking in. And it kind of bugs me sometimes when I see a story or a book or a movie that goes to great length to sort of do everything for the viewer or over explain.
Jon:
Yeah. I think what it makes me think of is the intention of the book to begin with and what my experience of picture books was growing up because we didn't have a lot of picture books in the house growing up. My memories of them are when we went to my grandparents house and they still had my dad's room, basically intact, not out of the way of sort of weird preservationist memory, but just they hadn't changed it. And they had this big wall of National Geographics and book club books against his back wall. And so I would sleep in that room and I would basically, when the door closed, I would have the run of the place in that room. And I just remembered most of the book club books were the Dr. Seuss ones or.. that club, there was P.D. Eastman and all these guys in there. But they're all the same trim size and they're all cardboard bound things. And I would just take like seven of them onto the bed and just pour over them by myself on the bed. I can remember being read to, but I have more memories of reading to myself or looking at the books. And I think that probably my books are better suited to a solitary experience where the kid is looking at it and the silent spreads really are silent. But I kind of, I go back and forth because I have a habit of wordless spreads for things I don't know what to say over. And I'm not sure it does the parent or the teacher any favors when they're reading it to a group so I can understand both sides of that. And I've certainly been in that trap too, especially now with kids where I read them much more energetically than I would before I had kids, because now I understand that you want to engage them. You want to be there with them and make them excited about the thing they're reading that they might not get yet.
Adam:
Right. Right. Exactly. It's a beautiful thing to have those moments when you can entertain them by bringing a character to life or use the story as an opportunity to teach them something. But to echo what you both have been saying, it's arguably equally valuable to them to be able to discover the whole thing on their own and find their own takeaways and come to their own conclusions.
Jon:
Well, and really realize that those conclusions are valid. Like not even just be like that isn't that cute? You have a real conclusion to really say, that is as valid as a conclusion as I've come to today on anything I've been thinking about like kid's day is as real as my day. And to really believe that you have to understand how real those days are for you when you're four years old and that you are a true complete person already, or that you're never a complete person. One of those two things, both the can be true, I guess. I think it took having kids to really clarify that for me, just watching their days and be like, "Holy shit, they're real days. He had a whole day to day and he didn't even leave the house, but it was a whole day." And like that, that world seems so small, but it's a totally valid one. It's a heartbreaking thing.
Marc:
It's interesting too, because as you grow and change as a person, right? If you came back to that book 20 years from now, would you interpret parts of it very differently because of where you are in your life? And I wonder like if you're a two and a half year old reading, I Want My Hat Back and at the end you're happy because the bear gets his hat back and that's how you leave the book. But when you're four and five and six years old, you learn a little bit more about the world and then you bring that into the reading of the book. Does the perspective change? I think that's-
Jon:
That's the important part about those books and why I think I'm proud of those books for that reason is because they have a visual ending as much as a plot ending. It's like, if you are very young, if the title of the book is I Want My Hat Back, all you really want out of that book is for that character to be wearing a hat again. And you're not really going to understand a lot of the nuance of it maybe, but you have the visual satisfaction of a hat being back on that bear. And that's important. That's a of closure and finality to the story. And I think that we got very lucky with that one, because it really does run the age gamut. We can read it to toddlers and we can read it to second graders and we can read it to eighth graders. And they're all kind of laughing at different parts of it, but it does... I really liked that about it is that it has a visual premise and ending as much as it has an emotional one.
Marc:
I'm going to say something potentially controversial. Is everybody in the room ready for this?
Jon:
We're ready. Drop it.
Marc:
I'm going to go on record here. I don't think Goodnight Moon is a very good book. All right. Now discuss.
Jon:
I don't know enough about Margaret Wise Brown's deal and Clement Hurd who illustrated it. They were into something else that I don't have access to. For me, there's a bit of a block with that one too. My friend Mac, who writes a lot of books that illustrate is a big Margaret Wise Brown head and he wrote a book about her and everything, and he understands so much more about rhythm and what's going on rhythmically with her texts in that book. It's a whole other thing that's not apparent to naked eyes. And it's why apparently that book works is that there's some sort of cocaine sprinkled in the rhythm of that book. But apparently Margaret Wise Brown is really a master at rhythm and line breaks and stuff. And that's apparently what's going on in that book.
Marc:
I just think it's interesting because that particular book, I kind of feel like there's a lot of books that rise to the top as being quintessential children's book. You got to have this. You're pregnant, I'm going to buy you Goodnight Moon because you have to have it on your shelf. And I definitely think there are some books out there that deserve that. And I just, I haven't found it yet with Goodnight Moon, maybe I need Mac to sit me down and walk me through it.
Adam:
Jon, what's next for you? You mentioned your new book, The Rock From the Sky comes out sometime in the spring.
Jon:
It comes out in the spring. We'll see what the world looks like. I wrote it last... Well, it's being written over the last little while, but reading it now it does seem to fit the moment a little bit. It's about impending doom and dramatic irony, I guess. But it's five short stories, but all of the premises are even dumber than I would have thought before. And almost the dumber I could make them the more fun I was having.
Marc:
Awesome. I'm excited to see it. I'm sure fans of the Hat trilogy and the other work that you've done are also really excited to see it.
Adam:
Of course, parents listening can find your work on Amazon, but I would imagine that you probably prefer people to purchase through independent bookstores. Is there anywhere particular that you like to recommend?
Jon:
I mean, Powell's in Portland is a good one. Powell's ships all over the place, but you can find your local indie. They're probably having a bad year. If you're interested in my books or books like that, we would not survive without the indies. Please go to them.
Adam:
Here in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, there's a great independent bookstore called RiverRun Books, there's Water Street Books in Exeter, up in Portland, there's Longfellow Books and so, so many more. We'll put a bunch of links in our show notes and we encourage dads and moms listening to find and support your local shop. Jon, where can people follow what you're up to?
Jon:
I'm on Instagram and Twitter doing the usual stuff. It's where I post anything that is new or coming out. So if you're interested, then that's where I am.
Adam:
Jon Klassen, Thank you so much for joining us on Modern Dadhood. Best of luck to your family, your two boys, Isaac and August. We hope everybody stays safe and healthy and look forward to the new book coming in the spring.
Marc:
Thanks for spending so much time man.
Jon:
Thank you very, very much for having me. This is great.
Adam:
Okay, Marc, here's what we're going to do. Rapid fire, we're going to share some books that we like and books that we don't like. Go.
Marc:
Here We Are: Notes for Living on Planet Earth, by Oliver Jeffers. It's smart, sciency, the illustration is beautiful and quirky. There's so much subtle detail. You can spend an hour just staring at one page. And sometimes we do one.
Adam:
One Morning in Maine by Robert McCloskey, simple timeless writing, beautiful pencil illustration, a classic for good reason.
Marc:
The Bright & Early Board Books version of the Thomas and Friends stories. Lazy writing, weak lessons and sometimes the illustrations look like they're pieced together from other stories. Try harder.
Adam:
Kay Thompson's, Eloise. Way too long. It always seems like a great bedtime book until you get into it and remember how obnoxiously long and repetitive it is.
Marc:
Toot by Leslie Petricelli. Lovable and relatable characters get a simple and funny premise. It's about farting. Plus you're learning something valuable along the way.
Adam:
A Sick Day for Amos McGee by Phillip and Aaron Stead. It's just such a cool story about trust and friendship and loyalty. And don't tell anyone, but at some point I'm going to approach them about turning it into a screenplay that I can direct.
Marc:
On the Night You Were Born by Nancy Tillman. Hey, the 90s called and at once it's digital collage work back. Also call me a skeptic, but I don't think we are all as special and unique as this book would have you believe.
Adam:
All, all Barbie books, no author noted. Nobody will even fess up to writing them. They're shallow, uninspired, despicable. A waste of 499, which is a surprise to nobody.
Marc:
Bob the Artist by Marion Deuchars. The moral of this story is wonderful. A combination of simple language and whimsical illustration makes it easy for even my two and a half year olds to memorize. Plus you get to dip your toe into the world of modern art.
Adam:
Katy Hudson, Too Many Carrots. Admittedly, I like this one for the illustration and the layout of the words on the pages as much as I like it for the story. But Katy Hudson's books are well worth exploring.
Marc:
Spot’s Thanksgiving by Eric Hill. Look, I can't speak to the rest of the series, but this book is unimaginative at best. There's almost no story. Also dogs can't bake. Get your facts straight.
Adam:
Give the Dog a Bone by Steven Kellogg. Now this is a play on old nursery rhyme this old man, but it's scattered. There's too much going on. It's overwhelming to me and I have a hard time singing along with it. I want to sing with it. So while I'm sure you're a great guy, Steven, I can't in good conscience recommend this.
Here we are again at the closing of the episode.
Marc:
“This is the end, beautiful end.” Great. Now we're going to get copyright infringement.
Adam:
Is that a real tune? Who was that?
Marc:
Yeah, that was The Doors you couldn't tell by my...
Adam:
No, I couldn't. I didn't know that was your Morrison.
Marc:
Sorry. I wasn't good and that's why.
Adam:
I should have recognized it. Dad's you can find us at moderndadhood.com, on Apple podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, Amazon and more. Please consider subscribing to the podcast. It would make a big difference for us. And if you would take a minute or two to give us a rating and review and tell your mom friends and dad friends about us. All of those are great ways to help us spread the word about Modern Dadhood.
Marc:
Yeah and you can drop us a line at, Hey, H-E-Y @moderndad hood.com. Motherfucker. hey@moderndadhood.com. Tell us what you like about the show. Tell us never to do a Jim Morrison impression again.
Adam:
Thanks as always to Caspar Babypants and Spencer Albee for our Modern Dadhood music and to our friend Pete Morse. His nickname is “Ears.”
Marc:
Ears.
Adam:
I've never called him that and I won't. But thank you to Pete Morse at Red Vault Audio who you can find at redvaultaudio.com for making us sound good. Thank you, Pete.
Marc:
For his ears. Thank you to Miles Crusberg-Roseen, the Modern Dadhood intern.
Adam:
And thank YOU so much for listening.