Fuse 8 n’ Kate: Go, Dog. Go! by P.D. Eastman
Today marks a first. A first time that I have discovered that I’ve been mispronouncing the title of a popular children’s book for years and years and years. You might ask yourself, “How the heck do you mispronounce P.D. Eastman’s most classic book?” It’s all in the punctuation. In fact, I doubt anyone has ever picked apart the punctuation of this book as intensely as Kate and I do on this episode of our podcast. As it turns out, the female hat-wearing dog’s use or lack of use when it comes to exclamation points practically warrants a conspiracy theory in and of itself.
Listen to the whole show here on Soundcloud or download it through iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, or your preferred method of podcast selection.
Show Notes:
– The determined dog. Slogging along. Never stopping. Kate’s personal hero.
– Is Kate right about the difference between dogs with collars and dogs that don’t have collars (have bows)? I leave that to you to decide.
– The dogs who saw Cedrick Diggory die. Except that first dog there. Guess he missed it.
– I do not get Kate’s identification with this fish. I’m tempted to make her read A Fish Out of Water next, but that may have to wait.
– Kate is, however, weirdly right about the punctuation in this book. Why is there no exclamation point in one of those statements of “Good-by”?
– If Kate can’t find a creepy clown in a book then she’ll go with the next best thing. Case in point: Creepy doggy toy.
– Kate’s theory here is that P.D. Eastman just sort of gave up on this guy. “I DON’T CARE ANYMORE!!” Quoth, the Eastman.
– I’ve never noticed that her hat is full of things from previous pictures in the book. The lollipops! The zeppelin flag! The tiny fish that Kate has that weird emotional attachment to. Has anyone EVER noticed this before? Hat tip (no pun intended) to Kate on that.
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– No exclamation point. No comment.
– These are my heroes. Who cares about crazy tree parties when you can have a party on a boat with two friends?
– After looking at this particular video of the show, I’m pretty sure the one I saw was just a case of poor direction. This looks MUCH livelier!
– Want to read the whole piece? Then check out The Ugly Volvo’s An Open Letter to the Female Hat-Wearing Dog From “Go, Dog, Go”.
– Here’s the book coming in at #28 on the Top 100 Picture Books Poll.
– Here’s Kate’s new cat:
– And here’s where we were together. Worth it, folks. Worth it.
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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These images bring me RIGHT back to my earliest book- listening/ reading experiences. I’m pretty sure that the texts of Go, Dog. Go!, Put Me in the Zoo (Robt. Lopshire), Are you My Mother? (Eastman) and Green Eggs and Ham (Seuss) played in continuous loops inside my 4-year old brain as I wandered around my yard in NJ. Love your careful analysis here of this classic title–which proves once again that simple things are often much more complex than they appear!!
The dog who couldn’t sleep? My theory: existential angst.
I normally don’t ever listen to podcasts. Not my thing. But you have reeled me in, my dear!
Woohoo! That’s what we like to hear. Thanks for listening!