Fuse 8 n’ Kate: Not a Box by Antoinette Portis
Sooo… I had a bit of a mix-up.
In my defense, I had my reasons. Anyone who is familiar with the Children’s Literature Association Phoenix Awards may be aware that they reward children’s books that didn’t receive major awards when they first came out, but 20 years later they have now. And Not a Box by Antoinette Portis is the most recent winner of the 2026 Phoenix Picture Book Award. Pretty cool, right? So I figured it would be an ideal book to do with Kate this week… without … checking….. the pub date. Yeah. Turns out, Not a Box came out in 2007, not 2006. So, technically, we are breaking our 20 year rule. But only because I trusted the Phoenix Picture Book Award committee to also do their homework. I’m sure they had their reasons. I just should have done my own home work as well. Good thing it’s a fascinating book.
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:
As I mention in the podcast, when my niece was quite young I gave her a copy of the sequel to this book, Not a Stick, and she just laughed and laughed and laughed. Something about the title struck her as exceedingly funny. I just loved that about her.
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“The ‘tude!” You haven’t lived until you hear Kate read this book in her Mean Girl voice. Failing that, we should get Rachel McAdams, the original Regina George, to record the audiobook.
And yet, somehow, even though we’re fairly certain this is all in the bunny’s brain, its ears are still managing to move in the imaginary wind in this shot.
Now here, we cannot support the bunny in its work here. Water is, of course, the antithesis of all things cardboard. We recommend the middle grade graphic novels Cardboard by Doug TenNapel and Cardboard Kingdom by Chad Sell if you’re particularly cardboard inclined.
As Kate points out, “The bunny kinda lost the thread on that one.” Because four “Nots” is a quadruple negative. Then again… it kind of really is a box, isn’t it? So this isn’t technically wrong.
Who sat it better?
Kate Recommends: Season 4 of Bridgerton, now streaming on Netflix
Betsy Recommends: Ford v. Ferrari, now streaming on Netflix. And, for the record, the Welsh ARE considered British, KATE!!
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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Not sure if this is accurate with Antoinette’s publisher, but I know another publisher who puts a copyright year one year later than the current year for anything that publishes in the second half of that year. That may be responsible for the 2006/2007 disparity.
Are we taking bets for the 400th episode? I have a guess for who the crossover is with and the title.