Hi, I'm Kitty Felde.
Can you believe it?
Book Club for Kids began 10 years ago in the summer of 2015, and we are celebrating our anniversary by counting down our top 10 most listened to episodes over the past decade.
This week, just in time for the second installment in the Bad Guys movie series, is the graphic novel that started it all.
Number four on our top 10 list, Aaron Blaby's The Bad Guys.
Enjoy. It's a book club for kids.
It's the book club for kids.
It's the book club for kids podcast. Hi, I'm Kitty Feldy.
Get ready for a few laughs.
This week, it's Aaron Blaby's The Bad Guys.
It's the story of a group of animals, a wolf, a piranha, a shark, well you get the idea, who want to improve their reputations.
I'm a genius. and I'm going to make us all heroes.
Oh, he's completely out of his mind.
That's our celebrity reader, actor Steve Dvorkin.
The book is a very funny graphic novel.
Our readers from Kimball Elementary School in Washington, D .C., make the argument that graphic novels are important.
Some people, they can't add pictures because some people don't have as big of an imagination.
determination. Writer Aaron Blaby says he has one rule in his writing life.
The worst thing you can do in a kid's book is be boring.
It's got to be fun.
It's got to be exciting.
It's got to be interesting or make you sad or make you happy or do something.
This is The Book Club for Kids, the show where kids talk about books.
We'll tell you how you can be on the show a little later on, but first, let's meet our readers.
Hello, my name is Jukai.
Hello, my name is Darius.
Hello, Hello, my name is Derek, and we're all fifth graders, and we are in Kimball Elementary School, and we are in Washington, D .C.
The book is about a guy, his name was Mr. Wolf.
He got a group of guys, and he wanted to turn into a good guys group, but they didn't like it, and they wanted to be bad guys.
Who exactly is Mr. Wolf?
Mr. Wolf is a wolf, and his buddies are piranha, shark, snake, and tarantula.
Are they really bad guys?
Yeah, they're really bad guys, but Mr. Wolf wants to act like he's a good guy for now.
Do we believe him? Well, his buddies believe him, but they don't want to become good guys like him.
Seems like a good time to get a taste of the bad guys.
our celebrity reader is actor Steve Dvorkin, who, by the way, you can hear is our favorite dog Senator Something in our other podcast, The Fina Mendoza Mysteries.
Here, he plays a car full of many other animals.
Well, this is the first meeting of the good guys club.
That's right, the good guys oh i beg your pardon oh you heard me aren't you tired of being the villain aren't you tired of the screams aren't you tired of the fear not particularly not at the least of course you are and i have the solution okay pop quiz uh let's see we find a cat stuck in a tree what do we do uh eat it no oh no we rescue it oh you're kidding right this guy is loco no i'm not i'm a genius and i'm going to make us all heroes oh he's completely out of his mind i came all the way from bolivia for this and you'll be glad you did mr piranha And so will you, Mr. Shark.
This is going to be awesome!
Now, everybody, climb aboard, and let's do some good!
Why are we driving around in this stupid car?
Stupid car? Why, this car is a fuel -injected, 200 -horsepower, rock -and -rolling chariot of flaming coolness.
if we're going to be good guys my friend don't you think we should look good hey it's a sweet ride chico but i get carsick man so what are we doing here we're looking for trouble my friend uh if we're going to be heroes we always need to be on the lookout for trouble we need to be able to smell trouble in fact wait wait wait a second I think I can smell trouble right now Wow it's really strong actually hang on Meow!
Bingo! Ha ha ha ha!
So, so, what are we going to do?
Rescue the cat? Rescue the cat?
Oh, I guess rescue the cat!
Ha ha! And what are we not going to do?
Oh, eat the cat. See the cat.
Oh, eat the cat? That's right!
I don't know about you, but I feel pumped!
Now, let's do this thing!
Here, kitty, kitty, kitty!
Here, kitty, kitty, kitty!
Yes, kitty, kitty, kitty!
Here, kitty, kitty, kitty!
Let me handle this.
Hey, you. Get down here or I'll see me up that tree and bite you on your furry little butt.
Well, what makes a good guy and what makes a bad guy?
What makes a good guy and what makes a bad guy is that bad guys destroy stuff and do some bad stuff, like burning down houses.
And good guys, they save the world.
They clean the water.
They take out the trash.
In the book, they were trying to be good guys, but they're so -called good guys as saving chickens from a chicken farm and saving dogs from a dog pound.
But it was all in a bad way.
they said the dogs and the chickens supposed to be there but no they they was being bad guys and messed it up would you guys say you are good guys or bad guys we would say that we are good guys because we do our work we we listen to our teachers we do everything i would consider all of us at this table good guys because if you wasn't a good guy right now you would not be here You're talking to us.
You will be messing us up and doing all that stuff.
He's a good guy because he's very excellent.
He's very respectful.
He does all his work.
He doesn't yell, scream.
He likes a lot of people like me.
So this is a graphic novel, so there are words and pictures.
Is that a good thing, a bad thing?
Does it help? Does it make a difference?
Well, the pictures help because they help you to see what's going on, not just you reading.
and a lot and a lot in most of chapter books you don't get as much good of pictures so you don't really know what's going on like in bad guys they showed a lot like the shark didn't like the tarantula so anytime the tarantula get on the air it's saying oh oh oh oh oh and then they show the tarantula all on some people they could add pictures because some people don't have as big big of an imagination, and it also helps to give a better picture of what's happening.
Why is this book funny?
They made it funnier by adding illustrations, because the illustrations, it shows what's going on.
Like Jakai said, somebody slipping on a banana, somebody getting smacked, somebody falling out of a tree.
They show all the pictures so people can laugh and talk about it and have a good time.
And if somebody's mad and they read a book, they can put a smile on their face.
Now, I know all you guys identified yourself as good guys, but that said, which character in the book did you like the best?
Mr. Piranha. It was because he says, no, I'm a piranha sandwich. Oh, yeah, they call him that.
But piranhas are kind of dangerous.
Why did you like him?
Well, because he's always screaming, and he's also funny because he always, like, every time he falls down, he'll always be like, Like, Jig aus!
Get me! And then they just start trying to get him, but then he just falls down again.
Well, my favorite character is Spider because of how smart he is and how he likes to use technology.
And I also like to use technology, just like the spider.
So you're smart and you like to use technology.
Yes. My favorite character is Mr. Snake because he always wants to eat everything he sees.
Like, it's so funny.
He always wants to eat the chickens, the dogs.
He's like, oh, my God, so delicious, Chico.
Well, he says, like, a lot of stuff, and he laughs, and he giggles, and he was like, and he told them, oh, oh, oh.
And they don't let him go inside that much because of the way he is.
Mr. Shark, they use him as their disguise all the time.
So what about Mr. Snake is also similar to you?
He likes to climb a lot of stuff.
I love climbing stuff.
He yells and screams and argues.
He doesn't play about what he does.
Does that sound like you?
He likes to get to work.
So who would you recommend this book to?
Who should read this book?
A lot of people. A lot of people that like to laugh and love to see jokes and love animals.
I would recommend this book to people that don't get to laugh a lot or very serious people because it will just give them the joy of a little bit of laughter.
Well, let's chat a little bit with our author, Aaron Blady.
You guys got some questions?
What do you do to make this book?
So if I'm writing a story, I'll get up in the morning and I'll go for a run.
And when I'm running, I find running just helps me think of ideas.
So stuff tends to come when I'm running.
If I'm writing, especially if I'm writing in verse, if I'm writing something that flows in poetry, I walk.
I walk all day. I find walking really useful because as I'm walking along, the kind of rhythm of walking helps me kind of figure out how to make something rhyme and make it fit.
I look like I'm just texting people all the time.
And I'll be hit by a bus one day because I walk around constantly writing on my phone.
And there's a couple of reasons.
One, it's just when I'm walking, it's easier than having a pen.
But the other thing is I used to have really beautiful little notebooks, but I found notebooks, particularly good -looking ones, made me nervous when I picked them up.
You don't want to deface it because it's already kind of a perfect thing and then everything you do feels kind of stupid.
Whereas when you just type it on your phone or scribble it on a whiteboard or on the back of a napkin, it doesn't matter.
And that's where my best stuff comes from because I'm more relaxed than if I'm...
Another thing if you've got a pretty notebook it's like chiselling something into stone.
You want every mark you make to be beautiful whereas it's much more effective I find to just scribble and make a mess.
I call it trying to capture lightning in a bottle.
That's what it is. It's trying to catch something that is, you can't see it.
You just have to, because that's what I do or what people who write or paint or our job is to make something out of nothing, you know, which is a pretty amazing job to have really.
But that's what it is.
At the end of the day, it's just me walking around thinking up stuff and then trying not to get in the way of it.
So that's what I do.
I sort of scribble it down on something easy.
When I think about it, the first book I ever wrote was written on a piece of toilet paper yeah it was it was pearl barley and Charlie parsley and actually started this little bit here in the frame is my boarding pass when I was on a plane I wrote the first bit on that and then that night I was staying with some friends and I didn't have any paper and everybody was asleep so I went and got some toilet paper from the guest room and I wrote the book and it's exactly word for word the book so you don't need anything fancy at all to write a book i mean i did it on a piece of toilet paper if i'm painting
though if i'm doing the artwork once we take the kids to school i get into my studio and i start painting um and i i put on music and music's really really important with what i do it helps me kind of create the right mood most of my inspirations is of writers tend to be songwriters Because I find a lifelong love of songs and songwriting has had a really, really big influence on how I make my books.
Because for me, there's songs.
Instead of having a tune, I've got pictures.
We're inspired to write the things I see in a book, like the jokes and the names and stuff that come on the record and stuff like that.
It can come from anywhere.
You can see something on the street, or somebody can say something.
You can hear a word. What made you make everyone animals instead of real people?
I asked my little boy once, what are your favorite animals?
And he started listing them off, and he was going shark, tiger, pig.
There's a little sign in my studio.
I have it on my desk, and it just says, don't be boring.
And I find that the best piece of advice I can give myself every day but the worst thing you can do in a kids book is be boring it's got to be fun it's got to be exciting it's got to be interesting or make you sad or make you happy or do something and I have that sign there to remind me to never ever ever ever be boring all right now we've come to the part of the show where I ask the hardest question which is what is your favorite book or book series and why My favorite book is Diary of a New Winter Kid.
And it's my favorite book because it has so many series in it.
And he does a lot of funny things and how he comes up with all these plans and things like that.
And it's just a lot of the books, so I can read a lot of them.
My favorite book is Middle School is Not Fun While Being a New Kid.
So at school they like the word Salmon Peak a lot, and he likes to draw.
all so then he made this boy his name is adrian and all the boys in there they try to hype him up so then they made another book about him i like all the series so they made another book about the new boy that came and they started being friends i like it because the boy isn't it i forgot his name i think it's adrian he's so funny he always makes people laugh and he's loud he's very loud it was funny new kid is one of our book club for kids podcast episodes and we'll have a a link at our website bookclubforkids .org my favorite book is cat in the hat he always do strangest things and that's the reason why
i like him your turn steve devorkin got a favorite book hi a friend of mine jay kogan gave me this book years ago and i was an actor and i was wondering what it took to make it in hollywood and i read the book i knew about william goldman but even at that time it was a revelation to know that all those people that were saying no to me at the time and maybe those who were saying yes didn't know anything and happy mistakes happened and other mistakes happened so it gave me an insight an insight into the business that I didn't have because I just thought that everybody knew what they were doing and the book helped
me understand the reality of life and show business well before we go you guys got some jokes for us Why did the skeleton go to the party bar sale?
Why? Because he had nobody to go with.
Oh. Why did the penny jump off the cliff but the quarter did not?
Why? Because the quarter had more cents.
Why did the chicken cross the road?
I don't know, why? Because he wanted to cross the road to meet his friend.
But he got ran over.
That's a different twist on that.
We'll have a list of everybody's favorite book at our website, bookclubforkids .org.
And if you have a favorite book, you can be on the Book Club for Kids podcast too.
Just record yourself on the voice memo app of a smartphone telling us your first name, the city where you live, the name of your favorite book, and why you love it.
And then email the file to us at kitty at bookclubforkids .org.
You can even send us a picture of yourself with that book.
And if you're a teacher or a librarian in Southern California or the Washington, D .C.
area, we would love to come out and tape a Book Club for Kids episode with your readers.
It's free to schools and libraries, and we can send you all the information if you send us an email to kitty at bookclubforkids .org.
thanks this week to producer chad francis brandon baker composed our theme with additional music from andrew walton emma steinkellner designed our logo and thanks to our friends at story box library for sharing audio with aaron blaby and of course thanks to our readers this week darius derrick and yuka and their librarian karen cowden at kimball elementary school in Washington, D .C.
We have a free newsletter for teachers, parents, and librarians full of free tips about how to turn kids into lifelong readers.
You can sign up at the website, bookclubforkids .org.
And if you've been waiting to listen to the entire second season of the Fina Mendoza Mysteries podcast, this is your lucky week.
All 18 episodes are now available to binge.
You can follow Fina's adventures as she finds the mysterious bird that pooped on the president during the State of the Union Address.
That's the Fina Mendoza Mysteries, wherever you listen to podcasts.
And by the way, that's also where you can hear our celebrity reader Steve Dworkin as our favorite dog said it or something.
I'm Kitty Felde. Thanks so much for listening.
