Mike Walker. (00:01.294)
I'm Mike Walker.

I'm David Patrick.

Dad's on books, two minutes later. But we are dads on books. We're addicted to books, we sit on books, and we even talk about books.

Welcome to another episode of... DADS ON BOOKS!

Dad's on books. Hey, so I'm, am I dad number one or dad number two?

David Patrick (00:30.424)
We decided.

David Patrick (00:34.092)
Okay, well you know what? I don't want to feel less than, so I'm going to be dad number A.

So basically we both just don't want to be number two.

I don't want to be B. I don't want to be the B side. Okay, but anyway, the point is I'm one of the dads. My name is David Patrick.

A of the dads. I'm Mike Walker.

That's awesome. I did not do that on purpose. That's awesome. And this is episode 11. This episode, to do a callback to the husbands of one of our authors, this episode goes to 11. Sorry. Anyway, I have to be honest. I don't know who chose this book, but we are doing Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBrattney, illustrated by Anita Jerram.

David Patrick (01:25.378)
This is one of the books we have read to our kids, correct?

Yes. And I will step out on a limb here and say you picked this book. Okay. Because we were talking and you said, what about Guess How Much I Love You? And I was like, my gosh, I just saw that. And I think you held up your book and showed it to me. And I was like, I just saw that. And then I spent like an hour and a half looking through many, many, many, many, many boxes. And I found it. But it's a

totally different copy than what you showed me, which I still think I have that copy somewhere.

homework is to get all of our copies of Guess How Much I Love You because I have a box somewhere in my closet of, and I think I've told you this, of books the girls have read that I do not want to get rid of. I want to make sure if God blesses us with grandchildren, they get to read those books to our grandchildren. know, Good Night Moon, lot of the classics. And I know I have a board book version of Guess How Much I Love You in that box.

wow, yeah.

David Patrick (02:31.662)
is a bigger, like full-size hardback book with paper pages. It's a regular full-size book. I'm pretty sure the illustrations and all the things are the same. You can just see them better because this book is physically bigger.

Yes. So my book is much smaller than yours, but it is not a board book. But I'm guessing it has the exact same artwork and stuff, just in a smaller form.

Yes, as a matter of I just, as usual, we turn to the same page. Mine, same thing. Yeah, but let's get into the book. Let me ask you, when I mentioned it, and you were like, yeah, what are your memories of it?

I remember right off the bat when you showed it to me, I went, I have not read that book.

What? I knew we had it. But I don't know if I ever read it. Wow. Because when you open to the very first page of my book, it's just blank and it's got a little block where you can write something. Right, right. In this case, it is 12142010 and it says, to Stella, love Grammy and Grampy.

David Patrick (03:15.298)
Okay?

David Patrick (03:37.152)
Okay, so how old was she in 2010? Okay, which is actually perfect age, even younger for this book, because you're reading it to them. But you never did, or you don't remember.

Three.

Mike Walker. (03:44.778)
Absolutely. you never it? Remember? I don't remember. I probably did read it. OK. I mean, it's very familiar. So either I was there when someone else was reading it or I read it, which is actually kind of interesting because when we picked this last week, I was not thinking about it. But Grampy's birthday was on Monday. Wow.

Wow! So four days ago or three days ago. Nice!

So a nice pleasant surprise.

I love it. Yeah. Well, I have to admit something to you. Yes. I am absolutely 100 % positive that I read this book to all of my girls. My girls are close in age. They're each two years or less apart. Probably all of them at the same time, et cetera. But I have no specific memories of it whatsoever. I just know that I did. I I don't go, I remember when I pointed out this drawing and said, hey, do you notice the watercolor? And they're all, that's water.

I'd like to say I remember that. have no memory. I just know that I did. And I fell in love with the book. I just fell in love with it. And you know me, I'm about pictures and this. OK, I'm going to train you. I'm going see if you've been listening to me for the episode. Mike, could you please tell our listening audience what kind of media did Anita use when she drew this book?

Mike Walker. (04:57.843)
Goodness gracious.

Mike Walker. (05:08.576)
me it looks like Anita used possibly a pen or pencil to draw the edges of certain things. And the outlines if possible. Yes. There you go. And then inside of that feels like it would be watercolor.

The Outlaw

David Patrick (05:30.818)
Mike, you have been listening to me and that makes me happy. Yeah, no, that's exactly what it is. And she uses it brilliantly. This is a story for those of you who aren't familiar with it, press pause, go get the book and read it and then press play. Just kidding. It's a daddy rabbit or hare and his little bitty toddler or whatever. It's time to go to bed.

and they are in all of these landscapes, but there is evidence of humanness throughout. Did you notice that? Yes. Yeah, there's a fence or a road or

I was just gonna say there's a road and a fence on the page that I'm looking at.

And what's funny is I discovered near the end. Hey, there's a broken fence. Wow, signs of humans. Well, it wasn't the first one. It's just the first time I noticed it and called attention to it. But it's a beautiful book. It is bedtime. And slowly as the book goes on, the sky gets a little darker. And it's not very colorful because it's different shades of darker green, different shades of brown, little bits of blue and gray to signify the sky and the...

progression of time throughout the book, but it's just beautiful artwork. I looked at the cover when I started to prepare for this and the cover just gave me this great emotion of calm. And yes, you can judge a book by its color. And every book that we've done, I mean, I'm starting to think about what is the emotion? What do I think of? How do I feel when I see the cover? And this one is a perfect read to your child at bedtime book.

Mike Walker. (06:59.278)
Absolutely.

David Patrick (07:14.092)
just makes me feel calm. The palette, the drawings, the coziness, it's awesome.

It is very cozy, which I did not think about when I was reading it. But now that you say that it is very cozy. One of the things that now that I know a little bit, a little tiny, tiny bit about the author and where not really the story comes from, but where they're from, it's kind of cool. Just thinking about the art and looking at it and going, I can totally see where this is.

That never occurred to me. And now that I'm thinking about it, I don't even want to try to figure it out. Where did you imagine that it is?

So I imagine only because I read a little bit about the author. You and your research. I know me and my darn research. That's okay. Guess how much I love research.

research

David Patrick (08:07.835)
yeah? I love research to the moon and back.

Well, I love research to the middle of our galaxy and back.

Okay, I'm cheating right now. I'm flipping through pages trying to figure out where this could be and actually there's a state that popped in my head. There two. I'll tell you mine first.

Okay, you tell me yours so that we have it on record.

Okay, Wisconsin popped in my head first and it could be that our last episode was Little House in the Big Woods, which takes place in Wisconsin. Although, that was very woody, this is not. But I do see in different pages here there are old stone walls and that reminds me of New England, because I went to college in Massachusetts. So.

Mike Walker. (08:50.926)
Those are very fair guesses. Observationally, I can...

Where do you think it was?

So, interesting that you chose Wisconsin first. I could kind of see that. And I totally see where the reference is from as I'm on book four of the Little House on the Prairie series. I am. That's awesome. About halfway through the fourth book. Wow. And I thought there were seven books, but there are more, which is good and bad.

Are you really?

David Patrick (09:21.836)
And I think, I don't know if we talked about this or not, I think her daughter started writing some. Yeah.

Yes, I mean, there's still her stories, but anyway, so where do you think? know. We're going to drag this out for as long as I can.

I this book takes place by- Oh! You're gonna tell me a story-

Me, I hate telling stories and reading them, but for you, I'll- I'll wait, go ahead.

Listen, for me, you'll wait. Actually, I thought that Minnesota would actually be a good call. But when I looked up a little bit about Mr. McBrattney, he was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland. And looking at it, knowing that, I was like, this is Ireland. that makes so much more sense now. I don't know why.

David Patrick (10:11.554)
But

Knowing that that's where he's from, it just tied everything together.

that. when during the reading of this book did you do that research?

It was after, and it was approximately 15 minutes before we recorded.

Today.

Mike Walker. (10:33.122)
maybe a sub theme here is that we like to read things last minute and we like to research things last minute. Yeah.

That's hilarious. So that's how you went from Minnesota to Ireland. Yes. Now here's the thing though. He didn't draw this. Anita did. did she come

Yes, she did. Where is she? She grew up in Portsmouth, England.

Okay, so further reinforces our arrogant American point of view didn't even occur to me that this could be somewhere else in the world

But it also gives you no clue as to like, it's not written in a way that would sound Irish or English. Correct. The illustrator door. Now I can't say it.

David Patrick (11:23.098)
That's contagious. Yeah, but the point is there are many books where you and I do character voices with them and some of the books it's written that way. With this one, I didn't do any character voice ever. I told you earlier, I don't remember what I did with my girls with this, but I do remember I didn't do character voice. Go ahead.

I was gonna say it it doesn't lead itself to doing a character voice exactly like mrs. McTats that made sense to me to do a character voice Yes, this is like a conversation between two people But there's not as much a difference in there. Maybe their vocal tones and styles So yeah, it doesn't really lead it to having two different characters that you can get wild and crazy

Totally, no, you're exactly right. You're just saying what I was thinking. In general, when I was reading to my kids, I would try to differentiate the characters. And in the case of this book, I would do that. I would always have a father or child, but it wasn't like, I love you this much. I love you this much. I wouldn't do that. I know, because my voice would be shredded, my kids would not like me, and I'd be tired. Ever.

Thank God.

Mike Walker. (12:27.222)
and we

But for me, as someone who loves to read and someone who loves to write and as someone who is an actor, when I read, big nut brown hair had even longer arms and then a quote happens that means he's talking here. So I have my narrator voice, my dad voice and my child voice. And there are subtle differences, but if you're listening to me, it's clear who's speaking. Here's what's amazing to me.

is our episodes are usually roughly the same length, and yet we can have a book that's 190 pages, like Little House in the Big Woods, and we can have this, who has probably fewer words than the first chapter of that book, and yet we can still talk for 30 minutes about this. Do have any specific things you want to talk about from the

Well, let's first start off by saying our episodes do not have the same runtime There have been episodes that we recorded that were an hour and ten minutes long Whoa, and that was from when we started the intro to when I stopped recording Yes, so obviously we go off on a lot of tangents no never but that's my first point my second point My second point is what what were we talking about?

actual episode. Yikes.

David Patrick (13:41.542)
In a rare move, I'm the one saying, and we're back. Now I asked you if there are any details in the book that you want to talk about. Cause I only have 20, so go ahead.

That was my detail, was the amount of time that our episodes are.

About the book, Mike. The book!

With the details about the book, I have one thing to say about it. Actually, I want to say it later. Okay. So, you tell me your 20 things and I'll rebut with one.

Okay, perfect. So some things I noticed. First of all, my copy of the book has, guess how much I love you, at the very, very, very, very beginning page. And it's one of the pictures of little nut brown hair on big nut brown hairs back. And big nut brown hairs just looking at us. And that reminds me of my dad. My dad did that look all the time. It was so fun. But I also noticed that the scale

David Patrick (14:39.52)
of the two characters is not always consistent. There's one spread where Big Nut Brown Hair is reaching up to the sky to say how much he loves Little Nut Brown Hair, and Little Nut Brown Hair is smaller than Big Nut Brown Hair's head. And there's another illustration later where he's swinging him up to the sky and Little Nut Brown Hair is half the size of Big Nut Brown Hair's torso. So if I were to interview Anita, I would say, hey, was that on purpose?

But the illustrations are beautiful and awesome. And another thing that I noticed as we got darker, this is something that happens a lot in kids books. There's the moon showing up because we're getting closer to bedtime. And very few books draw the clouds in front of the moon. That's what happens in real life. If there are clouds and stuff, they partially cover the moon. But a lot of books show the moon in its fullness in front of the clouds.

And it doesn't make me mad, because I've worked with my therapist on this, but it's just an interesting little note.

On this one, if you look closely, the clouds are kind of drifting in front of the moon. There's a wispy quality that makes it feel like the wispiness of clouds in front of the moon, because the line of the moon is broken up a little bit.

Yeah, you're right, okay, I'm looking more closely. I'm seeing one of them.

Mike Walker. (16:07.374)
And then the second thing I see actually in this picture, it's obviously night time, but it's also close to dusk because there's little fireflies down at the bottom of the picture, which is so cool. I didn't see them. I think they're fireflies. They look sort of firefly-ish. Okay. I can't zoom in. I'm trying to pinch it and that's just not working.

Firefly!

David Patrick (16:32.462)
yeah, you're right, actually. I do see they could be little fireflies.

So again, someone just taking the time to put some things in there that are just really neat little things that you can draw attention to and will miss every time you read it until you're sitting there talking with somebody about it and going, there's fireflies. I love it.

Well, and I'm gonna circle back to what I said earlier. You're right, to your point, I don't have specific memories of reading this to my girls, but with a book like this, you can keep discovering new details every time you read it and discuss it with your children. And what also happens is they find something that you didn't see. So this is probably not my first time to discuss this book with someone. It's my first time to discuss it with you.

Yes.

and not one of my girls sitting on or near my lap looking at this cute little book. And it's just so cute when big nut brown hair is, okay, spoiler alert, he's putting little nut brown hair to bed.

David Patrick (17:40.044)
I'm sorry, I blew the plot for all of you listeners out there. But it's just it's it's so beautifully drawn. He's putting him down and you can just see little nut brown hair so tired and halfway to sleep. And I don't know about you. I've done that with my daughters. So you're putting them down. practically falling asleep in your hands. And it's just awesome. And this is a great book. It's just beautiful. It's a beautiful book, a beautiful story. The art complements the tone of the story.

apps.

David Patrick (18:09.134)
and I love it.

greed. So, one other interesting thing. Maybe it's not interesting to anyone else. But, the first publishing of this book was by Walker Books in 1994. wow. I'm sure there's no relation to me, but I like to think that Walker's books, it's all about me, right?

about you. Absolutely. And I don't see any. Was that your research or is it in your book?

It actually is on the copyright page. There it is. It's the fourth line down. Text copyright is first, illustrations copyright, then guess how much is registered trademark of Walker Books? Limited. London. Wow. I'll be in London at Christmas.

I am looking at...

David Patrick (19:00.302)
Oh, we gotta pick something, some kind of London-based. So I am looking at that same page, the copyright stuff and the is-been and the numbers and all that. I don't see Walker books listed anywhere. says copyright 1994, 1994, first U.S. edition 1995, so maybe it was published in 94 in England or Ireland first. Maybe that's who Walker Books is, I don't know.

Book. Yes.

Mike Walker. (19:27.438)
I don't, but the first US edition in this format that I have was 2009. and this version was printed in Venice, Italy.

Mine was printed in Hong Kong.

People print things all over the world. That's crazy talk. Hey

Hey, guess what? What? In my page, it has just below printed in Hong Kong that pictures in this book were done in pen and ink and watercolor. they said they were done. See, they too cannot say illustrated properly, so they just say they were done. we're done. Yeah. So if you've not read this book to your child or children, go do so.

Look at us.

David Patrick (20:10.378)
If you already have, revisit it, and if you don't have child or children, read it anyway. It's really cute and sweet.

It is a great book. It's a wonderful book. Thank you, Grammy and Grampy, for the copy that I read.

Awesome. Just love it. Okay, so this has been another episode, episode 11 of Dads... Books. For those of you who are just listening and not watching, which is all of you, this is the part of our show where Mike and I grab stacks of books that we have.

on

Mike Walker. (20:46.414)
So, as I said, I was looking for this week's and all of a sudden I had to go and look everywhere.

Well, I was gonna ask you, like, yeah, where do you?

So books are in my office. This is also the storage room. It's also the recording studio and my general getaway. I see. Then we have a ton, a ton, ton, ton of books in the garage. Yeah.

Garage is up for cars. Yeah, come on. I got kids.

So I was like, I'll just grab a couple of books so that I have some things out so we can talk about maybe doing them. And then I was like, I have to come back and carry the other stack. You know, I should have just brought them all.

David Patrick (21:37.272)
That's what I do. I don't lift weights. I just carry books.

Yeah, up and down the stairs. Lots of good exercise. So I've got why mosquitoes buzz in people's ears. Gosh. That's what I thought. And I read it because I found it somewhere in the house at one point, like, you know, somewhere between 10 and 13 years ago. And I was like, what is that? That sounds weird. I don't mosquitoes. Yuck. And then I was like, I read it. I'm like, well, that's kind of cool.

Get in my reps.

David Patrick (21:48.536)
sounds fun.

David Patrick (22:07.374)
So we'll have to add to our descriptor for this podcast there, because somebody today, I forgot who it was, asked me, what is the podcast about? I'm like, well, my friend Mike and I read books that we read because our daughters read them or we read or somebody mentioned or found in our house 10 years ago or.

So this one I did actually read to my kids at least once.

Okay, got So you found it again. You had the joy of rediscovering it.

Thank you, Journey. yeah, and I could go on and on, but.

What do you want to do next? Anything pop from yours or my?

Mike Walker. (22:44.238)
Was that a subtle hint you wanted to do pops on hops with silly tops?

It wasn't, it was actually accidental. soon as you said pop, I looked over and saw my help on pop copy.

You know what, we haven't done anything silly in a little bit. Okay. Well, in a little bit being, you know. Three since we did Dan the man, Gutman. And I don't know if we should do Dr. Seuss? Yeah. Maybe? Yeah. Fox on socks? Yes. Socks on fox? Yes. Fox in a box?

to go.

David Patrick (23:15.542)
Yes, let's do Fox in socks.

Fox in socks.

What a difference a preposition makes. And I wanted to make sure this is the one with the Tweedle, Peedle, Beedle, Poodle.

battle battle. my gosh, I forgot about that. But yes, I opened it up right there.

So I think we're doing this. This is one. We'll get to this next week. Can you see fine print? This is a book you read aloud. I'll save the rest of it, whether or not the version you use has this. I don't care. But yeah, we'll do this next. I love it. Fox in. Fox in.

Mike Walker. (23:37.663)
Absolutely.

Mike Walker. (23:43.661)
Yes.

Mike Walker. (23:54.028)
Box on socks. In socks. not on socks. Socks. Box on socks. Cool. Well, thanks for listening to another episode of That Was Your Cue.

DAD?