Fuse 8 n’ Kate: Princess Smartypants by Babette Cole

I promised Kate that we’d do a British picture book today in celebration of her recent trip to the fair British Isles. It had occurred to me that we’d never done a Babette Cole book before, so I worked out which one is perhaps best-known over there. Now I probably should have done the incredible Mommy Laid an Egg, but I felt like Kate needed a gentler introduction to Cole’s work this time around. I point out in this discussion that in Canada we have The Paperbag Princess, in England we have Princess Smartypants, and what does America have? If you have any ideas of what the logical third leg in this triumvirate might be, we welcome the suggestion.

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:

For the record, it was NBC and NOT ABC that used to host the Newbery and Caldecott winners on their show the day after their win. My apologies to Snooki.

This is Babette Cole’s image on Wikipedia. Whatta boss:

And here is her obituary in The Guardian. My lord.

We love the Instagram account that is solely dedicated to newspapers in children’s books. To them, we duly submit the following.

Dunno. This is apparently a slug but, if so, what’s up with the legs? Then again, Prince Swashbuckle actually knows to give them beer. Huh!

Uh, did Prince Pelvis just… die? If so, roller disco isn’t the worst way to go.”

“You sayin’ our apples ain’t what they’re supposed to be?”

What’s up with this lady? She’s either on board with the princess’s plan, or she’s just thinking about her commission with all these lingerie purchases.

Kate Recommends: Windsor Castle (visible in The Reluctant Traveler)

Betsy Recommends: The fact that Zohran Mamdani just funded all the libraries and museums permanently.

Filed under: Fuse 8 n' Kate