Fuse 8 n’ Kate: Skeleton Hiccups by Margery Cuyler, ill. S.D. Schindler

“A ludicrous concept that is funny because it is ludicrous.” Just in time for Halloween we have our last Halloween-adjacent picture book title just in time for the season! Kate and I begin by having a detailed discussion of what constitutes a racist or offensive Halloween-related picture book. That won’t be a problem with today’s book, though. We’ve been asked for years to do this particular title and with its 2002 publication date, the time has definitely come (we have a 20-year rule when it comes to considering picture books for this podcast). We discuss how true hiccup picture books can only end one of two ways (based on, amongst other things, The Hiccupotamus): Either the other person gets the hiccups (which could be seen as revenge) and the other way is for the original person to then go about their life as if everything fine and then, in the last scene, they come back. What’s your take?

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Show Notes:

Remember, if you go to teachingbooks.net you can figure out how to pronounce the name of someone. Someone like, “Cuyler”.

We love a good dedication on this podcast, and S.D. Schindler definitely won this particular round.

This is a surprise. Why does skeleton have wolf-adjacent slippers? Kate called them R.O.U.S. slippers.

Kate pointed out that Skeleton here has far too few ribs. I pointed out that in this year’s magnificent 2024 picture book John the Skeleton, John is a classroom skeleton. Maybe our skeleton was in a similar boat and THAT is why he lost some of those ribs.

Skeleton’s ghost friend is interestingly because he kind of reminds me of those old Disney cartoon ghosts from the days of yore.

Who wore it better?

I’m with Kate. Apparently these dots are supposed to be freckles but to Kate and myself this looks like stubble. Like ghost is some kind of 40-year-old dad who died.

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Filed under: Fuse 8 n' Kate