Fuse 8 n’ Kate: Tell Me Again About the Night I Was Born by Jamie Lee Curtis, ill. Laura Cornell

For WEEKS Kate has been bugging me to find her a celebrity picture book. The catch was that I was insisting that the book be considered a “classic”. So I asked the listeners what the most classicky classic was and we managed to come up with today’s book. Published in 1996 this definitely falls within our 20 year rule (we won’t read anything that’s younger …. in theory) so we went for it. I figured it would be a particularly innocuous book to do with Kate. I had no idea she’d take issue with tons of illustrations that she finds degrading to women. And you know what? I think she has a point. This book, you will find, has not aged as well as you may hope.

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Show Notes:

Tis true! This is our second Laura Cornell book on this podcast. Take a listen to our Heather Has Two Mommies episode because she illustrated it for the reissue.

This is the article in Education and Career News with Ms. Curtis which explains why she started writing picture books in the first place.

Dog doing selfies. Apparently selfies are just crop up in tons of Jamie Lee Curtis books. Remember that her most recent title (from 2018) was called Me, Myselfie, and I.

I’m pretty baffled by this. What did Laura Cornell think this toothpaste was supposed to say?

“We going for walk now? We no going for walk now? No walk now?”

As I mentioned before, Kate’s greatest objection to this book was the illustrator’s fascination with women and their supposed obsession with beauty.

But this is where it gets so weird. Why is the mom just obsessed with this book? At a certain point it starts to feel like a plug.

By the way, can anyone tell me what molecular cream really is?

In other news, why is Great Uncle Earl just floating there on the family tree like a little island of a man?

This is the most realistic thing in the book. You feel for this woman. Heck, you feel for this man!

I’m giving Laura Cornell some extra points for this guy. I like weird elements that repeat in books. And it don’t get weirder than old Sketchy here.

A Hare Krishna at the airport? Now that was a dated element even back in 1996.

THIS we get!!

As listener Erica told us “This story from Minnesota Public Radio is about how jingle dancers have been dancing and praying for healing during the quarantines. The story includes some history of the jingle dance and some links to videos.”

And in case you missed it, here was my discussion with Carolyn Jeziorski, my official Expert Disaster Librarian.

Filed under: Fuse 8 n' Kate