Fuse 8 n’ Kate: Bill and Pete by Tomie dePaola

Now starring special guest, Ian Lendler!! Author of 2021’s new picture book Nia and the New Free Library, and creator of such books I’ve adored as The Fabled Life of Aesop and the Stratford Zoo comics, to name but a few.

Once in a while we’ll have a guest on. Of course the challenge is for our guests to come up with potentially “classic” picture books that we haven’t done already. But when Ian and I talked about having him on the show, the book he mentioned was Bill and Pete, a.k.a. a book that I myself didn’t really know all that well. Now we already did Strega Nona and Oliver Button is a Sissy, so this will make our third Tomie dePaola book to date. But that’s okay. We loved that guy. And now we get to talk about the weird dynamic between these two friends, its David Lynch-esque dream sequences, and how this is, as Kate calls it, “Bill and Pete’s Excellent Adventure”.

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

Show Notes:

Here’s where you can find the Strega Nona is a Not a Communist post we mentioned.

I think the older crocodile featured here has some kind of relation to the old poisoned king in Babar. Don’t you think?

Kate’s right. This guy is prime Bad Guy material. Like some kind of Evil Crocodile Hunter. Meanwhile I’m trying to figure out why his hat is tied to his jacket in that way.

This is Bill parkouring up the wall. Obviously.

Ian loves this image because Bill is clearly on his tippy toes in this shot. You can almost hear the tippy-toe Saturday morning cartoon sounds that would accompany this.

This is the only shot where you get to see the whites of Bill’s eyes. And yes. He is TERRIFYING. Don’t try to get it back, man. That foot is gone.

Kate deems this, “a very juicy butt.” So agree-eth the universe.

Kate Recommends: Rewatching Stranger Things.

Betsy Recommends: Getting your bike stolen and then having your brave husband steal it back.

Ian Recommends: The HBO documentary The 100 Foot Wave.

Special thanks to Ian for joining us and those of you out there for listening.

Filed under: Fuse 8 n' Kate