Throw The Book

Nine to Five Paws: Dolly Parton’s Billy the Kid Dances His Heart Out

A very special episode of Throw the Book. The guys read Dolly Parton’s Billy the Kid Dances His Heart Out, a glittery pink picture book about a guitar-playing dog with two left paws, and give it the send-off it deserves. Mostly.

• Dolly facts, including the real story behind “I Will Always Love You” (it’s not a love song) and the lookalike contest she lost
• Billy plays a guitar with five strings, then six strings, because someone fixed it between rehearsal and showtime
• Bella, the dance teacher with a majestic beard that has its own fan club and its own critics
• A dance studio that teaches ballet, breakdancing, and flamenco, with no clear curriculum
• The Moon, who has a face, and the theory that every celestial body does too, just too far away to see
• Goodreads reviews, including a four-star rating whose entire comment is half a sentence
• A scoring split that goes from “three paws, I read it six times” to a bonus “seven”

Rest in peace, Dolly. Thank you for the music, the books, and the dog dance party.

#ThrowTheBookPodcast #DollyParton #BillyTheKidDancesHisHeartOut #ChildrensBooksForAdults #BookPodcast #KidLitReview #DollyFacts #NashvilleVibes #RestInPeaceDolly #PodcastRecommendations

Wake Up, Cross It Off: Frog and Toad Together
Arnold Lobel's Newbery Honor classic gets the full unhinged treatment this week, dedication page and all.

• A dead-serious research detour into who "Barbara Dicks" is and why she's immortalized in the front matter forever
• Toad's list-making habit gets fully diagnosed, including his groundbreaking decision to write down "wake up" as a task to complete
• Frog watches his best friend scream, sing, and read bedtime stories to a patch of dirt rather than just saying "seeds take a few days, buddy"
• The Great Cookie Standoff, resolved via the bold strategy of eliminating all cookies from planet Earth
• A surprisingly earnest tangent on whether this book is a quiet decades-early "it gets better" message, sandwiched between frog leg confessions
  No consensus on the final score — somewhere between "one of the greatest stories ever told" and "where's the drama."

#FrogAndToad #ThrowTheBookPodcast #ArnoldLobel #ChildrensBooksForAdults #NewberyHonor #BookPodcast #BestFriendsGoals #KidLitReview #PodcastRecommendations #ReadingRainbow

The Trouble with Friends, and Several Other Problems
The Trouble with Friends gets picked apart page by page, and things escalate fast.

• A human plushie in one panel triggers a full "do bears keep people as pets" investigation
• The mysterious, ever-shifting geography of Bear Country (it's basically Springfield)
• Brother Bear's savage comeback game, decades ahead of its time
• The skateboard that's clearly missing a wheel, and other 1980s illustration crimes
• The group formally opens a file on Papa Bear as a suspected serial killer
  That's just book one of four on the docket this episode — stick around for the rest.

Episode 11: Clifford the Big Red Dog 🐕🔴

This week Dave, Shawn & Jeremy take on the Scholastic mascot that's sold 134 million copies — and immediately fall into a K-hole. Highlights: Emily Elizabeth's dead eyes get diagnosed as a symptom of her dying in a hospital and hallucinating the entire book, a full "space mutant dog" theory for Clifford, and a breakdown of why he's basically running a protection racket on the neighborhood. There's a deep dive into the biology of a 25-foot, 87-ton bone-crushing dog with no visible wiener, a tangent about kneecaps being "on the outside," and a full derail into vintage computer RAM. Plus: the wildest one-star Amazon reviews we've ever read (shoutout to the reviewer who called Clifford a neo-Nazi dog whistle), a Louis C.K. bit about Clifford's death penalty, and someone's homemade Clifford song. Final scores are in, and nobody agrees.

🎧 New episode up now — Throw the Book Podcast

Episode 10: Where the Wild Things Are — Max Gets Away With Everything

A kid gets sent to bed without dinner, throws the tantrum of the century, and somehow ends up sailing across an ocean, conquering an island of monsters, and getting crowned king — all before coming home to a hot meal waiting on the table like nothing happened. No apology. No chores. No consequences. This is the book they gave a Caldecott Medal to.

We cracked this one open expecting a cozy bedtime classic and instead spent an entire episode arguing about whether Max is a misunderstood dreamer or the tiniest, most successful tyrant in children's literature. Dave brought in an AI chatbot to defend the book's morals and watched it lose the argument in real time.

Other things we can't let go of:

• A full nautical inspection of Max's boat, which he named after himself, because of course he did, and which is rigged in a direction that defies basic sailing physics
• A full year alone at sea with zero food, which raises questions nobody in this book seems interested in answering — is it a fever dream? A concussion? Did his mom just knock him out with a shoe?
• Maurice Sendak's origin story: sickly Brooklyn kid, lifelong Mickey Mouse obsession, allegedly could not draw a horse to save his life, drew monsters instead
• The theory that the Wild Things are just his ugly immigrant relatives with better hair and worse manners
• Why this "demonic" little book caused a full-blown moral panic decades before moral panics were cool
• A very serious, mostly unresolved debate over how a seven-year-old apparently understands maritime boat registration better than actual sailors

Plus a two-book Sendak giveaway for our biggest fans, and a first look at next week's read, Clifford the Big Red Dog, which we are already bracing to somehow connect back to the Holocaust.

Is Max a genius, a menace, or just really good at getting away with it? Tune in and pick a side.

Episode 9: The Story About Ping — Three Grown Men vs. One Duck, One Spanking, and the Worst Book They've Ever Read

A duck runs away from home to avoid a spanking. That's the plot. That's the whole plot. And somehow, The Story About Ping (1933) still manages to be the book that finally breaks Dave, Shawn, and Jeremy.

What you're in for:

• 🖍️ A "crayon book" so old the illustrator outlived the author — and the receipts on both of their wild backstories
• 🚤 Ping jumps ship, dodges a spanking, and nearly ends up as somebody's dinner (yes, really)
• 🧧 The guys actually dig into the book's very 1930s take on Chinese culture instead of just cringing and moving on
• 💀 A first-ever unanimous throw — all three hosts, all three books, on the floor
• 📖 One host threatens to graffiti "worst book ever" straight into the library's copy
• 🎙️ Verdict: less "children's classic," more "why does this duck have main character energy in the worst possible way"

If you've ever wanted to hear three adults dismantle a 90-year-old picture book with the seriousness of a courtroom drama, this is your episode. Ping never had a chance.

This week Dave, Shawn, and Jeremy crack open The Wild Robot on the Island by Peter Brown — the picture book prequel to the novel-turned-Netflix-movie everyone's already seen (which, as it turns out, is a problem). Highlights include a deep dive into Peter Brown's sunset color theory, a full-blown investigation into why the robot is apparently 45% legs, and a growing conspiracy theory that the book's opening crate scene is secretly the start of a Tom Hanks Castaway movie (or possibly just an Amazon delivery). The guys also can't stop comparing the island spread to a video game intro screen. All of this delivered under the influence of a full Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle outfit — so don't take it too seriously. It all adds up to a rating so low the guys had to talk themselves out of giving it a negative score. Spoiler: watching the movie first ruins the book. Who knew.

Monty Python Silly Walks Reference

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iV2ViNJFZC8

Magic School Bus Reference -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdNrs9RLn_Q

NOTE: This is not intended for children, parents please be responsible.

Sit back at your favorite pond or body of water and check out the guys review of The Quacken by Justin Colon.

Warning: This podcast is intended for mature audiences. Parents.. be smart.

Justin Colón is a versatile American professional actor, voiceover artist, and accomplished children’s book author based in New York. He manages a unique blend of careers in both the performing arts and the publishing industry.

Pablo Pino | Advocate Art 

Self-taught illustrator who grew up watching cartoons, playing football, and drawing constantly.

Has worked as a professional illustrator for over a decade across various print media.

His greatest passion is illustrating books for children and teenagers.

His illustrations are primarily digital, but he distinguishes his work by layering in hand-made textures created with pencils, crayons, acrylics, and other traditional materials — giving his digital work an organic, tactile feel. He's described the messiness of this process as a callback to how he created art as a child.

He has illustrated more than 40 books, including titles published through major houses like Simon & Schuster and Hachette Book Group. Recent titles include:

• The Unluckiest Leprechaun

• The Quacken

Examples of his work

THE QUACKEN
Feels like a love letter to WB animation

http://youtube.com/watch?v=yiZDKZla2HE

Someone used AI to make a cartoon out of it of sorts.   You can REALLY see how this is could be a cartoon.  ( It is OK… Not great but OK)

Ranco Cucamonga >> Very famous Mel Blanc quote;  Very Jack Benny show

https://tralfaz.blogspot.com/2017/12/comedy-and-cucamonga.html

Started in radio and then went to television

Looney Tunes references

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWHYRjYYLqY

Jack Benny goes to railroad station

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVdmstYXdRE  4:10

🎬 Acting & Voiceover Career
📚 Children's Book Author🐝 Fun Facts & Personal Life
Pablo Pino – IllustratorBackgroundStyle and TechniquePublished Work

• They sleep with half their brain awake. Ducks can literally sleep with one eye open to watch for predators, a trick called unihemispheric slow-wave sleep. If a group of ducks is sleeping in a row, the ducks on the far ends will keep their "outside" eye open to stand guard while the ones in the middle sleep fully. 

Reddit+ 2

• Ducklings talk to each other inside the egg. Before they even hatch, ducklings communicate with their siblings through the eggshells. They do this to synchronize their development so the entire clutch can hatch at roughly the same time. 

Tyrant Farms+ 2

• They have built-in winter boots. Ever wonder how a duck can stand on a frozen lake without getting frostbite? Their feet have a special counter-current blood vessel system. Warm blood coming down from their body heats up the cold blood returning from their feet, keeping their feet just warm enough to function without losing core body heat. 

- The Cape Coop

• Miners used to follow them to find gold. Because ducks swallow small stones and grit to help digest their food, some 19th-century gold miners would actually find small gold nuggets in duck gizzards. Enterprising miners would sometimes follow flocks of ducks, hoping the birds would lead them to an undiscovered vein of gold in a nearby river. 

Wu baba lubba dub dub.. Get cleaning yall.. It time to take a look at President Taft... and his unfortunate bath situation.. With Dave , Shawn and Jeremy.

Sit back relax and get ready to enjoy the wonders of the Throw the book Podcast reviewing A Day with Wilbur Robinson by William Joyce.

The School and Architecture reference - Link

The Train Image

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20th_Century_Limited

Potato Head Blues

https://youtu.be/n7ccXJ0Y-CI?si=lppbdMgwKIpMh5dL

Wilbur Robinson AI Metal Song - <>