Fuse 8 n’ Kate: Wemberly Worried by Kevin Henkes
All around the U.S. kids are beginning to go back to school. With that in mind, Kate asked me to come up with a back-to-school book I hadn’t done before. Now you might think that the only first day of school book the great Kevin Henkes created was Chrysanthemum (which we did back in 2021). Not so! Here we find another. Kate says the cover is what you get if you mix Maus with Clockwork Orange (though I think it looks more like Maus meets Vertigo). We talk about the panic attacks that are surely in Wemberly’s future, how she resembles the Target dog, and why this man knows how to write a book. Mouse SEL books for the win!
Listen to the whole show here on Soundcloud or download it through iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, Google Play, PlayerFM, Audible, Amazon Music, or your preferred method of podcast selection.
Show Notes:
It’s true. There is another Wemberly book out there. It’s small, and part of a box set, but by gum it counts. Wemberly’s Ice Cream Star is another story about her, and the only other one out there. It’s just a grand little book.
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Sorry, folks. We just do not understand people who drink fruit juice with cereal. Seems unnatural.
Again, folks. We really need that Instagram account that’s strictly for kidlit grandmas. This woman has it going ON! I completely missed the roller blades before. How she is related to any of the other people in this book is beyond us.
And in this second image, Kate says, “She’s like a 12-year-old boy inside an old lady’s body.”
Yep. In this mouse world, this cat holding forks is definitely the mouse equivalent of a serial killer outfit.
And here is Lilly and Julius’s cameo. There may be more cameos in this book, but this was the only one I could recognize.
I forgot that there was this brilliant typography spread in this book. It kind of reminds me of The Book With No Pictures.
In the pantheon of Henkes teachers, Mrs. Peachum doesn’t get the same play as Lilly’s Mr. Slinger or Chrysanthemum’s Ms. Twinkle, but I think she deserves some focus of her own. She does a good job with these kids!
Kate Recommends: This site that helps you find local teacher wishlists (appropriate at this time of year, yes?).
Betsy Recommends: A League of Their Own
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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I once owned a copy of every Kevin Henkes book ever published and consider this man to be one of my most favorite authors. Those books are now among the collections in several libraries. I was able to meet him years ago at a library presentation as a perk of living full-time in an RV and able to travel wherever and whenever. To me his writing, especially for the youngest, makes me feel he must be a wonderful father.
Listened this morning on my commute, which was some timing for me, because today was the first day of school and my 15yo with chronic anxiety DID have a panic attack this morning (probably better if I’d listened yesterday, then I would have had Kate’s holding ice technique fresh in my mind to grab). I’m not as familiar with this Henkes book as others (I also forgot that “Wemberly” was a girl’s name), or maybe we would have read it more often in our household (though the anxiety issues didn’t really start until upper elementary). I feel for Wemberly’s dad, it’s tough watching your kid in this state! But I was on a blaming-myself kick this morning for being disorganized and generally worrying too LITTLE and wondering if I’d triggered my kid’s anxiety issues by having to deal with me being scatterbrained, so I wonder if Cool Grandma is ALSO a little too unworried and that set off more worries in the subsequent generations to counteract it. But maybe that’s MY misplaced worry!
As someone with a kid that has anxiety issues of her own, I feel this SO hard. Particularly the part where you wonder if your own lack of organization contributes to the kid’s anxiety. Yeah. I totally understand what you mean about Cool Grandma. It’s entirely possible that she doesn’t really understand what anxiety is and is just brushing it off when there’s a legitimate issue here.