Shepherding Your Small Child with Picture Books

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Shepherding Your Small Child with Picture Books

 

In this episode, Reading Rainbow meets Home fires as Tilly and Abigail each collect stacks of favorite picture books and talk through what they love about them. They also discuss abridgements, history reading, and the criteria they use for children's literature. Also, how Tilly accidentally took her husband's middle name, and why Abigail's grandmother was the coolest woman ever.

 

Favorite books discussed (and not discussed):

 

Abigail

Finn MacCoul and His Fearless Wife: A Giant of a Tale from Ireland by Robert Byrd

James Herriot's Treasury for Children, Illustrations by Ruth Brown and Peter Barrett

One Dog Canoe by Mary Casanova, illustrated by Ard Hoyt

The Story of Ping by Marjorie Flack and Kurt Wiese

Night of the Moonjellies by Mark Shasha

Katy and the Big Snow by Virginia Lee Burton

Mike Mulligan and the Steam Shovel by Viriginia Lee Burton

Annie and the Wild Animals by Jan Brett

The Wild Christmas Reindeer by Jan Brett

Gilgamesh the King, by Ludmila Zeman

The Revenge of Ishtar, by Ludmila Zeman

The Last Quest of Gilgamesh, by Ludmila Zeman

The Story of Robin Hood, illustrated by Alan Marks

Seven Ways to Trick a Troll by Lise Lunge Larsen, illustrated by Kari Vick

Caedmon's Song by Ruth Ashby, illustrated by Bill Slavin

How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World by Marjorie Priceman

The Bravest Dog Ever: The True Story of Balto by Natalie Standiford, illustrated by Donald Cook

The Napping House by Audrey Wood, illustrated by Don Wood

The Priest with Dirty Clothes by RC Sproul, illustrated by Justin Gerard

The Barber Who Wanted to Pray by RC Sproul, illustrated by Lively Fluharty

Patrick Patron Saint of Ireland by Tomie dePaola

Room for a LIttle One: a Christmas Tale by Martin Waddell and Jason Cockcroft

Martin Luther: A Man who Changed the World by Paul L Maier, illustrated by Greg Copeland

Little Pilgrim's Big Journey by Tyler Van Halteren

 

Tilly

Fables by Arnold Lobel

Frog and Toad series by Arnold Lobel

Owl at Home by Lobel

Grasshopper on the Road by Lobel

Mouse Tales by Lobel

Mouse Soup by Lobel

Aesop's Fables illustrated by Charles Santore

The Velveteen Rabbit

The Princess and the Goblin by MacDonald, illustrated by Alan Parry

Many Moons by Thurber

Illustrated My First Little House Books

Billy and Blaze series by C.W. Anderson

Blueberries for Sal by McLoskey

Make Way for Ducklings by McLoskey

One Morning in Maine by McLoskey

Homer (not a picture book exactly) by McCloskey

Paul Galdone books (Three Three Bears, The Three Billy Goats Gruff, etc.)

Ox-Cart Man by Hall/Cooney

The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig by Trivizas/Oxenbury

Anatole by Eve Titus

Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina

The Francis books by Hoban/Hoban (esp A Bargain for Francis, Bread and Jam, Best Friends for Francis)

Yellow and Pink by Steig

Doctor DeSoto by steig

Chanticleer and the Fox by Chaucer/Cooney

Amelia Bedelia books

Stellaluna by Cannon

Miss Fannie's Hat by Karon

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

The Grouchy Ladybug

The Singing Ringing Tree by Hastings/Brierley

Least of All by Purdy

Saint George and the Dragon Ill. by Hyman

Ferdinand by Leaf/Lawson

Roxaboxen by McLerran/Cooney

Adventures of Little Bear by Minarik/Sendak

Stone Soup by McGovern/Pels

If I Built a Car by Van Dusen

A Time to Keep by Tasha Tudor

Imogene's Antlers by David Small

Hello Ninja by N.D. Wilson

Arlo and the Great Big Cover-Up by Betsy Childs Howard

Anything by Beatrix Potter

What is Home Fires?

We are Abigail Dodds and Tilly Dillehay, and we're here to encourage you to make your homes a wartime outpost of life in Christ.

So this book called Yellow and Pink, which is a wonderful introduction to small children about how crazy Darwinian evolution is, because it's two puppets laying on the ground, and they wake up and they have a conversation about where they came from. And one of them is like, someone probably made us, and the other one goes through this whole story that he tells about how they happened to land, where they are all the wacky, like natural processes that led to them playing there. And then at the very end of the book, the puppet maker comes and picks them up under his arm and carries them into the house. Yeah. So Yellow and Pink. That's great. Great. Great book, yeah. Keep the whole fire's burning while you're hara tari'a. Hello, hello, welcome back to Home Fires. I'm Tilly Dilej, I'm your host, and I'm here with my co-host Abigail Dodds. Say hello, Abigail. Hello. And we're taking a little turn at afternoon recording, which we may be both much more chipper than at 6am, or we could be significantly less chipper, actually, depending on how the day's going. We are just coming right off daylight saving, so I know. I know. Which again, is another reason why we're not recording at 6.30, but it's one of many reasons. But we're really happy to back together. I think it's, again, we snuck up on 3, 4, 5, 6 weeks of not seeing each other, I don't know. And it will probably happen again this spring or summer, but we're doing our best. Yep. And it's always good when we do get together, so. Yes. And we have a delightful topic to talk about today. Yeah, one we've had on the docket for a while, and just now we're going to actually do it. That's right. Right. So this is, we're going to talk about children's books, picture books, and also middle school, elementary, middle school. Maybe, I don't know what all. Abigail's got a huge stack of books. Show me your stuff. Next for you, too. Oh, it's kind of hard to lift. Oh, yeah. OK, I was thinking your camera might move easily. OK, there's her stack of books. I mean, it's not that big, I guess. I think most of my books are in the industry, as you're OK. Yeah. Yeah. So. Good times. Yeah, I know. There are very few things in life that I love more than a wonderful children's book. Yes. Even like a wonderful picture book. There's a really, really high up in my list of enjoyable things. And I do still have a two-year-old in the house. So I am still introducing new books to my own kids. Henry VI, quarterly is two. And they both will listen to a lot of the same books right now. Oh, yeah. Actually. So. And then, of course, really enjoying the later reading, too. But picture books always have a special place in my heart. So do you want to just take turns? The other thing we're going to do that we're kind of committing to is we are going to type out a list. Right? Like we're going to give just book lists of favorite books. I took a picture of like four large stacks of picture books that I'd pulled off the shelf. And I'll maybe share those on Instagram or something, too. But with this episode, we'll offer a show. You probably won't get to every book we want to. We certainly won't. Oh, totally not. There's no possible way. It would be cool. We could do like a one-signet review of all these books, maybe. But as I was collecting books, I realized that like, oh, it was just bringing me back to different times of life. And how different books just colored like little pockets of our life for different seasons of our life. And they were just so a part of our daily talking with the kids and the family culture. Yes. It was like, oh, I'd forgotten that these were all part of us. And it's wild now. It's just like eating food that you don't realize. It did something, but you don't remember it later. And it's like that with these books. And then when you remember, you're like, oh, yeah, that was really good. Yeah. So it was super fun. You can always return to it and enjoy it. Yeah. So you want to just go back and forth, maybe. Sure. Share a book, share a book. Well, I'll start off with one that is probably everybody knows about, but the story of Ping, do you guys read this one? OK. I love this book so much. I love it. It's one of my favorites. And we read this like crazy when the kids were little. So when they were like, even maybe just before normal school would start, we started homeschooling. And we were like, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. So I think it's like four or five. And I think in her four year old year, instead of doing kind of this more formal laid out curriculum, we did a several things, but one of them was this thing called five in a row. Have you heard of that one? No, no, no. All it is is this concept of you read the same children's book every day for five days in a row. And each day you do. I don't know how. Honestly, I'm not sure how it's possible to not read. You're going to be reading to you every day for five days in a row. For sure. I don't know if there's any favorite book in the house. This was the very first book they listed as like, here's your first. You know, we just went and collected all the books and then started doing it. And you'd have like a different activity to do each day about that book or whatever. So four year old type stuff. And this was the first one. And I just loved it. It stands up to daily readings for sure. Oh my goodness. It does. So it's a little duck in China who gets separated from all his siblings and his mom and dad who are supposed to be getting on this boat every day as they get taken different places on the Yangtze River. And oh yeah, we studied the Yangtze River. We did like this whole huge illicit, you know, all of the things that you do when you're and then so he separated. He gets lost. He ends up spending time with this little boy who's swimming in the river and doing things and then, you know, miracle of miracles, he hears the call of the guy who has his boat. And the reason he gets lost is because he doesn't want to get on the boat because the last duckling gets a swat as they get us. And so to avoid the swat, he, that's why he gets separated from his family. And so then he sees the boat. He realizes like, I'm going to be last again, but it's so worth it. It's time he goes to get there and be with my team and get the sink at the end. I think everything about it is so great for like a little child, just the whole concept if like, you know, sometimes there's a consequence that's coming. Yes, but it's told in the sweetest it is. Yes, it's a way. Yep, yeah. Yeah, I love that one. That's a great story of ping. Okay, okay, I'll bring a duck out too. Yeah, I'm just bringing my little McCloskey stack. Oh, yay. Which, yeah, I didn't, I couldn't find. Okay, I've got one morning in Maine, blueberries for sale, make way for ducklings. So probably my two favorite favorites of his are blueberries for sale and make way for ducklings. Everybody loves these. Yes. But we also discovered his home or price series more recently and I really joined that in the world. Oh, yeah, that's about that. I forgot about that. Yeah, I'm a price man. I knew I had read that too as a kid, but reading it to them recently, I was like, this is delightful. So his illustrations are wonderful. Yes. I just think his storytelling is amazing. There's just such a balance in these books. So yeah, I don't really know what more to say about those except they're great and they make it onto a lot of lists. Yeah, wait, I guess you just keep rolling along. Keep rolling. Okay, this one, I'll say because I don't know if very many people will have heard of it. Night of the Moon jelly is. Okay. Have you heard of this one? I adore this book and of all the books I'm going to mention, I've read this one more than any other book. And it's amazing. It was Titus' favorite book for about four years. Okay. I'm not getting. We read it most nights. I could recite the entire book to you, but it's got quite a bit of text. It's not like it's super short, but it's about this. This seven year old boy who helps his grandma at their lobster roll stand out on the east coast, they have a lobster roll stand. And so it's like all the sweetness of him, you know, putting on his apron, helping her, you know, with frying the onion rings. And so they're going through all the day's work and activities, but it starts out with him finding this moon jelly at the ocean in the early morning, not knowing that that's what it is. It goes into this bag of like seashells that he keeps. And then it ends with her at the end of the night, like it's dark. They're just closing up their lobster roll shop and she takes him out on a boat and they go to this place where there's moon jelly. It's all over and they release the moon jelly. And then, you know, she get, they get home and hot chocolate tea and like cantaloupe and he falls asleep. And the whole thing is like, he always remembers the night of the moon jelly. But it's based on a true story of a young man and it is just, I love it. The illustrations are beautiful. The story is like, I don't know, everything about it, I love. It's a great one. Okay. It's going on my list. Yep. I wasn't familiar with it. See, this is why I had to get a piece of paper and put it next to me here. Okay. Another slightly, yeah, let's go for a couple kind of morbs here, possibly more obscure ones. Because of course, yeah, I have like, if you give a mouse a cookie sitting here next to me, but everyone gets it. Right. The singing ringing tree is, are you familiar with this book? I have a first one. Yeah. Okay. So I found this recently, I got a yard sale or something and I remembered it for my childhood. So I'm like, whoa, blast from the past. Love this book. So it's, it's got some kind of interesting, elongated figure illustrations. It's different. But what I love about this book is it's a princess story where the princess is selfish and vain and the process of the story is that she learns something. Yeah. She, she's transformed. So it's kind of a rare, it's a rare form of a princess story, I would say. Yeah. More like, more like some of the Grimm Spherry Tales maybe, but I would say a little more balanced. We like Grimm Spherry Tales too, but those stories can be so weird and... Yeah, they're so structured. They're always actiweki. I understand that. That's going on. Yeah. There's always three of something, which is nice. So there's a little bit of structural, but yeah, but those stories have no balance at all. There's just very few of them. Yeah. But some of the weird, like we do like, like the princesses who dance their shoes to pieces every single night. We kind of like that one. I don't know. There's several that we do return to and enjoy, but... Okay, so yeah, go ahead. All right. I'll do a genre here, which is these are books about vehicles. So this one is Katie and the Big Snow by Bridget. Do you know this one? Yes, I love it. Okay, I love this one. And it's similar. It's the same person who did the little house, right? The little house book where the house is in the country, which I couldn't find on myself. Yeah. It's the same guy or girl. Well, I don't know. You know, straighter. It's this. Oh, yeah, little house. It is. It is. It says. Okay, so you do. Hey, talk about these two. Virginia Lee Burton. Virginia Lee Burton. And so this one too, Mike Mulligan and the steam shovel, which I love this one too so much. I shouldn't have get my own Mike Mulligan. I need to put this down. Seth adored Mike Mulligan when he was young. I'm sure he was a good boy. He was a great guy. He was a good guy. So we would read this book over and over and over. It's about this old steam shovel who digs a hole for a building. Anyway, and that this snow is also, it's, it's great. If you live in a winter climate, you'll get it. He's been if you don't. You'll be like, what is this even so? And the illustrations, again, they're not the kind of like artwork type. Like that type of illustration, but they're so perfect for the story that's being told. They fit perfectly. perfectly, they're kind of more whimsical and fun. I love these. And my boys loved these books. And I as a mom liked reading them. That sounds great. I just wrote both of those down because I don't own either of them. And he has. Oh, he loves. And his birthday's coming up. So our, the only book of hers that I have in the house right now and I could not find it is the little house, which is easily in maybe my top 10 of all time. Oh, we all love these so much. Yeah. I read, no, I read these when I was a kid, but forgot about them. Okay. Sure. Out of my mind. So with the little, with the little house, you know, the, the house being in the country and then the city, like grows up around her, which is a great thing for children to understand. Like that's how cities become cities. They, they grow out kind of around the country. Yep. And that landscapes change like that. But it's also the book that, that started that whole conversation where my kids know how much I hate the city now is partially because of that book because I'm always like, yes, the house gets me back in the country where she belongs. I identify with this little house. Yeah. Perfect. I love that. I should actually buy that one because we don't own it. I know I've read it, but I would like to own that one. It's delightful. Yeah. For especially when you got the grandchild in the house, you need to teach them about the country. Okay. So this might be a little bit, you know, the ox cart man. This could be in my top 10 favorites too. I lost. Oh, there you are. Sorry. I lost it for a minute, but I'm with the ox cart man. Oh, yeah. This one. You remember this one? I don't know. I read that one. Who's it? I. Okay. Oh, my goodness. Okay. Donald Hall. I'm so happy to give you the gift of this book. Oh, it isn't called a caught book. But this is probably in top 10 too for me. I love this book. And it starts with this, this family living. It looks like maybe New England. I can't remember because he's, that's right. Because he ends up at Port Smith Market selling all of his wares. But it's a, it's like a family living in looks like 18th century, maybe 19th century farming and all of the products that they create as a family. And then the ox cart man loads up his cart with everything they've made through the whole year and sells it at the market and brings back like a few tools that they need to keep making things. Oh, cool. But then, then it shows the whole year as they, you know, harvest in the fall, you know, just all of the thing, the productivity of the whole family in this farm setting just lovely. It's gorgeous. I read that book over and over. That's so fun. Okay. Yeah. I'm writing mine down to. I'm sending myself an email. So by Donald Hall illustrated by Barbara Cuny. Okay. That's another one of those illustrators too that when you see it, you know it, you know, you know, oh, I know who this is. Yeah. Have you read Jan Brett? Annie in the wild animals or no, see, this is so great. I thought all of our books would be the same books. And I love that you're a very Scandinavian. I can't remember if she is Norwegian or what her Oh, I don't remember now, but she's very popular up here because it's just everyone's getting. Yeah. Of course. Yeah. The illustrations are beautiful. The wild animals, one, the little girl is like has lost her cat. And then she tries to keep putting out food to get it back. And instead, all these wild animals keep coming to her door and then finally winter kind of melts in her cat returns. Anyway, they're really beautiful and fun stories, you know, I really like them a lot. Jan Brett and she has many more. I think these are, I probably have some others by her, but none in my stack. Not all of them are equally as good as I recall, but these two I like a lot. Okay. So Annie and the wild animals and then what was the other one? Um, the wild Christmas reindeer. Okay. Great. Okay. Now I'm going to bring out William Stagge, which is someone people probably know, but two of his books that I really like. Are you familiar with Dr. DeSoto? And I think he actually wrote Shrek, which was quite different from the movie. I don't own Shrek, but I believe he actually wrote that and is the reason why I don't think I know that he. Okay. William's, I don't know how you say his name, ST, EIG. Dr. DeSoto is probably my favorite of his. Yeah. Stagge. And this is the story of a mouse who is a dentist and he, oh, I never thought one. You remember this one? We never own. Okay. And it's a new berry book. So, um, and then the way that he tricks the fox who's trying to eat, you know, where he works on it and then tricks him. Um, and then another book that I love of his that's actually an anti- um, evolution book. It's an, it's a, it's a worldview book and I believe that William is a Christian, although I haven't researched it deeply. So this, a book called Yellow and Pink, which is a wonderful introduction to small children about how crazy Darwinian evolution is, um, because it's two puppets laying on the ground and they wake up and they, they have a conversation about where they came from. And one of them is like someone probably made us and the other one goes through this whole story that he tells about how they happened to land where they are, you know, all the wacky, like natural processes that led to them laying there. And then at the very end of the book, the puppet maker comes and picks them up under his arm and carries them into the house. Yeah. So, will, uh, Yellow and Pink. That's great. Great. Great book. Yeah. That's really fun. And then we also have this, um, Sylvester and the Magic Pebbles, the same author. But I would say, I would say those two books that the Yellow and Pink and Dr. Tisoto, the, the only two that I highly, highly recommend. I don't love his other books. So, okay, I have a very funny one. Again, this is one that I've read so many times. I had it memorized at one point. Finn McCool and his fearless wife, a giant of its ale from Ireland. You know, but I'm in already because I'm, yeah. But you will laugh out loud when you read it. Tom would always read it with the accent to all of us. And it is about these two giants. And, one of them is, they're, they're, I think one is from Scotland and one from Ireland. And they like are calling like they have heard of each other across the sea. And so one comes to destroy the other and he's quite a bit bigger. And so Finn McCool, who is the giant of his island, realizes this guy's bigger. And so his wife concocts this plan to defeat this other giant by pretending that he's her baby. And that his father is even larger. So like this giant is actually okay. And it is so funny. It's really just got to be up there as I don't know who gave it to us. I don't know where it came from. The illustrations are wonderful. It's my Robert Bird. And man, have we, and we even have like ripped page. I should look it up and get a new one just so that we always have one on hand because this one is so at the end of its rope. But yeah, that, I know how, how many books I was going to grab that I was like, well, it doesn't have a cover or the first two pages. So right, right. The night of the moon, Jellies, I think every page has tape on it. Right. Yes. Page has been cleaned. I want to read. I feel like each of our kids went through a phase where they would rip a little bit. Just rip them just for fun. You know, um, okay, Finn McCool. Yes. Oh man. You want, you're going to make a list of seconds. You have a sense of humor. You will not regret it. It's very fun. I like to think that I do. I think you do. Um, you know what I was thinking on my walk today, speaking of since a few more, I was thinking about Boudreau and Tibido jokes and how it would be great if there were some children's books of Boudreau and Tibido. Do you know Boudreau and Tibido? Yes. I guess it's, it's very specific to like, um, Cajun like, oh, okay. I think because Boudreau and Tibido are clearly from their names. Those are Cajun guys. Okay. I bet everyone has characters like this though in their culture. Span and Oli. I'm, what is it? Span and Oli. Span and Oli. So these are the Scandinavian Boudreau and Tibido. Of course. Of course. Yes. I bet there's Irish ones. I bet everybody has like jokes about the two stupid characters. Yeah. Yes. A Boudreau and Tibido. Like whenever we're in Louisiana, we pick up a few more of these and bring them home with us because our cousins are like super connoisseurs of Boudreau and Tibido jokes. Oh my goodness. Yes. Span and Oli jokes are a whole genre up here. Okay. My husband and my father-in-law could probably tell you 10 off the top of their heads. Just right. Right. Yeah. Maybe we should open the next few episodes with... With sharing a spin and all. I bet there's enough we could really just... Do you totally have one for every episode? Oh, that'd be good. All right. So... Is it your turn? Your mine. I can't remember now. I don't... I don't... I think it's my turn. But... Okay. I'm going to go into... Into Arnold Loebull. Because Arnold Loebull... Man. I have to move my stack though to get to him. Arnold Loebull is easily one of my favorite children's book authors of all time. Okay. And I just... I don't immediately recognize the name but I'm not... Okay. Oh, here's the cover of... Here's the yellow and pink cover that I didn't... Couldn't find earlier. Okay. I can't believe you don't know Arnold Loebull. Okay. Frog and Toad. Oh, of course. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I'm so bad at remembering the names of the names. Oh, yeah. I do know that. Yeah. Well, we've got... I've got Justin, the librarian in my house, which means everything is organized by author. Oh, my goodness. I've been in the series on the children's bookshelf. I know. A library. And my house. I know. Okay. So Arnold Loebull, Frog and Toad, probably. I just... I don't think... They're wonderful. Children's book. I don't think there's a better... It's a painter. For like small children. They do books out of them now too. Do you know like the young readers? You can go through... Okay. I love that. I mean like where it's read to them. Well, no, I mean like they're learning to... Oh, you mean like the paperbacks that are sort of for like I can read like that. I can read the series. Okay. Yes. So we have... I know we have probably every iteration of Frog and Toad. He also has this Fables book that my kids are randomly... Oh. Randomly like... I don't know. They like Fables. I mean they love... They love Esop, you know. And just reading those to each other. But these are sort of eccentric compared to Esop even. But they're actually quite cute. Oh, this is a call to cut book. So Fables by Arnold Loebull. That's great. But aside from Frog and Toad a couple years ago we we discovered Owl at home and Grasshopper on the road. Yeah. Okay. And that was kind of... We were kind of late comers to those but we really love... We always talk about Tier Water Tear from Owl at home. I love Owl at home. Yeah. I didn't know about the grasshopper one. Okay. So Grasshopper on the road is just this one character, a grasshopper. And he goes on a journey and meets probably six or seven different characters. So six or seven different stories that illustrate like just a weird extreme of human character. Basically. There's the fly that's like cleaning her house, cleaning the front walk out into the road, cleaning the road. And just once... Just trying so hard to make everything neat and tidy. Or like the mosquito that offers to give him a ride across a a little... He calls it the pond but it's like a tiny little pet bar. Oh my goodness. I think of the word. Puddle, thank you. He's a grasshopper who can walk across the puddle but the little mosquito is in a boat and he's like, I'm the fairy man and I... It rules or rules you have to cross in the fairy. And so the grasshopper has to like pick him up in the boat, carry him across the puddle. And then the grasshopper, the mosquito is like, no one knows this lake like I do. You were very lucky to be here with me. And letting sets him down like, thank him, you know, the grasshopper's like thank you and goes on, you know. Oh, funny. So it's delightful. But I remember I sent this book to Joe and to the Rigny household because one of the very first story and it reminds me of Joe and things that people require of him. Because it's this group that is the We Love Mornings Club. And so it's all these insects who come to grasshopper and they're like, morning is awesome. They have all these signs and they're dancing. Morning is the best. And he's like, I love mornings. And they're like, yes, we knew you had a kind face. You should join our club. We knew that you were one of the good guys. And so they start this, you know, raw raw mornings. And then he said, afternoons, afternoons are nice too. And then they all stop. And they're like, stupid. You can't be part of my club. One of the guys actually says, stupid. Just tells me every time. And then they're like, they just reject him out of like, he can't be in the club because he also likes afternoons and evenings. And you can only look morning. So just just I love it because I feel like I know, I know everyone in this book, I've met someone like, like all of them. Yes. Oh, that's good. That's really good. Yeah. And then now, so this is the first book. These are also Arnold Lover news tales. I love mouth tales and mouth soup. Henry memorized mouth soup. I think the first rookie I've memorized probably was that one. So all right. That's all for global. Okay. I'll do another funny one, which is the napping house. Oh, okay. Okay. This one is so funny. It's one of those books that repeats the line. And then you add a line each page. You get a new one. And so by the end, you've said the whole thing. So starts with like one sentence. And then those things just keep getting repeated. But I do like those books. But I tend to they're driving nets too for all loud reading because I'm yeah, I get really patient. Yes. This one you'll you won't be driven nuts until like several readings because it's so funny. Okay. But it's about them waking up in this napping house. And the illustrations are again phenomenal. So good. Okay. Very anomalous. Unread. Okay. Okay. Fert it. The story of Fert an And I know. Oh, I love that. Very common book everyone. Everyone loves this. I assume. I hope. Yeah. I think this is a delightful book. And I also think that the illustrations. I just wanted to say this actually about illustrations. We've talked about them a lot and how how much they add to the pleasure of a book. And I maybe you can add to this a little bit. I learned in the last several years that something changed in children's book publishing like in the 60s. We talked about this before. Oh, thanks. Someone told me that the reason why the quality of children's books declined so rapidly after like the 1960s was that printing became cheaper and the process of publishing became there was so much easier to get in the door the door widened basically. To the point that you just had a lot more children's books that were being published all of a sudden. But that basically like if you are looking for quality children's books, it's it's not like there aren't any great books written since then obviously. Right. But you're more likely to find quality books from the the 60s and before. So in that that checks out. Yeah. Think about it. You know. But in terms of like even illustrations, I find that the ones I enjoy the most tend to be from a little bit before. I don't know what year this is. Anyway, so Fert an And I do love it. I don't even know. I'm wondering what year it is now. But oh copyright 1936. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yep. Could guess that. Okay. So I I made a really stupid adult error around this book when I was a I had a couple kids and I was on vacation with my family and my family still teasing me about this like to this day. We were on we were in some kind of bougie little shop strip of strip of shops and we went into this shop that was an entirely corks store like everything that they sold was cork and you know in this book there's the cork tree that for instance it's under. Okay. So I have like an extents. So there's a video in the cork store about how they harvest cork off of cork trees. How they get the bark and you know and then that's how they got all these cork bags and corks shoes and all these things. And so I'm talking to the fancy shop lady at length trying to ask her what about the other cork trees where the corks come out in little corks shapes and hang from the tree because that's how the illustrator shows cork in this book and I I took it as you as real and true. We're curious. So I was utterly earnest and it was in my sisters and mom are listening to the conversation they they see what's happening that like the reason why we're talking in circles and I keep bringing her back to like okay but what about what about cork trees like cork cork trees where you've got corks hanging from the tree and they eventually like kind of take me by the elbow and just lead me out of the shop because I never get it. Not until we're out of the shop do they explain to me that wasn't real. That's not what cork trees are actually like. That was that was a delightful idea by Robert Lawson. That's not reality. I just feel like little wine corks they get them from cork trees that are perfectly designed to stop up the bottle of of cabsav. Oh my goodness. I'm guessing you were you know well into your 20s at this point. Oh yeah I was I was probably almost 30. Okay that yeah that's good that's real good. Yeah if you ever eat one of my sisters ask them about the cork tree. Yeah. Oh man. Well okay let's talk about why some Christian books fall flat in children's literature because let's do that. I want to point out a couple that great yeah I have a couple that do not fall flat. I think they're good. Do I only have one of them here? Maybe I only have no I have two. So RC sprawl wrote some children's books and I think he did a good job and whoever published them I don't know who did a beautiful job with the illustrations as well. So they are absolutely lovely not like what painterly being published these days. This one is called the barber who wanted to pray. I lost its dust cover but it was pretty. And it tells like an actual story. Of course there is a moral you know like you do walk away with a pretty clear like thing he's trying to communicate but it really is told as a story and so it doesn't fall into some of the traps of like you're just using this. Like this is just didactic with sort of a couple little storyish things here and there. Another one that he wrote is the priest with dirty clothes. I really like this one. Oh and it do you know that one? I feel like I have RC's that on the shelf. Okay. It is it's good and they're longer there's a lot more text than some picture books but good and he does have like a for the parents section I think in all of his books the lightlings is another one he did. I don't remember if I actually liked that one or not. So I won't comment on whether I liked it but I do remember that one. I liked this one about the priest with dirty clothes. It is a very beautiful telling of the gospel. Okay but it's the story doesn't feel artificial too much you know. Yeah. And so I like that about it and I do I have been sent a lot of children's books over the years and I have a really hard time with it because they don't feel like stories. They and it's not wrong to have just a didactic book tool where it's kind of got some bit of a story but really what you're trying to say is don't lie you know which but I yeah. I think when you foreground the didactic piece and the story is at the expense of that I don't enjoy the book and I don't think the kids do and so and the illustrations are just really really clunky yeah more cartoony a lot of cartoony or like where the the kids heads are like three times their body size or you know just I know that's wrong per se yeah yeah it's just not if I go to pick up a book I never pick those books up right the kids don't either they just it's not what they're drawn to yeah unless they're really little maybe yeah yeah I mean there's like the little board books where yeah you know I don't know right the bright color really yeah yeah it doesn't care what's in her books right now yes she's pretty yeah yeah so if you to go along with that theme actually which it wasn't in my stack but it does bring to mind one book that we actually really enjoyed that was very openly kind of you know a Christian moral book that I watched my kids connect with it was our low and the great big why or our low we have that one this yeah so you know came out probably pretty recently someone I kind of know wrote it and we really enjoyed it yeah I can I can just I think I just have memories of like reading it to a little little girl and watching her be like just immediately absorb and and then apply it immediately just something yeah that it recently happened and that is that's work I think that's worth the press the book and it's a beautiful I think it's a pretty book so yeah so um I feel like I had oh books that don't work mm-hmm that are sort of Christian you know very very explicit moral books I'm I'm not gonna throw this entire series under the bus because I know people really love these but oh yeah the baron steam bears so we do have a couple baron steam bears books in our house but I have also thrown baron steam bears books like in the trash or in or you know dumped them in various ways because I do feel like they were one of the early prototypes of the stupid dad yeah that's true character yeah where you have mom literally parenting dumb dad over and over and over and over and it drives me absolutely baddie because these books just they they make they make their way into our house because there are some extended family members who really love them and they they come into our house but you know they I've not they're not all bad there's some really fine ones but the ones where dad looks like an idiot get thrown away so right and yes I agree yeah and it's surprising the number of books where that that little thing does does get in there um I just find children's literature unless it's these older books or some others they do seem to have a little bit of a precarious relationship with the dad mm-hmm yeah I don't know it's strange even the ones that want to emphasize like the dad is being really great mm-hmm they hit it awkward to me I'm like it's like they're trying to make the dad into the mom that's what it is so there's this one book about how dad dad does all these things for me and it's all things that typically a mom would do for a baby are you talking about I love my daddy because mm-hmm that doesn't okay that doesn't sound quite right but it is no it's more like dad loves me or I don't know okay yeah I don't want to like if you have this book I'm not saying don't read it I'm just saying there's something that hits me that's sometimes an off about that like do we need to make dad mom to make him loving right that's right well I tell you what as an as an antidote to that I we really love um some of the little golden books that we're at least what is your name I've got I've got this one here always will always Wilkins you know always Wilkins so there's a bunch of okay I'll always Wilkins delightful illustration another example really great a bunch of like very fat fat small children and there and very lovely domestic mothers but it's like they are probably 50 60s yeah and there's there's a series on dads like what do daddies do all day is one of our one of our favorite books is a kid and it's all these daddy's work while children play and everyone like they've been memorized by every single one of our kids oh um but it just shows like all the different kind kinds of careers that dads have yeah there's nothing said in there that's disparaging about that right nothing he goes to work and then he comes home and but his favorite thing to do after he does all of these things is to come home to us yeah um it's really delightful and then there's some other books where like we help mommy we help daddy also always Wilkins and with mommy it's helping with these domestic chores with daddy he's like on a Saturday like mowing the yard fixing things around the house you know there's there's just a real like peaceable or very very peaceful and very like we take care of problems when they arise in a piece in a peaceful and orderly way and we all help just really you know good old-fashioned family life um so we always straight I didn't know that one I wrote that one down yeah always Wilkins and then the new baby is a book that we have always read to our kids that's another always Wilkins where the little girl gets a baby doll at the same time as mother getting a baby home and they're both caring for their babies yeah that's all that's all that's all it is oh oh baby you know that's a wonderful yeah yeah okay oh I do have this book in here I thought I couldn't find it was in the stack the whole time okay good uh this one is cadmins song oh and you're bringing so many that I've never heard of well we I think we both are doing that which is really fun I haven't heard of it this one is like the story of um this man who uh uh basically I think he becomes a saint or something like in the I'm trying to remember the exact time frame this would be like probably pre-medieval but he it tells about these people sitting around the fire and telling their stories of war and he's a cowherter and so they're sharing all these stories and he it gets to him and he he like doesn't he can't figure out how to talk like he just he gets cold feet like the words won't come he's not good at talking or telling stories around the fire and so he goes out and into this cold night and then um has kind of a uh I don't I don't remember exactly what happens to him out there now but anyway the point is he comes back in and like the holy spirit kind of I mean that's the implication has given him this poetry about God and it's beautiful and it's um and it's true you know it's true stuff so it's not like weird weird stuff um and then he becomes basically I think a monk because his poetry is so inspired in a way like it's beautiful it's about God and anyway this sounds weird it gets to be quiet all the time like it's like it's like it's it's pre the Reformation they're telling a story from before that time this was all we had guys um don't go jumpin down my throat yeah so here's a little piece from the end it says from that day forward Kademan was a poet he moved into the monastery with all the other monks and told them stories Kademan sang of the creation of the world and the beginnings of the human race he sang of Noah and of the flood and Moses and the Promised Land he sang of David and he sang of Jesus and so then it just tells about how all the children sang all these songs that he basically topped them through this poetry that he came to be able to say it's sweet you just got to trust me and it's beautiful I'm right I wrote it down yeah I love how I'm like putting forward this book and then on my own defensive about it yeah no one's attacking you you're like no it really is it's great man okay so I'm gonna give my next two will be in genre also good um I love the genre of books where people trick people yeah just do so one example this is Stone Soup oh yes there's a lot of different versions of this story I happen to think this is the absolute best it's oh cool by Ann McGovern where it's a little old lady and a hungry young man tricking her into making Stone Soup and and of course you have to make Stone Soup oh fun so another book that is where people trick people I actually really enjoy Francis there's some kind of turdly behavior from Francis at times a birth you know I've found some of them maybe less to my my liking but I think Bren and Jamf for Francis is amazing I love this book it's precious and I love the descriptions of food and I love the parents making this quiet decision to just give her Bren and Jamf for two days and and how it immediately gives her a taste for more food and best friends her Francis is really cute but there's another one that I couldn't find I couldn't locate on the shelf where she tricks her friend over the the she her friend Ida her mother says whenever you play with Ida things bad things happen like I'd always get the best of it you need to be careful when you play with Ida so she goes to have a tea party at her house and and she's been saving her money to buy one of those little tea sets with the blue figures on it that's real China which we all remember and the and the the tea sets described were like I know those two tea sets there's the one that's pink plastic that's plastic with little pink flowers on it and there's one that's real China with blue figures and those both were real products I know I feel like I had them or one of them so anyway so Francis is saving for the blue China one and her friend talks her into selling buying her pink plastic one instead with the money that she saved by telling her that they don't make the blue the blue one anymore so she buys the pink one and brings it home she has kind of buyers remorse and then her sister tells her no they definitely still sell the blue ones because there's one of the candy store right now and it's only two dollars and she had just she had just a pink one bought the other one for like two 25 or something so like Ida took her and so she um tricks Ida into buying it back from her but in a real you know above board way but anyway it's it's very cute and you like you love seeing the sort of comeuppance and I do enjoy I do enjoy a good a good book about tricking people so that's well in the genre of tricking are you do you have more tricking books no I think that's my only two tricking books seven ways to trick a troll when that's another Scandinavian book it's it's long it's got it's almost seven books in one each chapter is like kind of its own book and it's its own story um this is great I'm building like a birthday list for him yeah it was so perfect so that this one is really fun if you need a few tricking troll books yeah any more tricking books yeah um I mean that you know tricking shows it shows up in so many of the classical stories you know the gingerbread man and the a lot of the fables and um a lot of gout this guide pole gal-done takes like classic old stories like the three billi-goat's graph is there's another tricking story yeah um but gal-done is an illustrator actually don't love his illustrations when I look at them they don't give me pleasure yeah but he's kind of a classic for some reason and Justin he collects them so um anyway okay so another genre is wonderful old works of literature yeah turned into children's books shorter children's books yeah oh perfect let's see this I mean these are children's books turned into children's books I like these I'm in this photo series I did a little house I don't know that exist yeah there's a bunch and they've taken the illustration the original illustrations from the series of little house in the prairie and they've they've imitated them really effectively oh fun with yeah with grateful acknowledgement to Garth Williams for his illustrations but the picture books all take just like a little episode from either almanzo's life or Lars life and um they're delightful and there's seven who's quite a few of them maybe six or eight of them um also I really love um like shanta clear in the fox this is an old story from Jeffrey Chaucer's Cantibary Tales illustrated by Barbara Cooney yep um and it's you know if you're gunned if you're going to tell your kids the story out of Canterbury Tales why wouldn't it be a picture book yeah um also grew up on this book thank you George and the dragon you've never seen that very beautiful beautiful this is another kind of fun um beautiful illustrations by this person Trina I've never seen her do anything else but it's um a story out of um Spencer's Fairy Queen yeah so this was my I don't know that I've ever read all of Spencer's Fairy Queen even now which I should no I haven't put it on the book list for this year but it is kind of a first um introduction to that story and the character um George fighting the dragon on behalf of the lady Una um and it yeah it's not the whole story but it's a good it's a nice portion of it it's also the reason why I really wanted to name Cordelia Una oh um but Justin didn't let us do that I like Cordelia yeah Cordelia is great too but I really did I really really did like Una it's good too yeah he hated it so much but yeah but I always I'm always very submissive when it comes to naming children I'm gonna do feel like I feel like it takes us a while to get where we both like something yeah um I have a few in that genre so this is like Robin Hood a Robin Hood oh yes oh great oh it's illustrated by Alan Marx I like the illustrations it's just it's just the story it's good um do you have this trilogy of Gilgamesh oh no we don't have any Gilgamesh so this is you know yeah retelling of Gilgamesh who's the illustrator or or the author what he told and illustrated by Ludmilla Zeman Ludmilla Zeman you don't have to put that in the list there's no way um yeah we this was part of whatever our homeschool curriculum was when the kids were little I can't remember but um yeah and remember reading the epic read these and they really do give you a very good overview of the whole thing and they're beautiful um so yeah it's Gilgamesh king do you have a real revenge please say again clearly not a super strong um I guess a version to shortened versions of books for children um do you have a real strong opinion about like great illustrative classics that I know I know a lot of parents who won't have them in the house because they're not the real thing and oh you're gonna you're gonna hurt their appetite for that story because they got it the easy way you know is the is the way it's argued yeah that's so interesting I I wouldn't agree with that generally whenever we've we've done like a pre-dickens a pre-nordic uh Norse tales um we've done mythology books that are like yeah for young tons of that stuff and what it has done in our family at least and maybe it doesn't work this way and everybody's is it give when the kids get to the real thing they have a much easier time with it getting into it yeah and so they they really enjoy the real thing and I don't find that those early ones really stick so I think once once you get into the real the real book that those were kind of giving you a flavor of like also Shakespeare they've read Shakespeare and yes I remember doing that I read a lot of Shakespeare in an illustrative classic form before I went and read read or watch them yeah and I heard them say like oh it really helped me other people were having a really hard time but I kind of had an idea of how it went and then it really made it it made me more able to digest it all yes and it for at least for our kids it has not hurt their appetite at all mm-hmm but I could imagine that if you get really attached to that and you aren't being given a no whenever if was if no one ever did challenge you to get to get the next stage with it and you did just that's what you had in your house was just those right it's true that they're not the same like you will never know the tail on the little women by reading the great you know you're not going to get get that but it's true like I think it worked the same way with me so we've we have a bunch of them I've never had them just indefinitely has no problem with them yeah and I've just always found at least for me that I'm interested in going on to read the book um especially if I liked the story you know if I actually liked it yeah so I will say like I'm hitting a phase with our with a lot of our homeschool reading where I am trying to to move towards original sources as much as I can or at least not to use overview or right you know condensed versions in general are not as good especially when it was already a children's book and then it's condensed further right yeah a lot of the time those are the worst ones and kind of play to the the lowest kind of common denominator a little bit now and yeah as you're saying it I could imagine that there would be some books that I would probably reject like I would yeah like no no don't don't read some other yeah just let it be right so it's funny because but I think for a lot of things where there's a particular type of hump to get over um sometimes I think that can be helpful but yeah I could see there being some things where I'm like oh you're not also there are some there are some adaptations that are so bad right it's like this is the worst version of this you know it is taking every bit of charm out of this yeah or missing the point sometimes you're like this is even so you know there's that um but I have to say yeah I'm not in theory and and then I've had experiences in the last couple of years as an adult where I read a book and I really thought I was reading like we read Les Mis for our book club a couple years ago and I had I mean it was a fat book it was a big old book yeah it was all it's certainly the language but it turned out that it was slightly um trimmed and I didn't even it there was no evidence on the cover or anything that it was a trimmed version but it was a little bit of bridge and I was just like wow I felt like very much gipped because I had spent it was a huge book that I was reading and it was still a bridge yeah yeah they they cut you know like a hundred pages of this a battle description that I wasn't interested in it's true but still I wanted to probably the bragging right at least right exactly oh that's funny I'm too many and then with history reading it's so important to at least as soon as possible to start reading some original sources and and then also the other thing that's that's really helpful to be talking through as you're reading history with your kids is that there are no totally white hat people and totally black hat people like there are no heroes that are as heroic as Jesus basically like there's nobody else quite like that and every other person even that we love and admire and read about and follow they all will have something that is dark in there right and you will if you read long enough you will find that dark thing and and the same too I think with the villains of history there's usually something interesting and mixed in there to learn about them but I just think it's so hard for kids to understand that because they really do they look at the world and they want to know who's the hero who's the villain which is great you know right right they need those categories and they need those categories and it's good to strengthen those and even and I don't even mind talking about some people from history as heroes and basically yes oh sure I think of George Washington as a hero you know but you know not a month or two ago I was reading some of his letters and came across you know him actively hiding like there was a there was a situation where he's he's writing a letter to his kind of overseer guy and telling him to move the slaves out of the state where they were about to become free de facto free because they've been there for two months or however long it took for them to be freed he knew that that time was coming up and he didn't want the slaves to know that and he asked this overseer guy to hide that from them and get them out of the state for a little while so they can reset the clock and even in the interchange like even the the overseer was saying if I didn't know for sure that these people would be free very soon my conscience wouldn't let me do this but since I know that that's coming soon I will do this thing and you're just like so he you can tell like he's he's been over to kind of work with his own conscience limit yeah yeah yeah but it was on you know it was on Washington's orders and and I mean there's all I'm who knows how many other every you know every man has blind spots and that's something that your kids have to understand right in order to move forward in the world or even like learning our local you know civil war history it's so confusing for kids to be like okay slaves you know everyone in this area was was probably part of the south you know and they weren't bad people they were people with a major blind spot because as soon as money is involved people get really blind really quickly you know and just yeah but like those are the kinds of things that history will teach you right that that I think is probably part of the reason why we've got two generations deep of people who don't know how to debate and who put everything into into terms of villain and and and hero you know like all they can see is bad people and they can't get them right villain that's right villain and victim that's exactly right there aren't of heroes really right but I think that comes out of just a really impoverished knowledge of history right partially well and just the worldview is wrong because it wants to locate the source of things that are wrong externally yes so right I was just at this thing where a gal gave a talk her first name was rose I wish I would remember her last name anyway it was on drawing the right antithesis so like understanding that the we want to frame all the problems as they're out there and then we're like on the good side and out there yes that's right and instead realizing that every human heart you have to draw the antithesis right through it because of sin yes every human has this need to see oh I'm the problem like in this situation or whatever and so I thought that was a really helpful just visual of like draw the antithesis down your own heart and see your own sin bent and then you've got to work against that that doesn't change the fact that there are definitely um people worth honoring and definitely you can be a person who is in one sense a good guy you know if you're on the lorraine side and if you but you aren't de facto that you know what I mean you're that just because you exist and you like yourself doesn't mean that you're a good guy yeah yeah it means you've got to be on the lorraine side and you have to draw that see the darkness that you're capable of and that that's there and then turn from it and I do think yeah I think you can fall off either way where you start to be like well every hero is so tainted yes nobodies worth imitating nobody's and you just start to get so odd and cynical and and basically saying we're just going to erase history because of that because who could we possibly admire just take down all the you know like and clearly we've been in that whole rigour all and that for sure oh not the answer you know like the christian way is to honor all that's honorable you know and honor people that are older than you even if they weren't altogether honorable you know what I mean so right and it's yeah and I love that too about about history is that you do see them doing things that you're just like yeah I could not have handled that like it's so um you know read every time I read anything to do with ma angles I admire her to death I just can't stop admiring her I think everything of everything I read makes me like her more and in just assuming there must be thousands more like her in history that we can't even understand right just quiet lives yeah that's right quiet lives of amazing hard work and self sacrifice and self control and that's their for our instruction and for our children's instruction yeah and it's amazing yeah one little thing to throw in there as we end is just like remembering to tell the stories of your own family history to your kids oh yeah what an upgrade yeah I've been thinking about that more as I'm working on this book on the home and like I was yeah as I'm starting to write different things just so many memories are coming up from my childhood from my grandparents place I was talking to my mom today briefly and just telling her all these memories that are like whoa I forgot all about this whole thing or and just I was just thanking her like we just had an incredible childhood thank you and remembering things about my grandma and she was like yeah I don't know how how your grandma did it you know because she feels about her mom kind of the way I feel like mom how right how did you do all that and so she was saying yeah she she had one winter where she knit 20 sweaters and all this other stuff and then she did she was always cursing and then she had her art gallace she called it her gallaceum her calorie museum and she you know just and she's a farmer's wife you know managing all the and it just starts to sound legend but it kind of is and it should be in your family like it's good that she's legend because it was it's three-markable and and the bar is so low now it's like on the ground and so we need these stories so that we at least have a bar to look at think about and ponder I'm working on like this one crochet blanket I already had to pull the whole thing apart and start over I'm like 20 sweaters in one winter I'm working on my second blanket I'm like already having to redo it so it's easy you know right it's good work is different a lot of our work is different as part of what I have to remind myself that's true that's true the reason why I'm not canning all of our vegetables right my time is grandma answering to a few other things that's right grandma didn't have to handle emails yeah yeah so anyway yeah we'll make a list mm-hmm I was thinking about just keeping track of of Justin's mother is very very interested in family history and what are some of those websites where you send your spit in and they tell you about your background yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah there's a lot yeah there I think there's a couple of them but she's given those she gives those as gifts but she also just she does she's interested in it and she keeps up with it and um I do feel like my I think that's one of those things about getting a little older is you start to be interested in those things too um-hmm wanting to track and trace and um yeah last time I was in Louisiana we was definitely looking at some of the family tree stuff but I'm gonna have to fix if we if our family tree is gonna work out I'm gonna have to get my name fixed did I tell you about changing my name accidentally no oh my god oh I get it so I have been with you Ellie Dilla hey what is going on okay okay so I needed I needed to get a passport so mother so ago I'm going to get my passport and I cannot find my Social Security card anywhere so I go online to order a new one because because that's possible and as far as I know this is all you do when you like when I went to change my name when I got married I think it was just the Social Security card right yeah so I I put in the order and it comes in the mail and it and I have taken not only Justin's last name on there but his middle name my legal name I couldn't do this card is Tilly Allen Dilla hey because on paper I must be the most submissive wife in the world you can just take his life I didn't just take his last name I will I defy anyone okay so I think what happened was the computer filled it in and I fixed it like it it was one of those auto name bills and it put Justin Allen Dilla in and I fixed the first name but you didn't but I did not fix that middle name so I've I really need to do that again because that's that's a that's a serious Tilly you're gonna be one of those problems and franchise women who can't vote once they change their back you polluted thing so you're talking to Tilly Allen for for right now Tilly Allen Dilla hey with the cork cork tree in her backyard yes oh I wish man I would totally plant one of those oh my goodness that's that's amazing well yeah fun flying I'm gonna work yeah I'm gonna fix that I'm gonna get it fixed I'm gonna be able to draw so securities someday not that there will be any but oh man all right well I think we've talked about terms books for a very long time which I'm so happy about and we still you know there's still haven't yeah there's so many more but I think this was delightful because I did I did get like a good 10 long list of books that I didn't know about so and we'll type them up we'll type up these and the ones we didn't talk about and just give a master list of favorites such a fun idea so very very good I hope y'all can hear me better now I just the other thing I realized like two episodes ago when I was interviewing or being interviewed or something I realized I've been talking into the back of my new mic for like I don't know how many I don't know they had a front in the back they this one does because I got this probably six months ago someone gave it to me who was done with it it was very kind gift it's a good mic but and I used it and I thought it was great sound and then I started getting comments again on how they couldn't hear your your audio is not quite as good as everyone else's oh that is not good and I have it and I have it where it only is picking up from the front of the mic and then immediately after using it successfully a few times I started using it wrong and I've been doing that for I don't know how long wow which is so classically me to like learn a thing and then drop the one important detail like with Brett like when I made sourdough bread and and forgot the one thing of hey you should leave it on the counter for a few hours after that right so that is so typical like that's such a typical thing for me to just lose the one detail that's like kind of a big deal mattering to know yeah yeah like talking to the front of your mic so people can hear you it's a great mic like I knew it was a high quality mic and I could not figure out why people weren't able to hear me well I give you a pass on that I don't I wouldn't know there was a front and a back so yeah there's buttons on both sides but more you know all right well we will see all of you soon at some point we don't know when we'll do this again and until next time keep those humfars burning