0:00
So, finally get my courage up and I call and I finally get somebody on the phone in that division and I say tell them who I am and oh oh she said we're supposed to call you.
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0:11
I said well nobody called [laughter] me.
0:12
I said I'm sitting right here but nobody called me. I'll never forget it.
0:15
She said I have bad news and I have good news.
0:17
What would you like to hear first?
0:20
And I said well, I'll take the bad news and she said we cannot publish Morris the Moose Brachiosaurus because we are the rhyming home of Dr. Seuss.
0:28
However, she said how would you like to write a new series for Dr. Seuss? Um sure.
0:40
Tish, it is lovely to finally connect.
0:40
I have really been looking forward to this and thanks to my old friend and your new friend Al Gore Lee, here we are. We made it happen.
0:50
So, thank you for making the time.
0:52
Really excited to be meeting you.
0:55
And I don't even know where to start.
0:55
We could start with the 200 children's books, more than 11 million copies sold.
1:03
We could start with 300 children's songs but maybe we can I suppose start the journey with what you studied in college.
1:13
Were you always intending to end up where you are now or where did the story start?
1:20
>> Where did the story start?
1:20
As a matter of fact, I did not start out to be a children's book author.
1:27
I started out to be an opera singer.
1:31
I went to college to be an opera [singing] singer. So, that was my plan. I had a great plan.
1:37
In high school, I tell the kids I talked to you a lot that I had two things I loved.
1:42
I loved to sing and I loved to write.
1:44
So, all through high school, I was are you going to be a singer or a writer, a writer or singer?
1:52
And finally, I had to apply to college and I really knew in my heart I wanted to be a singer.
1:58
So, I have a four-year degree in opera with a minor in jazz.
2:00
And the funny thing everyone always asks me, "So, how did you end up, you know, being a singer and ending up being an author?"
2:09
And the very short story is I came to New York and I was auditioning everywhere.
2:16
And my high school music teacher got a job as assistant music director on Sesame Street season two.
2:27
And I went to meet him and told him I was auditioning and he asked me if I could type.
2:35
And I said, "Yes, I can sing and I can type."
2:37
So, I got a job as music production assistant at Sesame Street.
2:42
And all I wanted to do was sing with Jim Henson's Muppets.
2:47
And my first job was hiring the jingle singers in Manhattan to sing with Jim Henson's Muppets. So, I sang all day.
2:54
I sang when I typed and I sang when I filed and I sang when I answered the phone.
3:00
Sesame Street, may I help you?
3:03
Well, after a year >> [laughter] >> everybody was so tired of listening to me sing all the time that they said, "Would you like to sing on Sesame Street [laughter] with with the Muppets?" And I was Yes.
3:15
So, I sang with the Muppets. I sang on the show.
3:19
I sang on the albums and I sang on the specials.
3:23
So, I sang on everything and it was just so much fun.
3:29
And my first big break was I sang with Oscar, I love trash.
3:32
Everything dirty [laughter] and dingy and dusty.
3:38
Anything ragged and rotten and rusty.
3:41
Oh, I love I love I love trash.
3:46
And I don't know that my parents ever got over it, to tell you >> [laughter] >> the truth. Oh, boy. The big break.
3:53
Well, let me ask you when you got the job on Sesame Street, when you first got that job, what did it feel like at that time for season 2?
4:03
And I'll tell you something that I haven't told many people, which is I have a season 1 staff jacket from Sesame Street because a friend of my family who lived nearby when I was growing up worked on Sesame Street in the early days.
4:22
So, I grew up going next door as a little kid hearing her stories, looking at her Emmys.
4:30
And my love affair with Sesame Street in a in a way began before I ever started watching it.
4:35
So, I have a long history >> Wow.
4:37
What did it feel like to be there in the earliest stages of Sesame Street? What was the vibe like? The environment?
4:47
First of all, the most creative environment anyone could ever be in.
4:54
>> [snorts] >> Basically, they Jon Stone, who was executive producer, and Jim Henson, and all the puppeteers, and all the Muppeteers, and everybody was so creative.
5:05
They just made stuff up all day long.
5:11
>> [snorts] >> Another interesting thing to share is that they were very worried that this show was going to bomb.
5:16
A 6-ft yellow bird, monster that only eats cookies, a grouch in a trash can, a multiracial cast.
5:22
How do we think this is going >> [laughter] >> to go?
5:26
In 1969, and Joan Ganz Cooney, who created the whole thing just let them be creative.
5:35
Whatever you guys want to do, you know, go ahead.
5:38
And it was so much fun to be a part of it, and I believe in my heart that my background on Sesame Street is how I can do what I do today because I was enveloped with this every single day.
5:51
And one of the interesting things that happened was Sesame Street, they needed books, they needed toys, they needed merchandise.
6:02
Like who knew this was going to be a massive hit?
6:06
And they literally asked staff if they had ideas for books.
6:11
>> [snorts] >> And I courage and I oh, what the heck, I got nothing to lose.
6:14
I'll go down and you know, try.
6:16
And I went down to the book department and I told them about when I was a little girl and I broke my great-grandmother's teapot and it shattered into a million pieces.
6:28
And my mother came in and saw the broken glass and she said, "I'm not mad or anything.
6:33
I love you more than any teapot."
6:37
And I went down and I pitched my idea to Sesame Street books.
6:40
And it's your classic, right?
6:42
You go pour your heart out on this story and there's dead silence. I mean, nobody moved.
6:46
So, I'm standing there going, "Okay, that went well."
6:50
And from the back of the room the editor for Sesame Street books said, "Could you make it a story for Bert?"
7:00
And my very first book, here it is. Bert >> Look at that.
7:04
>> and the broken teapot.
7:04
It's out of print, but I have a few, but And in this book, Bert breaks David's favorite teapot, spends the whole book trying to get it fixed.
7:15
And in the end, David says he's afraid David's not going to be his friend anymore cuz he broke his favorite teapot.
7:21
And David says, "You'll always be my friend and can you help me in my restaurant next week?"
7:29
And at the time, it got just great awards and letters because, you know, it it's easy to have things be about stuff.
7:37
And this that message obviously was that their friendship meant more than this teapot. But that was book one.
7:45
So let me peel back the layers a little bit on what you mentioned.
7:47
This this wellspring of creativity just being steeped I suppose to borrow the tea, steeped in this creativity. What did that look like?
8:00
Were people just ad-libbing all the time like a Robin Williams times the number of staff?
8:04
Were Were there meetings different?
8:08
What did that actually look like in practice when you went to work?
8:13
It was one of the first TV shows that had educational research behind it.
8:19
So that we had topics we're going to try to teach every single season.
8:21
There was a notebook like this thick with what are the learning What are we trying to teach kids?
8:30
Obviously numbers and letters, but compassion and sorting things by shapes and whatever it was.
8:38
And then you would watch these You would watch the writers just come up with stuff.
8:42
It was absolutely fascinating.
8:44
They just kind of made stuff up as they went along.
8:47
But the big thing I learned from the Sesame Street writers and it has saved me many many many times is that they wrote the endings first.
9:01
So they used to look at Abbott and Costello movies and Marx Brothers movies and they looked at everything and they used to tell me, "Okay, Abbott and Costello are pushing a piano across a bridge in the jungle with a gorilla coming across the bridge at them. How did they get there?"
9:22
So as an children's book author, I always write my last page first.
9:28
So in my I Believe Bunny books, my inspirational books, one of them ends with just like the I Believe Bunny, you may get a surprise.
9:36
You can make a difference even a bunny your size.
9:39
Then I wrote the whole book about how he helps his friend who can't swim and blah blah blah blah and then end at that page.
9:50
It's a very important page in children's books cuz it is the last page they hear before the book is shut.
9:56
Go to sleep, take a nap, go out to play, whatever.
9:59
And I always write the last page first, always.
10:03
>> [laughter] >> Did you have much interaction with Jim Henson? >> Yes.
10:07
I worked for Jim for years and he was a, you know, somebody said once he was a gentle giant with a mind of steel.
10:15
He's a great businessman, but so creative and so nice to all of us cuz we were low on the totem pole.
10:21
I mean, we were the production assistants.
10:23
And he just worked and worked and worked and worked.
10:27
He would do a Sesame Street day and then fly to London and do the Muppet Show and then fly back.
10:32
He just worked all the time. Mhm.
10:34
But he was just a very, very nice to me, always.
10:37
Did you learn anything about him or how he managed?
10:44
Anything that stands out that distinguishes him aside from just being a man possessed with with his work, which certainly doesn't surprise me. Right.
10:54
I think the thing was you could just watch his creative mind.
10:57
Creative minds on Sesame Street, when I was there, something would happen and they would just make something else up.
11:04
And the sense of humor and the lightness of what they were doing, it was almost like, "Oh, and by the way, we're teaching kids."
11:13
You know what [laughter] I mean? "Oh, yeah, okay."
11:16
The other thing they did, which was really something, is they were one of the first to do double-level humor.
11:24
So, they wrote stuff that was funny for kids, but had all kinds of stuff in it for adults.
11:31
Because all these studies had done if parents watched the show with their children, the kids learned more because the parents were there to help them and that kind of thing.
11:42
And some of the early children's shows, you know, no parent would be caught dead sitting in front of but Sesame Street was so nuts that everybody loved it. Mhm.
11:51
[clears throat] And that really, really made a difference, big difference.
11:56
Yeah, the double level humor.
11:58
I remember first being struck by that, not to make my side of the story all about Robin Williams, but was Robin Williams in the songs in the first Disney animated feature of Aladdin. Oh.
12:11
And just how many levels there were to that and how effective it was because parents would go back, take their kids to the theater multiple times in this case, right?
12:20
Obviously watch the television show.
12:23
How did your music training, if it did help what you ended up doing not only at Sesame Street, but afterwards?
12:33
And I suppose I'm just asking if if some of the tools or sensitivities that you developed actually ended up being assets as you moved forward with these other supposedly separate art forms.
12:47
Well, one thing that I used to do, the songs were all pre-recorded.
12:54
And so the Muppeteers puppeteers would go in and record their songs in advance.
13:01
So now you're Big Bird and you're going to sing a song on Sesame Street.
13:06
But they are doing their dialogue. Right?
13:09
So how are they going to know when the song starts?
13:14
So I would stand next to one of the cameras and count them off.
13:19
So measure one, two, three, four and then they would sing.
13:24
So Caroll Spinney could see me enough to know that when I pointed to him, he had to sing the song, the pre-recorded song.
13:32
You know, move the costume, move the puppet, so he was singing the song.
13:37
And the first two times I did it, I was scared to death.
13:40
>> [laughter] >> I was only 21, I think, this is going to be the one.
13:42
I'm going to go 1 2 3 and start him and it's going to be the wrong place, you know, oh no.
13:48
But, that's really where my musical training came in and also we used to sing the jingle singers in New York in the '70s.
13:57
Literally, you'd come into a session.
14:00
To this day, I'll never forget it and literally, they they would sing it through once.
14:05
We are at the sound of the sound of the count, count count counts down. Four-part harmony.
14:13
And they'd look at each other and say, you take the root, I'll take the third, Jess, you take the fifth and then somebody do the octave. 1 2 3 go.
14:21
>> [laughter] >> And I remember [clears throat] holding on with a thread to this thing.
14:23
And the other thing that I love about those early days, back then, we had orchestras.
14:31
So, the Christmas, I'll never forget this, the Christmas special, full orchestra and Caroll Spinney was trying to sing, I hate Christmas.
14:37
He's behind this microphone and he's going, I hate >> [clears throat] >> I hate Chris I hate Finally, they said, let's take a break.
14:51
>> [laughter] >> Everybody, all the whole orchestra, let's take 10 minutes.
14:53
Everybody just give him a minute.
14:56
And I was standing next to him when he moved over and opened the case and took Oscar out of the case.
15:05
I was standing right next to him.
15:05
I had the music and everything.
15:08
So, everybody comes back, all these violins and cellos and clarinets and and they started it again.
15:15
And Caroll moved over and Oscar sang, I hate Christmas. Perfect.
15:23
I [laughter] never I never got over it. I was like, "Whoa." You know.
15:28
But this kind of stuff went on every single day, all day.
15:33
And when you were working on on Sesame Street, what was the reaction from people at the time when they would ask you, "What do you do?"
15:43
I don't know the magnitude of the success when you joined versus later on in your time there, but just to paint a picture for people cuz there are, I'm sure, some older folks who listen to this podcast who >> [snorts] >> maybe even had really, really early exposure or maybe are are much older and had really young kids who were exposed to Sesame Street.
16:07
Then there are some in the middle who certainly remember watching it.
16:08
And then there are some who have probably never seen it. Right.
16:12
But what was the reaction that you would get from people when you told them what you did for a living?
16:18
Well, it's funny when I tell the story that I got to New York and I was auditioning and it was going okay.
16:23
I would get a jingle here, a jingle there, but I couldn't support myself.
16:30
And I am convinced I went home one Thanksgiving to my hometown.
16:33
I'm from Needham, Massachusetts, outside of Boston.
16:39
And I got literally got out of the car and my mother told me that she'd read that my high school music teacher had gotten this job.
16:47
And she said you got to get all dressed up and you got to go see him and he hasn't seen you since you left high school 4 years ago. You've been in college.
16:54
And I have to say it took a lot of guts for me to go and come see him again.
17:00
And I was, you know, he'd buy me lunch once a week cuz I wasn't eating, you know, the whole thing.
17:06
And [clears throat] I think when I look back, it was timing and and luck to a lot of extent.
17:13
Because would I ever have walked into Sesame Workshop and said, you know, do you need have a job for me? No.
17:22
I was convinced I was going to be a star.
17:24
It was just a matter of time singing.
17:28
And back then, I'm sure they still do this, you would audition and they would literally let you sing nine notes.
17:35
So, you go, "Oklahoma, where the wind goes." Thank you. Really? >> I am dead serious.
17:41
Anyone who auditioned in the That was it.
17:44
And you you were there and you had your music and everything.
17:48
So, the fact that I actually was able to get a job in music on a television series was just magic stuff.
17:56
And was the public's reception at the time So, you have this sort of confluence of factors and synchronicities that get you in the door.
18:06
You still have to prove your metal. >> Mhm. So, you get the job.
18:10
And [snorts] was it just the the bell of the ball at that point, Sesame Street, or was it still in in kind of growth mode?
18:19
So, some people knew it, but not all people.
18:21
Where where was the public awareness of Sesame Street when you joined?
18:26
Well, I think when I started, it was just really taking off, you know, literally.
18:30
And I don't think anyone recognized that it was As I said, they were weren't sure how it was going to go.
18:39
And something a lot of people don't know about Sesame Street is it was originally created to help every child learn their alphabet and their numbers because there was a disparity between kids who had came into kindergarten knowing their letters and their alphabet and the kids who came in not knowing and started behind before they even got started.
19:05
I don't think anyone really realized that this was going to have such a huge impact because kids then were going into school and singing the numbers song.
19:16
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 and all the alligators went to the alligator picnic.
19:20
Okay, you know, >> [laughter] >> that's this went on all day long.
19:23
So, the kids now there was more of an even playing field when the kids all hit kindergarten.
19:30
And that was people just didn't see it coming. And it was true. So, how did you go then?
19:39
What happened that led you from Sesame Street to all that followed?
19:42
The following Yes, exactly.
19:45
Well, among my other things that that happened is I was at Sesame Street and as soon as I started writing my Bert and the Broken Teapot book I just kept writing and writing and writing and writing.
19:57
And this is just on your own time or was it all >> started hiring me.
20:01
I wrote for Scholastic and I wrote for, you know, Houghton Mifflin and Random House and everybody.
20:07
How did you make those contacts?
20:09
I was working at Sesame Street and then I produced Big Bird in China.
20:12
I was part of the crew that went to China with Big Bird in China. 1982?
20:20
Something >> 1982, correct.
20:20
And then I was senior producer for 3-2-1 Contact, which was another whole story.
20:26
And then I just kept writing and writing and writing and writing and I ended up at Random House as their director of video.
20:37
This was back in the VHS days.
20:43
And once I was in there directing all the videos back in the day they used to just take the artwork for the book and move the camera around. It's called animatics.
20:55
And I produced all the music and all the voiceovers and all everything for that.
21:00
But now I'm in Random House.
21:00
So, I'm an author, proven author, and I happen to work there.
21:06
>> [laughter] >> So, in the hallway they'd say, you know, "Could you write a book about butterflies?"
21:10
And sure, when do you need it, you know.
21:13
>> [laughter] >> So, it was kind of a two-way thing.
21:14
I was working as a producer, a television producer.
21:21
I also in with 3-2-1 Contact, that's when I started writing songs.
21:26
Because 3-2-1 Contact was a science series and it would took more time for us to explain to other composers what we needed than just to write it in-house.
21:38
So, I wrote songs about electricity and mammals and, you know, anything [clears throat] you needed.
21:43
My favorite My favorite was the producers would come into my office and I'd It's like, "We need a song." I said, "Okay. Okay." "What's it about?" Never forget this.
21:52
And the guy producer looks at me and says, "The gestation period of different animals."
21:58
I said, "A singing for me already."
21:58
The gestation period So, I wrote a song called "I'm Waiting for My Baby." I'm waiting for my baby.
22:06
Feels like a long, long [singing] time.
22:09
And we just took stock footage of chimpanzee and an elephant and Chironed, that was back in the day we called it Chironing, the amount of time.
22:18
You know, elephant 2 years and whatever it was to have a baby.
22:23
Um and then at the end it was, "And baby, you were worth the wait." It all worked out.
22:30
>> [laughter] >> So, we made stuff up and of course happily for me I sang a lot of it. So, that was fun.
22:35
If we open the hood and look at the workings of making a song, Mhm. Yes.
22:41
what does that look like for you?
22:43
When they are successful, do they have common patterns where you start with something? Yes.
22:51
And then there's second there's something else and third there's something else.
22:54
What did that process end up looking like for you?
22:57
Well, the first thing I did and have done a lot of is perfect example, what's the science?
23:04
What are we trying to teach a child in this song?
23:06
And then I always make sure that I have a verse and then a what we call a B section.
23:15
So that the song goes somewhere and then comes back. Mhm.
23:17
That's always very very key.
23:20
So you decide on those two pieces first?
23:23
The first >> we trying to cord of wood? That's perfect example.
23:26
I wrote a whole song about >> example would be great. >> cord of wood.
23:29
I can only remember how it goes, but a cord of wood.
23:31
Well, if I you could find out how many how many toothpicks are there in a cord of wood?
23:37
You know, how [laughter] many you know, picnic tables can you make out of one cord of wood?
23:42
So you got to figure out what you're putting in for the science and how you're going to make it rhyme and you know, that kind of stuff.
23:49
It certainly helped me that I had been a singer so long that I was so used to singing rhyming lyrics.
23:55
One quick thing to share cuz very few people know this.
23:57
While I was at Sesame Street, the executive producer asked Joe Raposo.
24:04
Joe Raposo wrote the theme and he wrote all the big songs and he said, "I wonder how Kermit feels.
24:12
Have you ever thought of how Kermit feels living on this crazy street with all these nutty people?"
24:19
And Joe Raposo went home and wrote Being Green.
24:26
But the big thing about Being Green is all of us who write songs for kids have end rhyme.
24:32
Sunny days, sweeping the clouds away, on my way to where the sweet.
24:38
Can you tell you how to get how to get to Sesame Street?
24:40
Everything rhymes at the end, right? Mhm.
24:44
Being Green, there's not one rhyme.
24:44
It's not easy being green, having to spend each day the color of the leaves, when it would be nicer to be red or yellow or gold or something much more colorful like that. It's totally talking.
24:56
There's not a rhyme in it.
25:01
And he came into the office and sang it for the first time and people were thunderstruck.
25:07
And of course it became a mega hit.
25:10
So yeah, I just started writing songs about everything.
25:13
What possessed him to break the mold?
25:16
Had that been done before or was that something that struck him?
25:22
I'm wondering if you know the backstory It's funny.
25:27
>> I always felt that this is a long time memories of these things, but I sort of felt like maybe one of the writers kind of challenged him, you know?
25:38
There's only one other song any of us could find and it's Moonlight in Vermont.
25:41
Also doesn't rhyme at all.
25:45
But I don't know if someone said, "Yeah, why don't you write about how Kermit feels about living on this street and let's not have end rhymes." I don't know.
25:53
I don't know if anyone challenged him or he just went home and said I mean the man was a genius.
25:59
Whether he went home and just said, "You know, I have an idea.
26:00
I got nothing else to do this afternoon.
26:02
I'll try to write a song that doesn't rhyme." I don't [laughter] know.
26:06
But I'll say one thing that was really amazing is basically Joan Ganz Cooney told them all, you know, she had faith in them. Just do it. Just go.
26:19
So it was so free-flowing that people just made stuff up. I have a favorite song.
26:26
People always ask me my favorite song that I did not write.
26:28
It's called I Just Adore Four.
26:33
I just adore four, the number four me. I just adore four. It's Let's see.
26:37
Less than five, more than three.
26:43
>> [laughter] >> And the other thing is the lyrics were so grown up. Right? I mean that's hilarious.
26:50
But >> [laughter] >> but the kids, you know, just ate it up. They just understood it.
26:56
They understood what that meant.
26:58
So, it was wonderful because every day you went into work, you had no idea what who's going to come up with what today, but it was fun.
27:10
How many drafts or versions made the cut?
27:16
I'm I'm wondering in such a free-flowing creative environment where you're allowed to throw anything against the wall. >> Mhm. Yep.
27:23
And you're given permission and people say they believe in you.
27:28
My assumption would be that you come up with a lot of ideas and not all of them work. >> That's right.
27:34
>> So, I'm wondering how many versions you might come up with before you end up with one that makes it to air.
27:42
The real challenge on that show was the curriculum was king.
27:46
So, yeah, you could go off and you know, write a story about your lamp, but if it didn't, you know, whatever the curriculum of the day was, today it's seasons or cooperation or I don't know, whatever they were, that was true.
28:00
They had to get that by that that team. It was a whole team.
28:06
The other thing they did is a lot of focus groups.
28:07
They played stuff for kids and this was groundbreaking at the time.
28:12
They tell stories about how Oscar was originally orange and the kids didn't really like it.
28:19
Whatever it is, you know, they change stuff.
28:21
So, although it looked easy, there was a lot of background on what they could do and not do and that kind of stuff.
28:30
The focus groups, I mean, that does sound really innovative for the day, especially with kids, but I imagine if you're trying to sell shampoo and you've got Bob the adult in your focus group, you can be like, Bob, would you spend how How would you spend to buy Pert shampoo or whatever and Bob can give you an answer what types of reactions or feedback were they looking for? Well, it was great.
28:54
They wanted to know things like did the kids walk away understanding that Abcdefghi is a b c d e f a b c d e f g h i whatever because they always wanted to pay attention to the fact if they made it too sophisticated the kids would be lost. Mhm.
29:12
So they had to be it's a very fine line because by doing the double level humor like I just adore four genius Joe Bailey wrote that one that they didn't leave the kids lost cuz that's not the point.
29:25
The point was to teach them and get them ready for school. Curriculum. Curriculum. Oh boy.
29:34
There's a question that I could ask about songwriting but I could also ask it about book writing.
29:39
So could you explain how Dr.
29:43
Seuss enters the picture?
29:46
So as the years went by I kept as I said writing for everybody.
29:50
Never turned down never turned down a book offer.
29:54
Scholastic we need a book on butterflies in a week.
29:57
And I'll go okay a week you know it's like how long is it going to take me you know how much am I going to earn an hour whatever it was but wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote and in 1991 I always go by how old my kids were.
30:12
I guess they were like three and four.
30:16
I submitted a rhyming book to Random House. I was there.
30:19
I was the senior producer for home video.
30:21
I was singing on all their TV stuff and I was singing on VHS's for them.
30:29
Anyway I was right there and I sent in a manuscript for a book.
30:36
Morris Aurorus was a Brachiosaurus who had the best voice in the dinosaur chorus.
30:40
He liked to play tennis [clears throat] and swim in the sea, but mostly he liked to eat fresh broccoli.
30:46
>> [laughter] >> Okay, dokey.
30:47
And the end of that one was so his friends try to get him to eat something else and he said they've got his friends go broccoli's fine.
30:53
It's got color and crunch, but you eat it for breakfast and dinner and lunch.
31:00
So they talk him into eating something else and the last line is So one thing is true and you cannot deny it.
31:08
Like it or not, you won't know till you try it. Fine.
31:12
Type it up, walk down to the book department at Random House, hand it to the book department and hear nothing.
31:20
This is and I tell the kids this is before texting, voicemail, you know, we were you were still using payphones at this point.
31:28
And I hear hear hear a thing.
31:28
So I go, "Well, that didn't really work, but okay."
31:30
So I finally get my courage up and I call and I finally get somebody on the phone in that division and I say tell them who I am and that Oh, oh, she said, "We're supposed to call you."
31:41
I said, "Well, nobody called me.
31:43
I said I'm I'm sitting right here, but nobody called me." And she said, "Okay." I'll never forget it.
31:49
She said, "I have bad news and I have good news.
31:50
What would you like to hear first?"
31:54
And I said, "Well, I'll take the bad news."
31:56
And she said, "We cannot publish Morris the Moose Brachiosaurus because we are the rhyming home of Dr. Seuss." And okay, all right.
32:06
>> [clears throat] >> However, >> [laughter] >> she said, "How would you like to write a new series for Dr. Seuss?"
32:16
And I It took me I um sure, you know, you never say no.
32:20
Never turn down a freelance job and they literally handed me Dr. Seuss, not me, Dr.
32:26
Seuss wanted to write a series of books for kids about science in rhyme for early readers, 4 to 7-year-olds, and died before he could finish the first one.
32:40
So, they handed me a stack of research on mammals, a huge stack of research on birds.
32:47
They said, "We are so far behind with this cuz we've been trying to find someone who can write in his rhythm and his rhyme scheme."
32:56
And Morris Auroras Brachiosaurus was both, thank goodness.
33:01
And they said, "Can you have two books ready in four months?"
33:05
And [snorts] I carried all this stuff home and I went, "Well, I okay."
33:09
And I just started writing Is a Camel a Mammal?
33:12
and Fine Feathered Friends, and I never stopped after that.
33:17
What an incredible opportunity.
33:17
I mean, talk about just the right ingredients at the right time.
33:24
And my brain will not let it go unless I ask.
33:28
So, so with the the Morris Auroras still think I it sounds like a great book, but that couldn't fly because Dr.
33:37
Seuss basically had exclusivity on that nature of rhyming book.
33:42
>> For Random House, yes.
33:42
For Random House, for Random House.
33:44
>> he not only did he write exclusively for Random House, but he created the Beginner Book series, which other authors also wrote.
33:51
So, he was head of the whole thing. Mhm.
33:54
And one thing to share about him, which is and there are many authors that do this, but he was an author-illustrator.
34:06
And I'm clear to tell everybody I write the words, but I do not draw the pictures.
34:12
And I had heard I missed meeting him by one year. Huh.
34:17
They used to tell me that he would come in with a brand new book, of say Horton Hears a Who, and literally art directors and the editors at Random House did not have to do anything. They didn't fix it.
34:30
They didn't have to tell him fix the elephant.
34:32
They didn't have to do anything.
34:33
They were so perfect when he showed up with them.
34:38
So, that was just amazing that he could do both.
34:43
I actually never spoke to him, but I spoke to his widow, Audrey Geisel.
34:50
And she called me because and to this day, I can never forget it.
34:55
She called me and I felt like on the phone, I couldn't believe I was actually talking to her.
34:59
And she said, "Do you remember when years ago in the '50s they did the study where they had pregnant moms talk to their babies and sing to their babies?
35:10
And when the babies were born, they recognized and the dads, too, they recognized the voices and they waved their little hands and their eyes blinked and stuff.
35:17
And what they used on the study was they all read The Cat in the Hat."
35:24
The original Cat in the Hat book. So, here we are. It's 2008, I think.
35:29
Audrey Geisel called me and said, "Could I read all 41 of Ted Ted Geisel's Dr.
35:38
Seuss books and write a book with references to all of them?"
35:48
And she wanted it called Oh, the Places You'll Go! to be read in utero.
35:55
I'm sitting there going, "Okay. >> [laughter] >> Sure. La."
36:00
So, I went and read all of them.
36:00
Horton Hears a Who, If I Ran the Zoo, If I Ran the Circus, Yertle the Turtle, Thidwick the Moose. I read them all.
36:08
And I wrote Oh, the Places You'll Go! And turned it in.
36:12
And I love this story cuz by then my kids were in middle school, I think.
36:18
And I was going to pick them up from school and I had my car keys in my hand. My phone rang. It's Random House.
36:22
They said, "We are sending the files to the printer for Oh, the Places You'll Go.
36:30
We need a bio from you, really short, and it has to be funny.
36:33
And we need it right now.
36:37
>> [laughter] >> So, I just said, "I can You got to give me 2 minutes."
36:40
And I hung up the phone, never forget it.
36:41
And all of a sudden, I thought, "Oh, wow."
36:44
And I called them right back.
36:48
And I said, "Tish Rabe is a mom who thinks that it's cool to be home rhyming rhymes while her kids are at school." And they went bananas. They're like, "Done."
36:58
I said, >> [laughter] >> "Okay." Just make this stuff up. It's what I do all day.
37:03
I don't And Oh, the Places You'll Go is a best seller, flies off the shelf.
37:06
So, Oh, the Places You'll Go.
37:09
Oh, the Places You'll Go.
37:12
You know the other thing I just real quick about that, I I am very careful to say to everyone, you do not have to have kids to write for kids.
37:19
Many, many, many fabulous authors did not.
37:23
However, the last page of Oh, the Places You'll Go, some I don't even know who drew it cuz I don't think Ted drew it, but there's a little pregnant mom, Susie and little pregnant mom sitting there, you know.
37:37
And I had two kids, I have a son and a daughter, and at the end I wrote, "It's a scrumptiously world and it's ready to greet you.
37:45
And as for myself, well, I can't wait to meet you."
37:48
And I really have to say, I think if I'd never had kids, I don't know that I would have come up with that.
37:56
That's the last page in this best-selling book.
38:00
But, it just was flew off the shelves.
38:04
>> [laughter] >> Still does.
38:06
So, when you got that first assignment, here you go, pile of research cards, pile of research on fill in the blank.
38:16
Couple of questions related to that, so you can tackle whichever one you'd like to tackle.
38:20
So, one question is, how on earth do you pick what to include out of these many, many stacks because you have to be really selective.
38:27
The other question is what guardrails {slash} rules do they give you to keep you within the universe and tone and feel of Dr. Seuss?
38:43
Well, a couple of things.
38:43
The first thing about what to put in the book, they did the research for me for the first two books, but for all the many, many books I wrote after that, I did my own research.
38:57
And what I did that really saved me and surprises a lot of people is I went to the children's department in the local library and pulled everything they had on the topic.
39:09
Because already it's not in rhyme, fine, but it's already been simplified. Right?
39:16
So, I would get a spiral notebook for every book and write and write and write and write the facts about space, the facts about insects, of which I knew nothing, and we're going to get them all written down and then figure out if anything popped as a rhyming potential word.
39:35
One of my very proudest was when birds want to go on a winter vacation, they all take a trip and they call it migration.
39:45
>> [laughter] >> And [clears throat] because at one point I was writing down the birds migrate and migration and I thought, "Oh, vacation, you know, what?" So, that was one thing.
39:54
And as far as guardrails, there are two kinds of rhyming in children's books.
40:01
And migration and vacation is perfect Seussian rhyme.
40:07
Farm and barn is what they call a slant rhyme.
40:09
It's close, but it's not a pure rhyme. Dr.
40:14
Seuss insisted on two things.
40:14
The rhythm had to be perfect.
40:20
On the 15th of May in the jungle of Nool, Horton the elephant sat in the pool.
40:29
Doesn't vary, it never varies, and the end rhymes are pure. Right? Nool.
40:36
Something Ted did, and I did as well, is if he was in trouble for a rhyme, he made up a word.
40:45
>> [laughter] >> So, in the sleep book, one of my favorites is, "Have you met the Van of Vlex?" Or something like that.
40:48
"When they sleep, they yawn so wide you can see down their necks."
40:55
You know, so he made up the Vlex to make it So, in my book, Oh, the Pets You Can Get, Oh, the Pets You Can Get takes place in Grouplets, where they know quite a bit about caring for pets.
41:07
So, I made up Grouplets to >> [laughter] >> in homage to Ted because when you're in trouble, you make something. That's what he did.
41:14
It's a clever fix, and that became his trade mark, and one of his best things. >> was genius.
41:18
I mean, he just made this stuff up all the time.
41:21
So, those were the two things.
41:21
I had to get what the facts were for the books, keep it simple, make stuff that rhymes the kids and what what really works well about rhyme is there are kids that would not have ever known what the word migration meant.
41:37
But they loved the rhyme, and they remembered the rhyme.
41:41
So, it's a very very successful I mean, after that, every single one of my books rhymes because of that. Because it works.
41:52
It is their first exposure to a mnemonic device, right? >> Oh, yes. Yeah.
41:57
And, you know, I've done I mean, I think you would blow me out of the water.
42:01
I have so many questions about I have so many questions about how your mind works, but I did a bunch of cognitive testing recently with a pretty well vetted, studied battery of of different tests.
42:16
And I'm 48, but I aged 20.
42:16
Now, the only reason I aged 20 is because I have these mnemonic devices.
42:22
I've trained myself to be able to do it.
42:25
And rhyme is a fantastic in some ways instinctive example of that.
42:30
Have you always had a mind for rhyming, or is that a trained muscle? And also, your recall. Mhm.
42:36
I mean, good lord, you have this incredible recall.
42:42
Have you always been that way?
42:42
Are other people in your family like that?
42:44
I had a phenomenal English teacher in high school.
42:50
So, in high school for me, Needham High School, Needham, Massachusetts, not only did my music director end up getting me my first job in New York, but my Mr.
43:01
Allen, my English teacher, was phenomenal.
43:03
And what he used to have us do is write poems, sonnets, we wrote plays, we wrote, you know, and it helped me understand the format and also how to figure out end rhyme and limericks.
43:22
I have a book that is still not published.
43:24
I think I'm going to end up publishing it myself, but [clears throat] I sort of built on the Morrisaurus book, and I wrote a whole book for him, three actually, for Nickelodeon, that are in limerick rhyme.
43:38
>> [laughter] >> You know, have you met Morris?
43:38
He's an I changed him to an Oopsasaurus cuz he's kind of clumsy. Got a 12-foot tail.
43:42
But anyway, have you met Morris?
43:44
He's an Oopsasaurus, a dinosaur, if you can't guess.
43:50
But sometimes he bumps things, and sometimes he thumps things, and sometimes he makes a big mess.
43:56
So, the entire >> [laughter] >> the entire book's in limerick rhyme.
43:58
But yes, that [clears throat] that background, and I am sincere saying that I was really torn between majoring in English in college and being a writer or a singer.
44:12
I'm very happy I decided to be a singer cuz now I can do both.
44:16
>> [laughter] >> But yeah, crazy.
44:17
So, do you think the ability to construct rhyme came from that education and the practice in the English class or do you just have the equivalent of some type of perfect pitch for rhyming >> rhyming out of the box? What do you think?
44:35
>> I will tell you this is funny because when I first started, my husband bought me a computer program that was called a million gazillion rhymes. Seriously.
44:41
And I would sit there all day long and type the word in.
44:48
What rhymes with antenna?
44:50
>> [laughter] >> You know, anything? Hello?
44:53
Then after over the years, I have gotten to the point where now I just know what they rhyme.
44:57
But speaking of mnemonics, I think you'll get a kick out of this.
45:01
This is the page in my best-selling solar system book, Dr. Seuss, right? >> Mhm.
45:08
All about our solar system. >> our solar system.
45:09
So, things you going find and I write this mnemonic.
45:14
You've seen all the planets.
45:14
Now here is a trick to remember their names and remember them quick.
45:19
And I write the whole thing.
45:22
Mallory, Valerie, Emily meets us just served up 999 pizzas. So, so far so good.
45:30
Except pizza stood for Pluto.
45:35
And >> [laughter] >> So, I get a call from Random House. Pluto has been demoted.
45:41
>> [laughter] >> And I'm like, what? I'm on the phone.
45:44
And they said, can you fix this?
45:44
But we can't get the illustrator to change the art.
45:51
So, Emily here, Valerie remember what are their name?
45:54
Mallory, Valerie, Emily meets us was holding pizzas. So, I'm like, okay.
45:59
So, I changed it to Malory, Valerie, Emily Mickels just showed us 999 nickels.
46:11
And all the art All the art guy had to [laughter] do was change the pizza boxes to nickels. Saved. But I'm like, what? What do you mean Pluto? Give me a break.
46:22
I mean seriously, we went from nine planets to eight.
46:25
I'm not I'm not prepared for this.
46:29
>> [laughter] >> So this kind of stuff goes on all day.
46:32
This is what I do for a living, but it is fun.
46:33
I mean you have to keep your sense of humor.
46:36
I'm going to move on to asking you more about the craft, but if you don't mind me asking, what is your age at present? At the moment I am 74.
46:45
I'll be 75 in July and I started my own company when I turned 71.
46:51
71 and we're we're definitely going to talk all about that.
46:55
>> [laughter] >> Do you have siblings?
46:57
Like everyone in your family is razor sharp as you are?
47:00
I mean that's a hard question.
47:02
I don't want to throw your siblings under the bus, but >> [laughter] >> I'm so curious to what you attribute being I mean you're sharper than 99% of my friends who are my age younger. Yeah.
47:13
And I'm wondering to what you attribute that.
47:17
My parents got married when as World War was starting.
47:24
And when my father came home, he was a prisoner of war, they wanted to start a family and they had two little boys and a little girl and the little girl was me.
47:33
And my father used to come home and play piano for about a half hour after work, but I do not come from a musical family at all.
47:41
My mom was an English major, so she loved to write, so she was a writer.
47:46
But music was not a thing in our family.
47:48
My brothers didn't play much and it was fine. They played sports.
47:52
Well, supposedly when I was seven, I was in first grade, my father was playing the song he played every single night.
47:58
It was my mother's favorite.
48:00
And I just stood up and started singing with him.
48:02
And they still talk about it.
48:05
It was a song called Tammy from Tammy and the Bachelor movie. My mother loved it.
48:10
I hear the cottonwood whispering above.
48:13
Tammy, Tammy, Tammy's my love.
48:17
And the whole My brothers were doing their homework, they stopped.
48:19
My mother was doing something in the kitchen, she stopped.
48:23
My father stopped every >> [laughter] >> I don't even know what just happened.
48:27
And I was just encouraged from day one to pursue music and writing and so it was a very receptive and I'll be honest, when I went to college, I told my mother I'm going to get a degree in singing.
48:41
Well, now you'd say, well, what are you going to do to eat? You know, that's nice.
48:45
But if you don't make it on Broadway, right?
48:47
What are you going to do?
48:49
I was the only one in my class, Ithaca College, class of '72, that did not take an education backup.
48:58
I didn't want to teach music.
48:58
I didn't want to teach kids do re mi fa so la ti do.
49:02
I wanted to be a star on Broadway.
49:04
It's just like, are people missing this?
49:07
You know, what part of this are you guys missing?
49:09
So, I literally was convinced I would leave college and come to New York and within a year name in lights, piece of cake.
49:21
>> [laughter] >> And only anybody as nuts as I am would think that, but hey.
49:25
And you know, my parents never blinked.
49:27
They they said, "Sure, if you think this is going to work, good luck."
49:32
>> [laughter] >> So, it just has always been a part of my life.
49:37
The music I think more and more, I mean, I wanted to be a neuroscientist way back in the day and was a major in the department and the whole nine yards.
49:46
Things ended up taking a turn and I ended up where I am now, but I'm still very involved with science and the more I look at music, the more I talk to musicologists who are in dialogue with neuroscientists, the more important and/or therapeutic life-giving music seems to be. It is.
50:07
It's impossible to say you pull this one lever and you get X, Y, or Z result, but it seems to be a commonality that musicians or people who engage with music regularly just retain their faculties and hone their faculties a lot longer than people who don't.
50:25
That's just my impression.
50:27
Well, the other thing that's huge is that music is unbelievably helpful to teach kids.
50:32
And the sound of it and the rhythm of it and the rhymes, every single one of the books I've created myself has a song in it.
50:42
And what I do is I write them to public domain melodies because people know these songs, most of them.
50:51
The first book I created was a little book about going to sleep.
50:55
So, I wrote a lullaby Now it is here, today's done, it's time to sleep my little one.
51:00
To the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. So smart. So smart.
51:07
>> really works, and I really encourage everybody, I get this all the time.
51:11
Everybody's always Yeah, but you got this beautiful voice and you sing all the time and I can't sing and what and I just try to say to everybody, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart, you can sing.
51:22
Just it doesn't mean if it's croaky, it doesn't matter what it sounds like.
51:25
The only voice your child wants to hear is yours.
51:31
They want to hear you sing to them.
51:31
Yes, I have me singing them on my website and I try to help everybody learn to sing them and what, but at the end of the day, it's your voice resonating in their ear.
51:43
I forget how I said it in here, but it's like that is the voice that every little kid wants to hear.
51:50
The sound of your voice when you read and sing is what your child loves more than anything.
51:57
This is Sweet Dreams here.
51:59
What made Sweet Dreams work?
52:01
Right, what makes it work?
52:01
And maybe even more broadly, what makes lullabies work?
52:06
What are the other ingredients?
52:09
You mentioned the mapping to a public domain melody is really smart.
52:15
I mean, that makes so much sense at a lot of levels.
52:16
What else makes that book work?
52:20
I started my own company right during COVID, 2020, right?
52:23
COVID's flying around and what am I going to do and I, you know, turn 70, what now what?
52:27
And I was introduced to a program with friend of mine said, "You have to meet the people at Pajama Program."
52:39
It's now called Beyond Bedtime, but then it was called Pajama Program.
52:41
So, I went in and I found out that they give free pajamas and storybooks to kids facing difficult adversity. Hm.
52:49
Many kids don't not having any pajamas, any storybooks.
52:55
So, I kind of went in to meet with them thinking, well, maybe I could do a fundraiser or get my girlfriends to, you know, send in some pajamas or something.
53:03
And they said, "What we really need is to help parents learn how to get their kids to go to sleep."
53:10
And I said, "The best thing that works for this is to write a storybook they'll read to their kids and then put the tips in the back and they'll read them, too."
53:23
And then I put them all in rhyme.
53:26
So, 30 to 60 minutes before you tuck them in is the perfect time for their bedtime routine to begin.
53:33
And what's happening is parents read the book and they read the tips out loud to the kids.
53:38
So, the kids are going, "Oh, 30 to 60 minutes.
53:40
Mom, [laughter] you know, we're supposed to be in bed now.
53:45
And then of course you sing a lullaby cuz singing is so restful.
53:51
And the kids and now it's been out for a couple years, everybody knows the songs.
53:55
The kids know it, you know, the kids in school, they sing it in school, daycare.
54:00
So, it's very, very powerful.
54:04
I want to come to starting your company and the reasons behind that.
54:08
Why did you start a company at 70? >> yeah.
54:12
[laughter] And there's nothing wrong with that.
54:13
I just want to know what the reasons were behind that. Well, it's funny.
54:16
I ended up marrying a guy I met in high school.
54:20
That high school it was shaped my whole life then.
54:23
>> [laughter] >> Produced so many crown jewels, yeah.
54:23
So many jewels and my husband and I live in Mystic, Connecticut and he's an avid fisherman.
54:32
So, during the fishing season he fishes three to four days a week.
54:37
So, I'm sitting there going, well, then what am I going to do? You know, let's think.
54:41
And I really felt that I had some ideas for books that the other publishers weren't doing.
54:48
One book I'm very proud of is called Love You, Hug You, Read to You.
54:51
It's my very first book and it's a board book and I had begged all these publishers I work with to do a book with what they call dialogic reading.
55:03
And dialogic reading has little questions.
55:07
So, you got the adorable mama cat reading to her little kittens and the little thing below says, "What do you think the little kittens are thinking?"
55:16
And that helps the child go, "I think they just love that their mom's reading to them."
55:20
And it sets up a dialogue.
55:23
That's why dialogic reading.
55:25
I couldn't get anyone to let me write a book for them.
55:28
So, I finally said, "Well, then I'll just do it myself."
55:31
So, what I'm doing now with my books is I have the ability to do what I want to do and the message is I feel never got out there.
55:40
It has been a huge learning curve or spike because I always just turned the words in and somebody magically a year and a half later sent me 10 copies of the book.
55:51
[laughter] Now I've got to find an illustrator and a you know, printer and a shipment thing and be on Amazon and sell books on my website and I you know, but I absolutely love every minute of it. It is so much fun.
56:09
This is going to be I suppose maybe off topic.
56:12
My listeners going to be like, why do you why are you asking about fishing?
56:15
What does your husband love so much about fishing?
56:16
I went on my first wilderness like outdoor survival training trip in Montana specifically and the guide brought along something called Tenkara rods which are these very simple rods with a Japanese design.
56:32
They are simplicity itself and we would just stop at random holes and give it a shot and I found it so therapeutic, but it was my first real enjoyment of fishing.
56:46
I was wondering what what your husband gets out of it.
56:48
We have four children and two live in Boston and two were living in Manhattan.
56:54
So we sort of picked Mystic, Connecticut cuz it's kind of in the middle and it is the best fishing in New England, right?
57:00
Cuz we are right on the ocean.
57:04
And right next to Rhode Island and Block Island and all of that stuff right around.
57:08
And he goes out and they have the best time and they catch sea bass and all these different kind of fish and it's out in the water, beautiful ocean.
57:20
He's got a 24-foot boat, you know, the whole thing.
57:22
And he brings back fish and people we give it away and he cooks it and it's just really fun. Love [clears throat] it.
57:29
>> But he literally leaves at 7:00 in the morning, gets home at 4:00.
57:32
>> [laughter] >> So, you know, I was like, well, I better do something or I'm going to go nuts.
57:37
And I tell you there is nothing like giving a book to a child who doesn't have a book.
57:44
I am on this lifetime mission of trying to get free books to kids who don't have any and I have to say having started at Sesame Street when that idea was to lift everybody up and help everybody and teach everybody how to read, it's an amazing to me we're here at 2026.
58:02
But I'm doing what I can to make sure kids get books, many as possible. Read, read, read.
58:10
Well, let's talk about Alaska and Yes.
58:14
sometimes a part always in my heart.
58:17
What is the context of what I just mentioned, Key? Tell the story.
58:22
The genesis of this book is interesting.
58:24
As I think I told you, I am the child of a World War II hero. Mhm.
58:29
My dad was in college when he enlisted and he was in engineering. He's an engineer.
58:37
So, they made him a navigator and a navigator in a B-17.
58:44
Sits in the front with the pilot and shows them the maps and stuff like that.
58:48
>> [snorts] >> And his plane was hit by enemy fire, burst into flames, he jumped out and was arrested and spent a little under 2 years in a German prison camp.
59:00
That's when he came home and they had my brothers and they had me.
59:02
Two boys and a little girl, little girl was me.
59:07
And all through the years writing children's books, I had wanted to write a book for military kids and military families in honor of my father, but also cuz I felt no one understands this life.
59:21
No one understands the sacrifices they go through.
59:24
And I'm the grandmother of two little girls who are five and three and I just got thinking about what it means to my granddaughter when my son is away on business for two days.
59:36
And the military kids see their parents, their moms, and their dads go for a year. And I tried everything.
59:40
I tried Department of Defense, Department of Education, the naval bases.
59:46
I'm like, "Oh, can somebody help me do this, you know?"
59:51
Fast forward, I'm starting my own company and I got clearance to go on the base at the Groton naval base, which is right next to Mystic, Connecticut.
1:00:02
I went into their library.
1:00:02
I got permission to go into their library.
1:00:03
I read every single book for military children in the library.
1:00:10
And didn't see anything that was helpful for this topic.
1:00:14
And I was literally leaving and the librarian said, "What are you here for?"
1:00:19
And I said, "I want to write a book for military kids." And she said, "Oh."
1:00:21
And she She smiled at me and she said, "You just need to reach out to United Through Reading."
1:00:30
And I looked at her and said, "United Through Reading? Okay."
1:00:32
United Through Reading records deployed service members reading books to their kids.
1:00:38
Hold it up, read the book.
1:00:42
Then they send the video recording home to the child with a free copy of the book so that they can all read together.
1:00:50
And when I heard this story, I said, "Well, what I want to do is write a book from the point of view."
1:00:58
It's lovely that they're reading Cat in the Hat and There's No Place Like Space and that's all nice, but I want them to have a book that reflects their story. This is where I am.
1:01:08
I miss you, but I'm fine. You know, you're fine. I'm fine. It's fine.
1:01:15
And the first thing I did was I interviewed service members, spouses, partners, and kids. It took me months.
1:01:23
I have notebooks full of this stuff about what it's like to walk away from your 3-year-old and hope you'll be back to see her someday to serve our country and keep us safe.
1:01:38
And I got inspired to write the book.
1:01:41
The people I interviewed gave me tips to put in the book for young families facing this for the first time.
1:01:46
And one of my favorites was my early interview, she said, "When my husband leaves, he traces his hand on paper and I put it up next to the door so the kids can give him a high five every time they leave." I mean, really.
1:02:05
>> [laughter] >> So, Sometimes a Part Always in My Heart helping military families send love from far away.
1:02:10
I was honored to write it.
1:02:12
I've received a lot of big awards for it.
1:02:15
It's really a passion project for me because I cannot imagine my son walking away from my granddaughters for a year, but it happens every day.
1:02:28
And then the funny thing about Alaska, this is really fun. Here's Alaska.
1:02:31
So, Alaska [snorts] is this is a little stuffed dog.
1:02:35
>> He's a little stuffed dog and I went to buy my granddaughter a little present and he literally fell in my bag.
1:02:45
And I'm looking at him going, "He's awful cute."
1:02:46
And then I thought, "Wow, I was right in the middle of writing Sometimes a Part Always in My Heart."
1:02:54
And a lot of service members have to leave their pets.
1:02:57
It's horrible because they get relocated and sometimes can't take them with them.
1:03:04
So, I said to myself, "Okay, I'm going to have the bear family have a dog."
1:03:08
There he is, right there.
1:03:10
And have him adopted from a shelter.
1:03:15
And then I thought, "Well, a lot of there's a lot of training in Alaska.
1:03:21
And I Googled one thing, all of you, if you ever want to create a character, first thing to do is Google the name.
1:03:28
Because in for me, if I find out that I was going to name him, you know, Tony, and I put in Tony the dog and there already is one, I would name him something else.
1:03:37
It's just not worth the hassle.
1:03:41
And I put in Alaska and the only thing that came up was Alaskan huskies. But not the name Alaska. So I named him Alaska.
1:03:49
But the cool thing was I sent one of these little dogs to my art director and my illustrator.
1:03:57
And from the first minute she was able to put him in the book the way he really looks.
1:04:04
And one of the things that happens to service members, that's him getting adopted from the shelter.
1:04:09
One of the things that happens to service members is they miss They all said to me that with the hardest thing is missing their families and missing the day-to-day little stuff.
1:04:22
So in the bear family, Daddy Bear's on a location and they adopt Alaska while he's gone.
1:04:29
So in the >> [laughter] >> the last page of the book is Alaska jumping on him because they just met.
1:04:34
This is like >> [laughter] >> And I also wanted to have this little dog so the kids reading the book and they also have a little soft guy to go with us.
1:04:45
He's on my website, right Alaska? Yes.
1:04:49
>> [laughter] >> So really inspired to write that one.
1:04:53
Is the best place for people to find the book [snorts] and Alaska at tishrabybooks. com?
1:04:55
Where would you suggest they find the book?
1:05:01
>> Yes, the book and Alaska are on tishrabybooks. com.
1:05:04
We have e-commerce all set up and you just ready to go home, right with anybody?
1:05:09
>> [laughter] >> Um that was another fun thing.
1:05:10
Who'd ever made a plush dog before?
1:05:12
You know, and the nice thing was the only thing they had to do was put his little bandana on. Mhm.
1:05:18
Cuz this is the real dog I found, but all he just had to just says Alaska and the name of the book.
1:05:25
They didn't have to build a whole new dog. It was adapt.
1:05:27
The spelling folks, I'll just remind you. Robbie is r a b e.
1:05:34
So, t i s h r a b e books. com.
1:05:34
What else can people find on your website?
1:05:38
What else will people find there?
1:05:41
There's a lot going on on my website.
1:05:45
I have a lot of books in development.
1:05:49
One of I just started my company.
1:05:50
This is always makes me laugh.
1:05:54
This one is called Days Can Be Sunny for Bunnies and Money.
1:05:58
I [laughter] had I got a call from a bank in Ohio.
1:06:00
They wanted something for kids because financial literacy is a huge thing.
1:06:04
You know, you got to start young.
1:06:08
So, I came up with these three bunny and they're triplets.
1:06:11
And Honey Fern likes to earn, Sunny Dave likes to save, and Funny Ben likes to spend.
1:06:21
So, [laughter] anyways, the thing goes on and at the end they also give some of their eggs to the library.
1:06:28
And this is them giving the eggs [clears throat] to the library.
1:06:29
So, I love doing content-based books.
1:06:34
Something that's going to teach somebody about something.
1:06:38
And I've got a big new book coming out in a month that's actually all about Central Park, New York. Oh, no kidding. Fun.
1:06:46
It's a rhyming storybook.
1:06:46
Central Park, you can see is the best place to be. It's coming out.
1:06:52
>> [laughter] >> How did that come about? >> Well, it was funny.
1:06:54
We moved here to Mystic and I've never had this exactly happened before, but I joined the Mystic Chamber of Commerce. Mhm.
1:07:02
Because I thought, well, I'm running this tiny company by myself, maybe there are other people who are running small companies who could help me with advice or something.
1:07:11
So, I go to this coffee shop to meet their head of membership, so the Mystic Chamber of Commerce head of membership.
1:07:18
And honestly, I think she's going to want me to put something about me on her website or something.
1:07:25
And she literally looks at me and says, "We have a huge anniversary coming up.
1:07:33
Would you write a children's book about our town?"
1:07:37
And I remember looking at her going, well, it was February 8th.
1:07:40
And I'll never forget it.
1:07:40
And I said, "Well, sure."
1:07:42
I said, "When do you need it by?"
1:07:44
And she looks at me, she goes, "July?"
1:07:48
>> [laughter] >> I remember looking at her going, "Uh, sure. What do you need it?" Anyway, here it is.
1:07:53
Mystic by the Sea is the best place to be. Uh-huh.
1:07:55
But the thing that was amazing, and this never happened to me before, we're in a coffee shop at Mystic Seaport.
1:08:01
I'm looking right at her, beautiful, beautiful young woman, right?
1:08:04
And she says, "Can you get it done that fast?"
1:08:07
And I thought, I And all of a sudden, I saw four seagulls fly over her head.
1:08:18
Right in the middle of a coffee shop.
1:08:19
Obviously, they weren't real seagulls, but in my head, I saw four seagulls.
1:08:24
And I got to my car and I said, "I've got it."
1:08:29
It's a family of seagulls who fly all over Mystic looking at the seaport, the aquarium, the boats.
1:08:37
And I wrote the whole thing in like 2 days. This is downtown Mystic.
1:08:44
>> [laughter] >> So, you know, who knows where these ideas come from?
1:08:48
I don't know, but but that was the first time I ever had a complete hallucination in a coffee shop.
1:08:53
>> [laughter] >> Was Central Park something that you wanted to do, or did that come to you a different way?
1:08:58
I work with a friend of mine whose name is Jennifer Perry and she was the vice president and publisher of Sesame Street books for a long time and as soon as I started Tish Rabe books she came on as my executive editor.
1:09:13
But interesting thing about her, she is a trained greeter greeter g r e e t e r greeter at Central Park in New York.
1:09:22
And she came to me and she said every single family comes in with the kids in the stroller and the da da da da da da da da da da da da and the first thing they ask is what should I show my kids?
1:09:32
Where should I take my children? Right?
1:09:34
She said they need a book.
1:09:37
They need a rhyming children's book and I was kind of like okay.
1:09:40
So literally Central Park is 843 acres of open land and lakes and waterfalls and what How to get that into 24 pages?
1:09:52
>> [laughter] >> I was like sure I got it. I got it.
1:09:56
It's taken a bit for us to get that done but it's coming out in a month and a half. So yeah. >> Exciting. Very exciting.
1:10:04
>> And I'm working on a big campaign which is going very well to get people to help me fund free copies of the Central Park book to kids in underserved neighborhoods in the five boroughs Manhattan, the Bronx, Staten Island, Queens and Brooklyn.
1:10:23
And again when I met your friend Alan from this group in New York, this influencers group I met a young woman who said I'll help you do this.
1:10:32
It's on the landing page of my website and we are absolutely crowdfunding enough money to give a book to every first grader in the underserved communities of the five boroughs of New York. Very exciting.
1:10:47
>> [laughter] >> I love that.
1:10:48
I may have a group that could be also maybe of interest or could be interested in the book itself but donorschoose.
1:10:54
org which I was involved with and does I suppose still am but was involved with for ages.
1:11:00
In any case, we'll link to the website and link the crowdfunding separately for people who'd like to contribute to that.
1:11:09
Is you mentioned 24 pages, is that the canonical length?
1:11:14
That's probably not the right modifier, but is that the default length of most children's books?
1:11:21
They're kind of all over the place. The Dr.
1:11:23
Seuss books are 42 pages. >> Mhm.
1:11:27
And what's happening is hopefully, we hope, hope hope hope, is that parents read to their kids when they're going to sleep or you know, they're home from school.
1:11:40
And it's kind of tricky cuz if they're too long, it gets too much.
1:11:47
So starting my own company, I thought, well, let me start with 24 pages.
1:11:48
The interesting thing also to share, we do other languages.
1:11:55
Here's Sweet Dreams in Spanish. Mhm.
1:11:59
And also pace of you know, not a million words on a page. Kids love to turn pages.
1:12:07
There's a whole kind of part of this that's just how it works.
1:12:09
Adults like to turn pages, too. >> Exactly. Exactly.
1:12:13
[laughter] They're going to We going to turn We going to see more artwork here or what?
1:12:18
>> [snorts] >> The other thing I urge people who want to write a children's book is to really think about the illustrator.
1:12:25
I had worked with Jill Guile in London on a number of books.
1:12:27
We did the Puff and Puff Train books.
1:12:30
And I knew for this book, which is all about reading and snuggling and going to sleep, that she was the perfect illustrator.
1:12:41
And a book like Bunnies and Money, it's supposed to be funny.
1:12:43
It's this wacky group of kids.
1:12:45
This is another kind of artwork.
1:12:50
So it really depends on what your message is and what your style is of who you pick.
1:12:56
If you're stuck on a book, if that ever happens, but let's just say something's not working.
1:13:03
What's your your go-to move?
1:13:03
Do you change the idea, the meter, the sentence?
1:13:09
How do you start to get unstuck if something isn't working?
1:13:12
I did a presentation to a group of writers called girls write w r i t e now.
1:13:22
And I had young women in my in the room with me, and then we had Zoom calls on across country.
1:13:30
It was the first time anyone has asked me if I get writer's block.
1:13:35
No one has ever asked me that.
1:13:35
This was a couple months ago.
1:13:39
And I remember thinking, yes, I do.
1:13:43
And what I do is if I get hired to write a book, and I still write for other people, I just finished another book for HarperCollins.
1:13:50
If they say we have to have your first draft by April 1st. Okay, April 1st.
1:13:59
I write in it's to February 15th.
1:14:02
Because I know there's going to be a day when I cannot do this. I can't figure it out. It's not going anywhere. I'm stuck.
1:14:11
So, when that happens, I stop.
1:14:14
If I just say I cannot think one more minute about what funny Ben spent his money on.
1:14:21
For [laughter] instance, just a for instance.
1:14:22
I will let it go, work on something else, you know, work on another book, do something. Because you it is true.
1:14:30
You you get circled in, like a soft dissolve in.
1:14:37
You're just so consumed by it.
1:14:37
This is a great example of that. This is interesting.
1:14:42
This is the one that I wrote all about the things you can do that are good for you. Mhm.
1:14:47
And this was the only time that I got this assignment.
1:14:53
And honestly, Tim, I thought that is the most boring idea I have ever [laughter] heard.
1:14:59
They wanted a book The American Academy of Pediatrics wanted a book about go to sleep, eat healthy, exercise. And I thought I can't. This is Oh my god.
1:15:12
First of all, you cannot write this stuff without sounding preachy.
1:15:14
Do this, do that, do this, do that. I know.
1:15:19
So, I call I got my courage up and I called Random House and I said, "How would you feel if I created my own Dr. Seuss characters?
1:15:28
Like Zing Zing Zing Zans who loves washing her hands, right?
1:15:33
And my editor at Random House said, "We cannot call Mrs.
1:15:35
Geisel and say that you, mother of two living in Connecticut, are going to start writing Dr. Seuss characters?
1:15:44
All you can do is write the whole book, 42 pages, all rhyming.
1:15:49
And we'll submit it to her.
1:15:49
And if she turns it down, you got to start over." And I know, "Oh, great. Okay."
1:15:56
So, I write the whole book. Here's one.
1:15:58
Here's the Zing Zing Zing Zans who loves washing her hands.
1:16:02
Washily washily washily wish, squishily squashily squashily squish.
1:16:04
Wash your hands carefully, it's up to you.
1:16:06
Use soap and warm water, it's easy to do.
1:16:10
Rinse them and while we all sing this refrain, germs from your hands will slide right down the drain. So, for sure, fine. Okay. So, I turn this in.
1:16:22
I turn [laughter and clears throat] this in and I go, "Oh, boy."
1:16:22
I tell my husband, "I got no B Plan B does not exist."
1:16:26
I had this Sneezle Sneaker Sneeze who loves brushing her teeth. Anyway, they loved it. Thank you, Mrs. Geisel. And they put it out.
1:16:33
And Michelle Obama funded 16 additional pages with exercises and all kinds of stuff she loves.
1:16:44
But that was a perfect example of what am I going to do?
1:16:46
I said [laughter] this is so boring.
1:16:50
And it turned out to be a huge bestseller, but it is funny.
1:16:52
We're going to land the plane in just a few minutes.
1:16:56
This has been so fun, but I wanted to also ask you 1982 Big Bird in China. What was that like?
1:17:01
That was really an extraordinary situation.
1:17:03
We were the first crew allowed into China, the first film crew.
1:17:10
A couple news guys have been in, but it was the first time anybody walked into China with a 6-ft yellow bird among other things, [laughter] right?
1:17:17
So somehow we got permission to shoot this thing and we walked in and they shipped one one Big Bird costume.
1:17:30
And I was production manager I don't know what I was, associate producer at that point I guess, and they literally said to us you cannot shoot this bird in the rain.
1:17:39
They're hand-painted, they're hand-dyed feathers.
1:17:41
If it starts to rain, you've got to pull Caroll out, Caroll Spinney out of it and you've got to get put it somewhere dry.
1:17:50
So I thought I really knew what I was doing.
1:17:51
I scheduled 13 rain days.
1:17:51
We were there a month in China.
1:17:57
It poured the first 13 days. I mean poured.
1:17:59
I mean not just little you know little rain, you know, you put So we would literally push him out and have him do one line.
1:18:07
>> [laughter] >> I don't know, should we go this way or that way?
1:18:09
Oh, pull him back in and you know, change him and whatever.
1:18:13
>> [laughter] >> It was nuts. So okay.
1:18:16
But it did win the Emmy for best special for NBC and it was a 90-minute special.
1:18:22
That was another thing that was crazy. That is long.
1:18:25
>> god, we got back with all this footage.
1:18:27
First thing NBC said, you know, maybe it should just be an hour.
1:18:29
And we're all looking at each other cuz it had a really complicated plot.
1:18:33
He was looking to find the Phoenix and then he finds Phoenix.
1:18:37
How do you cut the middle out?
1:18:39
You know, you know So anyway, but so we did did did here is is 90 minutes.
1:18:42
But for us it was just crazy.
1:18:45
I mean, absolute what could everything that possibly could have gone wrong went wrong.
1:18:50
But we came home with it somehow, but it was really something.
1:18:54
>> [laughter] >> How long were you there in total? We were there a month.
1:18:56
And then there's no coffee.
1:18:58
That's you can't have a film crew with no coffee. You just can't.
1:19:00
So the first day everyone's looking at me going, "Where's the coffee?" I'm like, "Coffee? We're in China." I mean, no, tea. It's tea. You don't have coffee. They didn't want tea. They wanted coffee.
1:19:10
I said, "Well, you guys are going to have to get it together cuz this is not going to happen."
1:19:15
>> [laughter] >> Oh, man. 1982 >> 1982. Wow.
1:19:21
>> And I sing a song on that one.
1:19:21
I sang the Monkey King song on that show, but anyway, but it was crazy. >> Crazy. What an experience. What an experience.
1:19:30
>> quick is there was a 5-year-old little girl from China.
1:19:31
And she has the lead, right?
1:19:34
And she and Big Bird travel around.
1:19:37
She spoke no English, zero.
1:19:37
She didn't even know how to say hello, right?
1:19:40
They taught this to this little girl by rote, right?
1:19:45
So she finally understood what I love you meant, finally, by the like the last day of shoot whatever.
1:19:51
But we would send them scripts, right?
1:19:53
And then we would change the scripts.
1:19:56
But then we met her and she'd memorize the original ones.
1:20:00
So you'd be out in this shooting outdoors and all of a sudden she'd say, "I don't know, Big Bird. Let's find out." And we go, "We cut that.
1:20:05
Didn't we cut that like a year ago?"
1:20:09
>> [laughter] >> Wait a minute. Wait a minute. It was crazy.
1:20:11
And we shot at the Great Wall of China at 4:00 in the morning and we anyway.
1:20:17
But that's another whole story, but >> What a wild experience.
1:20:19
I was I was in China at two universities in 1996, I guess it was.
1:20:27
And it is just a different experience entirely. now. I can only imagine 1982.
1:20:33
Well, the interesting thing for us was yes, there's a billion people, but back then they were all walking everywhere in bicycles.
1:20:41
Now, of course, it's cars. Yeah, it's changed.
1:20:44
But just the sheer volume of people was just amazing. Mind-boggling, yeah.
1:20:50
I got there at the tail end of the bicycles. Yep.
1:20:52
So, I got to see people in big big green jackets. It gets cold. >> Oh, yeah.
1:20:58
Depending on where you are, it can get really chilly. What a wild experience.
1:21:01
Tish, let me ask you a question.
1:21:04
This is a metaphorical question, but it's a question I like to ask guests.
1:21:09
And that is if you could put a message, could be lyrics, could be a line, a quote, a mantra, anything at all on a huge billboard for lots of people or lots of kids to see, does anything come to mind that you might put on that billboard?
1:21:23
Well, I would say right now, I would say remember the children are our most precious gift. Mhm.
1:21:36
I get concerned about the way the world is going, and I just want everybody to remember that they are the most precious part of our world.
1:21:46
Cuz they are the future, they are the dreams of the future, and we must take good care of them. Mhm.
1:21:52
And read [snorts] read read. Read read read. Read read read.
1:21:57
[laughter] And I hope you keep writing writing writing as well.
1:22:01
That is the plan, I have to say. That is the plan.
1:22:03
Tish, is there anything else you'd like to mention, any closing comments, anything at all you'd like to cover, point people to?
1:22:12
Well, one thing I would like to say, I have another big book coming out.
1:22:14
It's called Kindness is Caring, Friendship is Sharing, and it is written with International Rotary Clubs.
1:22:21
Rotary Clubs are all across the country, all around the world.
1:22:27
And it comes out in 3 weeks, and it's a gentle story.
1:22:30
It takes place in Africa, a little zebra, and it's about just that, friendship, caring, sharing, and making the world a kinder place.
1:22:41
And I think the world has never needed it more.
1:22:43
And I'm very proud of it, and it'll be out in 3 weeks.
1:22:46
I just think we all have to be kind to each other, and I'm doing the best I can to make that happen. We do.
1:22:55
Rotary Club, amazing, amazing organization, also. >> Yes.
1:22:59
Um have some very, very old friends who I met >> Yeah.
1:23:03
who came through Rotary Club.
1:23:05
>> other thing, too, that's fun about it is it's a book for kids, right?
1:23:07
But when young parents read it, we're hoping that they see learn about Rotary and say, "Well, let me find a Rotary in my community."
1:23:17
So, we can get some new members and keep going. So, we'll see. I love it. I love it.
1:23:22
Tish, you're such a joy to spend time with. [laughter] Thank you. >> It was fun.
1:23:27
Thank you so much, and everybody listening, we will link to all things in the show notes, but do not miss going to tishrabibooks. com.
1:23:39
That's t i s h r a b e books. com.
1:23:42
Contribute to the crowdfunding, and buy a few books while you're at it.
1:23:48
And we'll link to all of your social media and so on, but people, definitely check out tishrabibooks. com.
1:23:53
We'll link to other things that have come up in this conversation at timdoblog. com/podcast. You'll be easy to find. You're the only Tish. >> I know. I know.
1:24:01
There's only a few of us out there. I know.
1:24:03
Which is a beautiful thing. Yes, beautiful.
1:24:04
So, it makes it very easy to find you.
1:24:08
>> [snorts] >> And to everybody listening, as always, this is how I close my shows.
1:24:11
Be just a bit kinder than is necessary when you stop listening and go on with your day, not just to others, but also to yourself. That's lovely.
1:24:21
And Tish, what a wonderful, wonderful time.
1:24:28
I really appreciate you making the time to have this conversation.
1:24:32
And I hope we cross paths again.
1:24:36
>> Yeah, I'll end with what I say to the kids.
1:24:37
Reading and writing, both are so exciting.
1:24:40
Read a book or write a story. Start right now.
1:24:46
>> [laughter] >> That's how we close. Perfect. Thank you so much. Thank you.