Fuse 8 n’ Kate: Yo! Yes? by Chris Raschka

Come one! Come all! Come hear Betsy get the tongue lashing of the century! I don’t know if any of you listen to my podcast, but if you do you may come to it for any number of versions. Maybe you listen because you just like to listen to grown women talk about picture books. Maybe you like the banter. Or maybe, just maybe, you listen in the hopes of hearing Kate yell at Betsy for her sins. If the latter is your preference then boy howdy do I have the episode for you. Bonus: Kate makes a lot of fart noises. Nothing but class at this joint. As for the book we’re doing, since I’d recently interviewed Chris Raschka about his work on the upcoming Alice Faye Duncan picture book Yellow Dog Blues, he was on my mind. This appears to be our first Raschka title, which is funny considering how many Caldecott Honors and Awards he’s garnered over the years. Listen in if you want to hear the correct pronunciation of the title of Yo! Yes?, the choices made with the typography, and some truly awful bird calls.

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:

The Mackin interview with me can be found here.

The art of writing the picture book bookflap is an interesting one. After reading this particular flap, I would bet good money that Chris wrote the text here. I could be wrong, but take a gander if you get a chance.

The hip action on this kid is incredible. I think that hip has more personality alone than 90% of the picture books produced today.

“He has a terrible haircut and you’d can’t blame the kid for that.” My personal theory is that this child is being raised by his grandparents, which would account for his Mr. Rogers sweater and pants up to his armpits.

The physicality of the book is so admirable. You could not understand the words and still get what’s going on. Plus, this book reads well across a room.

I keep bringing up feet in the books we examine, but look at what Raschka is doing with this child’s ankle. It completely changes how you interpret the image.

I just love this shot. Seriously, I do.

Compare and contrast these images. One can be found at the front of the book and one’s near the end, and the differences between the two are so striking. Look in picture #2 how warm it is and how the body positions shift entirely.

Lark wasn’t wrong. “Puff Daddy” did indeed read Harlem on a cassette tape. This is amazing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUxiA-YJuO8

Hat tip too to Jerrold Connors for not only locating and listening to the audio cassette tape of Crow Boy, but also mentioning the very cool @corvidresearch.

Kate Recommends: Particle Ink: Speed of Dark, seen here:

Betsy Recommends: The video of Zendaya vs. Tom Holland in Lip Sync Battle

Filed under: Fuse 8 n' Kate