Fuse 8 n’ Kate: Dinosaurs Divorce by Laurene Krasny Brown, ill. Marc Brown

This week’s challenge from Kate: Deliver unto her a “classic picture book about divorce”. So I conferred with my fellow librarians and we all agreed that there is really only one that would fit the bill: A little number from 1986. There’s a number of reasons for this selection. The book remains popular to this day. This book is still in print (have they updated the terms since its original publication? This is unclear). And, as Kate points out, this is clearly more a guide than something you might read cover-to-cover. So how has it aged over the years?

Listen to the whole show here on Soundcloud or download it through iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, PlayerFM, or your preferred method of podcast selection.

Show Notes:

• Here is the website of Ms. Laurene Krasny Brown. And here are her current and upcoming shows. Check one out if you have a chance:

Fine and Applied Paper Art

Open Studio

August 24 & 25, 2019
Reception: 4–7pm each day

Pilot Hill Farm
180 Pilot Hill Farm Road
Tisbury, Massachusetts 02568
+1(508) 696-9212
studio@laurenekrasnybrown.com

Extremes and In-Betweens

NAWA MA Members Juried Exhibition

August 1–September 1, 2019
Opening Reception 3 August, 4–6pm

Rocky Neck Art Colony
6 Wonson Street
Gloucester, MA 01930
+1(617) 699-2736

Solo Exhibition

Summer 2019

The Creamery
Stonover Farm
169 Under Mountain Road
Lenox, MA 01240
+1(413) 637-3344

• And now it’s time for our favorite show, Out-of-Date “Divorce Words and What They Mean”. Let us review the more problematic terms and definitions.

• Apparently there are only two ways for parents not to get along. You’re hot or you’re cold.

• For the record, we don’t mention this on the podcast, but can anyone figure out what this book might be referencing?

• Precisely what you expect to find when perusing a picture book: Momma mixing her pills with her booze! As Kate rightly points out, the next panel should really be an image of Mama going on an ambulance stat.

• Kate liked this page. She appreciated how the book could show a wide range of emotions associated with divorce.

• However, she was less enamored of how super busy pages were, and the sheer variety in terms of patterns and colors.

• Time for another appearance of an old timey phone. So I asked my 8-year-old daughter about this image and she was dismissive of the idea that a kid wouldn’t know what a rotary phone is. When pressed, however, she said that so many older children’s picture books contain these very phones that a lot of kids would be familiar with them already. That’s a fair point. We assume our children won’t recognize old technology, but if you’re reading them picture book “classics” then they’re often steeped in them anyway.

• It’s Christmas VS Hanukkah! Who! Will! Win?

• To answer the question of whether or not divorce is up or down since 1986, I found this article from TIME Magazine, published last year. It says:

“Have you heard that statistic that half of all marriages will end in divorce? It’s wrong. Even if that many marriages ever did disintegrate at one point, they don’t now. Divorce is on the decline and has been since the 1980s in America (when that 50% divorce statistic took hold). Experts now put your chances of uncoupling at about 39% in the U.S.”

• Augh! What is this teacher doing?!? Lady, I know you’re trying to be open with the classroom and show kids that they’re not along, but I don’t think that this is the best way to go about it.

• And finally, the greatest mystery of them all: Why is this not a dinosaur witch?

Here is a list of Recommended Divorce Picture Books, for those of you interested in books that are slightly more recent:

• Two Old Potatoes and Me by John Coy, ill. Carolyn Fisher.
• Fred Stays With Me by Nancy Coffelt, ill. Tricia Tusa
• Here and There by Tamara Ellis Smith, ill. Evelyn Daviddi
• Why Do Families Change by Jillian Roberts, ill. Cindy Revell
• Living With Mom and Living With Dad by Melanie Walsh

Filed under: Fuse 8 n' Kate