Spooky, October-Infused Fuse 8 n’ Kate: Millions of Cats by Wanda Gag ft. James Kennedy
It’s time for the sweetest little tale of kitty cannibalism ever to grace our gentle bookshelves! And best of all, this very special episode of the podcast comes with a very special guest! Yes indeed we poached James Kennedy, author of The Order of Odd-Fish and creator of the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival to take a trip over from my husband’s podcast (The Secrets of Story) to join us in the basement instead. If you’ve ever wanted to know what I keep down there (mwah-ha-ha!) or have ever thought to yourself “What would a one-man acapella rendition of the Fuse 8 n’ Kate theme song really sound like?” your questions are all about to be answered! And as James says so accurately about this book, “Of all of the children’s books, maybe all the books ever written, this one has the highest body count.” Or, as Kate called it, “Hunger Games but cats!!” Listen to the whole show here on Spotify or down load it through iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, or your preferred method of podcast selection.
Show Notes:
- Please be so good as to read The Order of Odd Fish by James Kennedy. SLJ called it “depraved”! How many YA novels can you say THAT about?
Unrelated but I really loved this fan art, which I located while trying to find this book jacket.
- The 90-Second Newbery Film Festival is James’s baby. Kids make 90-second (approximately) videos of Newbery Award and Honor books and then James travels around the country showing them in his film festival. Honestly, for a kid to see their video up on the big screen, there’s nothing to compare to that. Newest and latest submissions are due on January 12th.
- This is my favorite voice Kate has done. EVER.
- Old man who looks like a gnome.
- Personally, I believe the kitties are related to the Princess in Black book about the Hungry Bunny Hoard:
- So who is the John Travolta kitty? See if you can spot him:
- Found him?
- A cat getting fatter and fatter = the lunar phases.
- I highly recommend you read the Top 100 Picture Books poll post on Millions of Cats. It contains lots of good facts that I wasn’t able to work into this podcast episode.
- Millions of Cats done in Minecraft. Pretty darn accurate.
- The ABC Bunny video of the song. Oh boy. Not getting out of my head now.
- Kate and her medal from her 5K!
- The trailer for the film Battle of the Sexes
- Oh boy. Okay, from James Kennedy he mentions the following: Yacht Rock, Channel 101, and finally his actually suggestion which was the podcast Beyond Yacht Rock (including Divorcecore).
- Be sure you listen for the post-credits extra.
- And, as ever, if you have feedback just contact us at fusekate8@gmail.com.
Filed under: Fuse 8 n' Kate
About Betsy Bird
Betsy Bird is currently the Collection Development Manager of the Evanston Public Library system and a former Materials Specialist for New York Public Library. She has served on Newbery, written for Kirkus, and has done other lovely little things that she'd love to tell you about but that she's sure you'd find more interesting to hear of in person. Her opinions are her own and do not reflect those of EPL, SLJ, or any of the other acronyms you might be able to name. Follow her on BlueSky at: @fuse8.bsky.social
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Fellow fans of the podcast: if you ever want a visual of where Betsy and Kate record, just imagine the third act of “Silence of the Lambs” and you won’t be far off. From the human-sized freezer in the corner of the basement, to the low ceilings, to the creepy-crawlies scuttling behind my head during the recording, I was in genuine fear of my life the whole time. You can hear the hysteria rising in my voice as the podcast goes on. Perfect for October spookiness!
Don’t believe a word he says, folks. Why that freezer couldn’t possibly hold a human. I mean, you’d have to chop them up real small in all sorts of interesting . . . um . . .
Enjoy the podcast, everybody!
The picture of the woman with the cat is not Wanda Gág. It is Jeanette MacDonald with her cat “Pussums”. There are many other pictures of Wanda with her cat on the internet.
Oh phooey. Good catch. I’ll correct immediately. Thank you!
And now I will go and buy a cat and name him “Pussums”.
Much more on Wanda: https://flippistarchives.blogspot.com/2004/04/wanda-gag.html
You’re on Google Play–thank you!!!
Okay, this book stuck with me since childhood because it’s terrifying to me in a way that you guys didn’t necessarily catch: mathematically speaking, there is no way all the millions and trillions and whathaveyou-ions of cats could have all eaten each other into nothingness leaving only one cat who is somehow innocent of the catt-ibalism.
No. Nope. Doesn’t happen.
Clearly, as child-me thought, that “scrawny” cat that was left is the one who at the next-to-last cat standing after the massacre. And yet that cat was still scrawny which means it has a huge appetite to be sated and what I’m saying is the old man and old woman might want to sleep with one eye open and I’m saying all of this as a cat lover because this book terrified me that much.
Oo. I think the Minecraft 90-Second Newbery video picked up on that way more than we did. Now I’m the one who won’t be able to sleep tonight!