Mike (00:22)
Hello again, and welcome to another episode.

David (00:26)
of Dads

Mike (00:29)
Yes, our second

non-related to us guest, because I can't talk, ⁓ is Dan Yaccarino.

David (00:35)
Guest. ⁓

Hi Dan!

Dan Yaccarino (00:40)
Bye. Thank you for inviting me.

Mike (00:41)
Our first guest was Dan Gutman,

if you didn't know.

Dan Yaccarino (00:44)
I just saw him last night.

Mike (00:46)
Get out. That's so funny because when we interviewed him, he had just seen you the night before.

Dan Yaccarino (00:47)
Yeah.

Yeah, we get together at least once a month. There's a group of children's book people that we all get together. Bob Stein is part of that, R.L. Stein and a few other people. It's really wonderful to, you know, this industry, the children's book industry is very solitary. So any chance to get together with a few people to talk about books and things like that, you usually are eager to be part of that. And Dan is an old friend.

Mike (00:54)
Yeah. Yep.

David (01:02)
Mm-hmm.

Dan Yaccarino (01:20)
Terribly untalented, but I'm still friends with him.

David (01:23)
Yeah, we pretended that we liked his books when we spoke to him and he was, as you know, he's pretty boring. So we only talked for an hour and a half and ⁓ guy was bad. Yeah. We just kind of sat there and stared at each other, but it made for some riveting, ⁓ audio, especially. was great. Well, Hey, let's get right into your books. because. Well, wait, Mike, how did. ⁓ yeah.

Dan Yaccarino (01:26)
Yeah, you got it.

Mike (01:27)
Yeah.

So dull. Nothing happening.

Dan Yaccarino (01:33)
⁓ thank you.

Yes, I bet.

Mike (01:41)
Yeah.

Actually, why don't we ⁓ ask you a little bit about yourself? ⁓

Dan Yaccarino (01:52)
Get that out of my life.

Mike (01:52)
Because, well, you know, we've been doing research a lot because that's what you do when you do this. And we've learned a lot about you, but what's something that you would want to tell the listener, viewer, population about yourself?

David (01:52)
you

Dan Yaccarino (02:10)
Well, I love what I do and I feel very grateful and fortunate to be able to create stories, you know, through books as well as animation. And I'm happy, happier than I had been when I started. I really feel like ⁓ it's a blessing and I...

David (02:13)
Mmm.

Dan Yaccarino (02:33)
you know, want to share these ideas and things like that with other people. And I'm just so grateful to be able to do that.

Mike (02:40)
That's awesome. We're glad that you're able to do that too because you've written some really fantastic books as well as been part of some amazing TV shows as well.

David (02:41)
That's great.

Dan Yaccarino (02:51)
Yeah.

David (02:51)
So

Dan, I have to warn you about something though. Mike did say that, you know, we do a lot of research. ⁓ Mike does a lot of research. I like to be a clean slate kind of person. I enjoyed reading a lot of your books, not knowing much about you. And I do that on purpose. However, I did do some research, but the research was limited to your bios on the side paper of the book. So for example, I know that you are of Italian heritage.

Mike (03:14)
Hahaha.

Dan Yaccarino (03:15)
Yeah.

David (03:20)
And that's important in your latest book, Piccolo, which we both bought and read and loved. And we'll get to that in a second. But there it is. Okay. This is the everyone... There you go. Yeah, hey, Piccolo. And that's how I know that you're of Italian descent, which given your name, Dan, is pretty clear. And... ⁓

Dan Yaccarino (03:30)
I see. Yay! Get yours, come on!

Mike (03:33)
I'll be Vanna White over here.

Dan Yaccarino (03:42)
Yeah, that'll do it. Yeah.

Mike (03:44)
Dan, it's very Italian.

David (03:47)
see. So, but your Italian heritage, you mentioned, at least on my version of the book, that your family is from Sorrento, from Sorrento, Italy. have a couple of questions. Where in Italy is that? And also, how far back does your, like, how long have you been here and how far back does it go to Sorrento for you?

Dan Yaccarino (03:53)
Yes.

Okay. Sorento is in southern Italy on the West Coast. My great grandfather in the, the 1880s, early 1890s came here and settled in Manhattan. he and his siblings lived on West 68th Street. I managed to track that down. And I've been doing a lot of research with the family because I'm

Mike (04:08)
Hmm.

David (04:08)
Okay.

Mm-hmm.

wow.

Dan Yaccarino (04:29)
to apply for dual Italian citizenship. So I had actually done a lot of family history and doing that and researching a book I did a while ago called All the Way to America, which is the story of my great grandfather coming here as a young man. managed to find out a lot of different aspects, like where people lived, how long they lived, you know, all these kinds of things. found out they're all.

David (04:33)
Mm-hmm.

Dan Yaccarino (04:55)
occupation was really a wonderful experience. ⁓ that's inspired me. I was doing a family tree originally that inspired me to start writing a book about my family. And it's very I was very much raised in that culture, Southern Italian, but I define myself as an American of Italian those traditions still are prevalent in my family and I passed them along to my children.

David (05:09)
Love it.

Dan Yaccarino (05:21)
And I'm very proud. And ⁓ Piccolo was the result of me having done all of that research and applying for the dual citizenship and really digging into different aspects of the culture, other than food, that I wanted to celebrate. And I don't see a whole lot of that mainstreamed.

David (05:32)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (05:41)
Which we all love.

Yes. ⁓

Dan Yaccarino (05:50)
My other goal was to counterbalance in my own small way, this is my voice, the books are my voice, to counterbalance the other, I guess, prevailing image of Italians in the United States. And so I wanted to highlight all the wonderful cultural aspects of it and sort of get back to the root because, you know, my,

David (06:05)
Mm-hmm.

Dan Yaccarino (06:16)
grandfather was American. So it kind of gotten a little distilled down and I wanted to drill deep into the culture even more so. So I just finished a sequel to Piccolo and yeah so yeah.

David (06:21)
Mm-hmm.

great.

Mike (06:28)
But now we don't have to bring it up because I just saw

it the other day. ⁓ my God, that's so cool. Wow.

David (06:32)
⁓

Dan Yaccarino (06:35)
Is that a very good?

David (06:36)
Love it. Hey for those of you who are just listening Dan is holding up a really cute I don't want to call it a doll, but a real piccolo a piccolo Okay

Dan Yaccarino (06:44)
Yeah, it's 3D.

Mike (06:45)
a piccolo the character,

not the instrument. Just in case.

Dan Yaccarino (06:48)
Right, right. A 3D print of him was about, you know, he's about nine, 10 inches tall. Really gorgeous. Yeah. You contact me and I will hook you up with the very brilliant man who created that for me. It was, to me, it's like a miracle.

David (06:48)
Yes.

Mike (06:54)
That's awesome.

David (06:55)
Where can we get one of those to give to our daughters?

Mike (07:04)
That's awesome. I got a

David (07:08)
That's

awesome.

Mike (07:08)
spot right here that ⁓ is a little empty.

Dan Yaccarino (07:10)
Bye. ⁓

Okay, we'll see.

David (07:15)
I

love it. And I can make room up here with this.

Mike (07:16)
Yeah. He just has to

Dan Yaccarino (07:18)
you got a too room in there.

Mike (07:21)
get rid of some of those Dan Gutman books.

Dan Yaccarino (07:24)
please. Well, if you got a wobbly table, I thank you.

David (07:27)
yeah, exactly, so I have to admit though, this was the second book of years that I read because I also happen to pick The Jacques Cousteau book was amazing. I want to talk about that in a second because I want to stay with Piccolo. So again, as someone who I didn't even, here's how little research I do. I did not even want to read the

Dan Yaccarino (07:32)
Mm-hmm.

Right. Sure.

Okay.

David (07:48)
synopsis of the book in the opening inside cover jacket sleeve thing but I couldn't help notice that you say bella che tie how do you pronounce that okay bet well the reason here's the thing when I was in college in New England during the late late late cold war back in the 1900s one of my best friends did a semester abroad in Florence and I did a semester in London and I visited him there and he always said

Dan Yaccarino (07:56)
That's it. You got it. I let you talk. Yeah, very good.

Mike (08:00)
Well, the city.

David (08:14)
And that's how I know how to pronounce that. And I went and visited him in Florence and just absolutely loved it. So is this Italian, what Italian town is this that Piccolo lives in? Is it based on a real one? Is it just a beautiful Italian city?

Dan Yaccarino (08:28)
It's an amalgam of cities. It only means beautiful cities. But I wanted you'll notice that I kept the, you know, the Italian phrases and words in the book are very basic. And that was the point of it to, to, you know, sort of insert a little bit. And then at the back end pages has the glossary.

David (08:32)
Okay. Okay.

Mm-hmm. Yes.

Yes,

important, important things to say like ⁓ gelateria, which means ice cream shop. Yeah.

Mike (08:52)
Absolutely, that's the most important thing I learned in that book.

Dan Yaccarino (08:58)
Well, the sequel will have that as well.

David (08:59)
⁓ I love it. I love it. So if you

Mike (09:00)
thank goodness.

David (09:02)
want to learn Italian everyone simply buy Piccolo and the sequel. When is that due to come out

Dan Yaccarino (09:08)
well, the first book came out the end of September. So I'd imagine given the production schedule, it'll probably come out right around there, late September, early October of this year, of 26. But really the one thing I wanted to just point out is that the story and the character and all of that, I just want you to bear in mind that all the cultural aspects of the book

Mike (09:19)
Okay.

David (09:19)
Okay, so

this fall of this year, this coming. Okay, excellent.

Mike (09:24)
Awesome.

Dan Yaccarino (09:35)
that I highlight are a backdrop to the actual story, which is about kindness, empathy, putting someone else's needs before yourself. And the flavor is all the architecture and the phrases and all the different other aspects, the more superficial aspects of

David (09:38)
Mm-hmm.

Is this? Is this?

Yes. Well, that's something I noticed in

Mike (09:54)
as with a lot of the books

talked about before, there have to be a lot of different layers so that you can really go through it several times and get something new every time.

Dan Yaccarino (10:06)
mean,

a good book, you know, being parents, ⁓ you know, you'll read books over and over and over again. And then at some point, I'd imagine at least one of us will have grandchildren who will read these books too again. And I think my goal with all of my work, or at least most of my work is to have the reader grow with the book. you know, very young, it's the first layer, and then you

Mike (10:13)
Never.

David (10:19)
Mm-hmm.

Dan Yaccarino (10:31)
sort of, when you read it years and years later, as an older person, an adult, a parent or a grandparent, you'll have a different meaning or you'll sort of discover another aspect to it And that to me is the mark of a successful book.

David (10:38)
Peace.

that's fantastic.

Well, I know you've listened to at least once every single one of our 30 something episodes in your research for today, but ⁓ I will. Yeah. Okay. Well, we'll fix that. ⁓ I wasn't talking to Mike. No, but like, for example, our, our, our very first book was the giving tree.

Mike (10:50)
funny.

Dan Yaccarino (10:57)
You

Mike (10:59)
No I didn't. ⁓ my bad.

David (11:07)
⁓ which both Mike and I read as kids and I read it with my kids, but Mike gave me a French version because I speak French and it was fun to read, which is allegedly French for the giving tree. But with that book in particular, we discovered that it is such a different book when you read it through an adult's eyes. And yeah, so that was amazing. And the other thing that we like about a lot of the books, especially for really little kids that we've read.

Dan Yaccarino (11:07)
Yes.

Hello. ⁓

Mike (11:27)
So much. Yeah.

David (11:36)
And Mike and I talked about this preparing for today. And this is something I found with every single one of your didn't buy your books or know about them when my kids were little. But as I read them now, now that my kids are 10 years, 12 and 14 years old, I'm realizing I would have loved to have read this to little kids because you can just read the story. But with your art, there is so much to talk about.

you can read it to them 15 times in a row and find something different. They might find something different. And I pray to God that I'm blessed with grandkids, because I cannot wait to read these books to my grandkids. not Not too soon, because like my oldest is.

Dan Yaccarino (12:09)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mike (12:09)
but not too soon.

Dan Yaccarino (12:12)
Not too soon.

Mike (12:13)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Dan Yaccarino (12:13)
No, no, no, you, you know, long time, but, ⁓ is when you revisit certain things, certain things don't, you know, last a little expiration date in some of these books. ⁓ but I always strive with every, this is something I could say with everything that I do, either, ⁓ know, or anything is that.

David (12:16)
Take your time, please.

Go ahead.

Mike (12:20)
Yes.

David (12:24)
Yes.

Mike (12:25)
Mm-hmm.

Dan Yaccarino (12:35)
I always strive to make it as timeless as I can. So you see something, Wall Street, if you recall that movie with Michael Douglas, great movie, very action, you that era, and you're caught up in the drama and he pulls out that cell phone, that's like the side of it. He's holding the camera up and he's like, okay, you know, that to me is, that kind of hurt the movie a bit for me.

David (12:39)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (12:45)
yeah.

David (12:52)
Ha

Mike (12:54)
The brick.

David (13:03)
Yes.

Dan Yaccarino (13:04)
I always think about that and anything in its classic form or, you know, it's sort of idealized form. I always go for that rather than, especially with technology, because technology now is changing so rapidly that you're dating it and it looks outdated even by 10 years. So I try to avoid all as much as I can. So we either all adopt old classic technology or in the case of Doug unplugged.

David (13:11)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Dan Yaccarino (13:31)
behind you, I invented technology.

David (13:33)
Yes,

a robot kid. Yeah. Or also, and in this book, I Am a Story. So you have so many great books and Mike and I are such busy, important people. There are a few of your books that we both read, but there are lot of books that he read some and I read some. And I read I Am a Story and I loved it. It caught my eye when I went to two or three local libraries and checked out every single book that they have of yours because yay, CirqueStats, you're welcome.

Mike (13:34)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Dan Yaccarino (13:36)
Yes.

Mike (14:02)
Well, if I

lived in Dallas, I'd be very mad at you because I couldn't find any at mine. So you probably came up here and checked them out too. make it to the library.

David (14:09)
Ha

No, no, it's

simply, you're a big deal in North Central Texas where I am in the Dallas, Fort Worth area. ⁓ The librarians at the different libraries here, ⁓ the Keller Public Library, Grape Vine, they were actually, they were very happy and excited to learn that we were gonna be talking with you. But back to I Am a Story. The reason why I picked it, like I picked all of your books. I checked all of your books out.

Dan Yaccarino (14:18)
Thank you.

David (14:34)
But this one, just the title alone, I am the story and I love storytelling. I was professional actor, writer, what we're doing now. And there's just this really, it goes through the history of storytelling from the very dawn of human life. And it was the way you depicted it was great. And I just loved, know, you, I'm like, Oh, I remember those PCs. You had radio, you had television, you had film.

I went to a Catholic school taught by Cistercian monks. So when you had your monk, you know, doing his, and then of course Gutenberg is next. The history of storytelling. And it was really cool. was, but again, so many details that you can share with little kids. And now that I'm on this book, I have to bring up one more thing. There's a cute little red bird that is on every single spread in this book.

Dan Yaccarino (15:05)
Yeah. Aluminum transcripts. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

David (15:26)
And including the cover, he's right there. And I noticed it pretty quickly. So spoiler alert, there's a little red bird in every page. Dan, tell me about that bird. Is there a significance there? If it's a major character in one of your books that I haven't read, I'll be very embarrassed, but tell us about the red bird.

Dan Yaccarino (15:42)
Oh, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

Mike (15:47)
Well...

David (15:49)
Okay.

Mike (15:50)
I will not start this because I didn't read this story. That one. I didn't read that one. No, sorry. Sorry, David. I can do, I can, I've got some on some other ones. ahead.

Dan Yaccarino (15:53)
⁓ okay. Well, then we're,

David (15:55)
was hoping you'd do that for me, So for me, didn't look... ⁓

Okay,

I did not, and when we're done, Mike, we'll get to a book that you read, didn't attach too too much meaning, except that it's just, he's always there, he's watching through history, there's a common thread that keeps people together, besides storytelling, and in the case of this book, this bird is a common thread that keeps people of all civilizations and ages together. What?

Dan Yaccarino (16:25)
That's it.

The spirit of storytelling and the need for us to tell stories throughout time. And that's what the bird really is. But if you'll notice another aspect that I don't think really any reviewer picked up on, but you'll see that on the very beginning, you know, the people around the campfire, they're talking about the stars and they're trying to make sense of the universe. And that to me is the theme.

David (16:31)
⁓

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Dan Yaccarino (16:51)
So that is the theme of the book is trying to put into words or sort of performing or something visual, this kind of ineffable aspect of our existence. And so I thought, focus on the constellations and the stars. We try to explain them using the horoscope symbols and different things like this, trying to grasp that and bring it down to a point where we can speak it or show it in some way.

David (16:58)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Dan Yaccarino (17:21)
And you'll see that that aspect is throughout the entire story. So there's either stars, there's moons, there's constellations, there's horoscopes, throughout the whole book. And they're interpreting them all in, you know, the current, you know, whatever that image is depicting, what era that's depicting. of the images, well, all the images are about the bird. And when I was able to reasonably put in the constellations and things like that,

David (17:30)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mike (17:40)
Yeah.

Dan Yaccarino (17:49)
in the images I... So that was my little sub sub subtext.

David (17:49)
Mm-hmm.

Well, I love that because, you know, one of the great things about, yeah, Greek mythology, for example, so many of us were raised on it, including I loved it. I used the Ingrid and Edgar Dallaire pastel books of the Greek myths that I grew up reading. I love that. So it was on my daughter's reading list at the little Catholic school she went to. So I gave her my copy that got her into Greek mythology, which got her into Percy Jackson.

Mike (17:53)
That's really cool.

David (18:19)
And she loves Percy Jackson. And we, that's the book we covered on her episode on our podcast. But what I told her once, and this is one of my favorite moments recently, said, you know, the, you know what she read the Odyssey and I listened to him. Okay. She graduated from eighth grade and she said, can we, ⁓

Dan Yaccarino (18:32)
You read the magazine? I read that in college.

Mike (18:33)
Yeah.

I got through a couple of pages.

Dan Yaccarino (18:40)
you

David (18:41)
She, this is my hashtag proud papa moment. She, this is last, she's in, she's a freshman now. So last spring she said, daddy, can I get a copy of the Odyssey? And she was listening to a musical called ⁓ Epic the Musical. And it is a musical on YouTube only, fully produced, but audio only of the Odyssey. And it's brilliant. That's what got her into it. Yeah, that's what got her into it. And I'll try to make this quick. Two things, one.

She wanted to check out a copy of the Odyssey, or not check out, she wanted to buy one. So I said, okay. And when your daughter says, can we go to the bookstore? You go now? You strike while the iron is hot before the mind changes. So we went to our local bookstore. It's here in Keller, Texas called The House with Books. It is a wonderful, very small independent bookstore.

Dan Yaccarino (19:16)
Okay.

David (19:24)
We walk in and we say, hey, actually I made her say it. Do you have a copy of the Odyssey? And she goes, oh, you mean the blah, blah, blah translation that just came out last week? And we were like, yes, that is exactly what we mean. We did research. Turns out there was a very recent translation. And then we said, just kidding, what does that mean? And she said, it's a translation that really tries to get back to the original meaning and story. And Delaney said, yes, please. And then she also read it. She read the whole thing.

Mike (19:37)
You

David (19:51)
But in talking to her about it, and this goes back to what you did in I Am a Story, I learned more about Greek mythology and all of that, and I said, man, they lived in a very tough world because so much of their mythology, especially in the Odyssey, is about how do you deal with death and horror and natural disasters and all these things. And when I saw your horoscopes and things, you're right, a lot of very early storytelling is people trying to explain the world around them and comfort each other.

Mike (19:54)
.

David (20:18)
And it's neat that you captured that and thought of that in this wonderful book. Yeah. Well, it's what I love about your books is what you said you wanted to do. Your stories with no exceptions of the books I checked out. Your stories are really, really good. And the art, I love your art. Before I let you talk about a book, Mike, I want to say one more thing. Dan, my discovery moment of you, before I read any of your books, I went to the libraries and checked them all out.

Mike (20:19)
Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely.

That is totally fine.

David (20:45)
I also learned from your friend, Dan Gutman and the Great Vine Public Library. I checked out all the My Weird School books and all the other series and the librarian said, you know, he writes biographies also. said, really? And that was important because they're in a different section. And so I went, I went and found his book about Amelia Earhart, but I thought, you know what? I'm smart. And I went to the same section and I saw a book about Jacques Cousteau.

Dan Yaccarino (20:48)
Mm-hmm.

Right.

David (21:10)
And I checked that one out and I really need to get my copy of it. And this is the first book of years that I opened because I thought I love Jacques Cousteau and I flipped through it. OK, and this is the very first illustration of yours that I ever saw. And it was amazing because you've got a teeny tiny diver.

and this giant huge cloud of yellow bubbles under the sea. And I literally saw this and thought, okay, this is gonna be good. This meaning the book, this meaning the other books, and this meaning this conversation. I fell in love with your art. But the idea of having a little teeny tiny person who's right there and it shows the vastness of the ocean, but the vastness of his bubbles. It was such a great book. And I'll let Mike talk about one of your books.

Dan Yaccarino (21:46)
Thank you.

David (22:05)
But I learned so much more about Jacques Cousteau by reading this. And as a good Catholic school alum and parent, you have a great bibliography in the back of his important dates and some ⁓ further reading and all of that. And it was just fantastic. So I'm done talking about your books until I do it again. Go.

Dan Yaccarino (22:24)
I kind of felt that there was a big gap in knowing who he was from when I was growing up watching the show that I'm fascinated with and I had underwater photography which was not that common. He invented, as from the book, he invented a lot of... Yeah, and the guy is totally quotable. You know, that's why there's a quote on every image of that book.

David (22:30)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (22:32)
Yeah.

David (22:36)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, he invented so much with that technology.

Mike (22:42)
Yeah,

it's amazing.

Yes.

Dan Yaccarino (22:50)
He was very,

and he's written books, encyclopedias, he's made...

David (22:55)
I knew none

of that. You were the one that talked. I knew he was like the French undersea guy with the cool TV show when we were kids. Yeah.

Mike (22:59)
That's pretty much what I knew too. Yeah.

Dan Yaccarino (22:59)
Yeah, with a red hat. Right, but

I felt like kids should know, I mean, I know that it is kind of ⁓ absorbed into our culture and our entertainment, you know, it's no longer this, you know, mind blowing experience of going along with him, you know, on his show from, I guess, the 70s. But I felt like people should know who he was, and it was an excuse for me to read a whole bunch of,

David (23:18)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Dan Yaccarino (23:26)
know, books about him, written by him, watched the old show online. and that's what I try to do. I try to create books about things that I'm already interested

you know, there's a way that some people look at creating books or anything in sort of this kind of creative mode is I have to look at the market and figure out what's popular.

and then I'll do that. But I were to do something, you know, about a subject that I have little to no interest in, first of all, it'd be torture for me to do the book. It'll be very unhappy. And second of all, it's really going to come through in the finished work. You're going to know that I really didn't enjoy this. So Cousteau, as an example, as well as storytelling and different things like that, I'm passionate about that.

David (23:51)
Mm-hmm.

Dan Yaccarino (24:15)
So that's why I sunk so much time, effort and energy into those books. And there's a lot of sketches that never made it into it. There's a lot of drafts that, you know, those books go through many, drafts before, you know, myself and the editor are happy enough to have me move forward with the illustration work. you you have to wait till you figure out the text first, but I loved him. I met his grandson once, which was

David (24:40)
wow!

Dan Yaccarino (24:41)
Really exciting. had a copy of the one. I'm like, can I have your autograph? And he pulled out his book. said, get out of here. You don't want my autograph? Yeah, it was very sweet. Nice. Yeah. Nice, nice guy. And so it was, it's just things that I like. You know, that's another example, Piccolo, you know, it's, it's my culture that I grew up in. I'm passionate about it.

Mike (24:41)
Nate.

David (24:47)
See y'all were doing the fan thing. You were doing the fan thing. That is awesome.

Mike (24:49)
That's hilarious.

That is so cool.

David (25:00)
Mm-hmm.

Dan Yaccarino (25:04)
And that's why there's so much, you know, work in that book. Also, I really love drawing little architectural things. I find it therapy. It was great. I really enjoyed it. So I think it comes through in the books,

David (25:11)
That must have been so much fun.

Mike (25:12)
Yeah. Yeah.

absolutely. And I'm gonna take a step back because usually when we start the show, we talk a little bit about how we got into the book. Was it something we read to our kids? Was it something David read that I didn't? Or was it just something that happened to be on the floor? And I looked over and saw, Danny's doodles. we'll read that.

Dan Yaccarino (25:30)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (25:42)
It's in my house, somebody read it. ⁓ But story behind this is that we had this interview with Dan Gutman and about this far into the interview, he stops and he goes, you know who you look like? And I'm like, well, I have, ⁓ there's two or three that people mention.

Dan Yaccarino (25:44)
So

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

gangers. ⁓

David (26:04)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (26:05)
And I said, but ⁓ interested to know who you think. And he said, you look like my friend, Dan Iaccarino. I just had dinner with him last night.

Dan Yaccarino (26:09)
Mm-hmm.

David (26:14)
Okay, Mike, take your glasses off so that our audience can decide. my gosh, there's two Dan's. What happened? Where's Mike? Where's Mike? Where's Mike?

Dan Yaccarino (26:17)
Yeah.

Mike (26:19)
Could be, could be. We could be brothers. ⁓

Dan Yaccarino (26:21)
Well,

when I'm not available for some, you know, sort of public event, I'll give you a call. can stay in from... Right, yeah, exactly. Taylor Tew Cities. ⁓

Mike (26:28)
perfect. It'll be like Dave. Remember that movie? Yeah. That was great.

David (26:31)
Oh, you the movie! I was like, it's

David, not Dave. Oh, you mean the movie, okay,

Mike (26:34)
sorry, Davey. So anyway, so he said that and I was like, the name sounds familiar, but I don't know who that is. So then we finished the interview and almost immediately I went and looked you up.

I was like, I have to know who this guy, I have to know if you really kind of look like me, whatever. Okay, so I looked you up and I saw some art and I was like, man, that looks so familiar. And I thought for a second, I was like, that art looks just like an octopus followed me home. An octopus followed me home, which I own an

Dan Yaccarino (26:53)
Bye.

boy, that's... Yeah?

Mike (27:11)
I walked down the stairs to these bookshelves and I picked it up and looked and I was like, I do know Dan Yakarino. This is so exciting. ⁓ But I love that book so much and something that's in there that is just in a lot of your stories is, as you were saying, you love to draw those little details.

Dan Yaccarino (27:21)
Cool.

David (27:36)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (27:37)
mid-century

modern stuff, if you didn't notice with my shirt here, I'm very into mid-century so I was totally attracted to your artwork in the beginning, but then I started reading some of the stories, obviously for this, but I was like, man, these are really, really awesome. This one.

David (27:41)
Mmm!

Dan Yaccarino (27:44)
Yeah.

Mike (28:00)
City Under the City. City Under the City is amazing. That's a great one. All of them are great. I'm kind of like, can't think of all of the titles because I'm so excited.

Dan Yaccarino (28:05)
Thank you.

David (28:13)
Can I ask a question? Dan, did you ever read David McCully's books like Castle and Pyramid?

Mike (28:15)
Yes, please.

Dan Yaccarino (28:22)
Um, probably at some point, but I certainly know who he is. So yeah. Yeah.

David (28:25)
Okay. Okay, just he did a book called Underground

that we covered on our show. So I just, but you didn't know that. So Mike, please go on.

Dan Yaccarino (28:32)
⁓ okay. All right.

Please come on.

Mike (28:37)
I forget where I

was going though, which happens often.

Dan Yaccarino (28:40)
after.

David (28:40)
You

were

Dan Yaccarino (28:42)
I went full blown mid-century modern in one book that I, didn't write it, but I illustrated it. It came out a few years ago, which is part of a series. ⁓ first one I did was the one with the mid-century called One, Two, Grandma Loves You. Grandma, it's a little kid who visits her grandmother, but grandma has a whole house of mod, totally mod furniture. You know, the Noguchi, and so. ⁓

David (28:48)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Mike (29:06)
Mm-hmm.

David (29:06)
Holy shag.

Dan Yaccarino (29:09)
know, Eames chairs, and she even has this portrait sort of in the background of as if Warhol did, you know, a portrait of her in the different combinations of colors. I had such a blast.

Mike (29:19)
And you really wanted to put that into TV

David (29:19)
must've been fun.

Mike (29:21)
so you made Willow's Wildlife.

Dan Yaccarino (29:24)
That's it, and Willis Wildlife is actually based on An Octopus Followed Me Home. Not Oswald. Oswald was the only thing.

Mike (29:29)
Yes, I drew those connections.

David (29:31)
⁓ yeah.

Mike (29:33)
is Oswald also ⁓ related to an octopus followed me home? No, okay. an octopus and lots of Jacusto and under the

Dan Yaccarino (29:33)
Oswald also went.

Go to Leader for An Octopus.

David (29:42)
Hahaha