Fuse 8 n’ Kate: Where Is the Green Sheep by Mem Fox, ill. Judy Horacek

I confess to you today that I am inordinately delighted to finally be doing this particular Mem Fox book on our podcast today. I have been waiting YEARS to finally get to do today’s book. Literally! But it took Kate announcing her very first pregnancy for me to remember it again. I read this book over and over and over and over to my small children, and I have every intention of doing the same to Kate’s incipient child. Today we get to talk about sheep! Sheep of every type and stripe! We also discuss, for some reason, Australian armor-clad bushrangers, which of these sheep is the most impressive skill-wise, and whether or not this is just Hippos Go Bezerk with sheep!

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:

Just as a reminder, this book appeared on my Top 100 Picture Book’s poll at #97.

As I said, I’ve read this book a million times, but it wasn’t until Kate pointed out the title page that I realized that this book was foreshadowing the answer to the question sitting there. The answer is right before your eyes, people!

We object to this being called red. My vote: Rouge. Kate’s: Cranberry.

We are concerned. “The skis are in NO WAY attached to this sheep.” This is an optimistic sheep.

Behold, Kate’s most impressive sheep. This sheep isn’t just playing a bunch of instruments. After all, the xylophone is being played… by a mallet attached to its knee. This is clearly the most impressive sheep. The band sheep is the coolest sheep.

How can you tell that this book is Australian? The broken down car is on the left-hand side of the road.

Looking at this image, I keep flipping between seeing the nose as a nose and seeing it as a small smile.

One question: Why is this sheep holding up a flag of surrender in space? Or were different nations where this book was published supposed to plug in their own flag designs?

And here is the actual most interesting sheep in the book. Y’all don’t believe me about Australian outlaw Ned Kelly being in this book. I can see that you don’t. Okay, if you want proof, check out this site. Straight from the horse’s mouth.

Kate’s freaked out about this green sheep. I think he reminded her too closely to the sickly king in Babar:

Kate Recommends: This watercolor painting of her pets from @paintbrushjasper

Betsy Recommends: A Compete Unknown now in theaters

Filed under: Fuse 8 n' Kate