Zibby welcomes picture book author Josh Funk to discuss his popular series, Lady Pancake & Sir French Toast, with a special focus on the latest adventure, ATTACK OF THE SCONES. Josh shares the inspiration behind the series, which started as a simple story for his kids and evolved into a whimsical, action-packed world where breakfast foods have grand adventures. He explains how each book in the series tackles a different "fridge problem" and discusses the creative process behind the books, including how the characters and storylines have developed over time. (Tune in to hear from a very special nine-year-old guest!)

Transcript:

Zibby: Welcome Josh. Thank you so much for coming on Mom's Don't Have Time To Read Books, to discuss your whole series of Lady Pancake and Sir French Toast, particularly Attack of the Scones.

Josh: Thank you so much. 

Zibby: How was that? 

Josh: For how excited to be here. And there's, there's not, it's not just the two of us, right? We seem to have a special guest. 

Zibby: We have a special guest today. It was supposed to be two, but it looks like one, one special guest, which is my son who is nine years old. 

Zibby's Son: Hey. 

Josh: What's up? Hey, nine year old.

I'm Josh. 

Zibby: Okay. Nine year old is going to join in asking the questions as well. 

Josh: Awesome. 

Zibby: Okay, we read Attack of the Scones, except we had a little cliffhanger because the Wi Fi went out and the last three pages didn't load. And so. 

Josh: Oh no. 

Zibby: There was that. We were, we were left wanting more. Tell us about Attack of the Scones.

And for those who aren't familiar with the whole series, maybe just backtrack. How did this whole series come to be? 

Josh: Yeah. So Lady Pancake and Sir French Toast was the first book I ever had published. It was around. I don't know, I guess it's 12 or 13 years ago, I was starting to write for children, and I have kids, they are now in high school and college, but when they were little, I was reading a lot of books to them, and I learned how to write picture books, it took a long time, I kept writing some really, really terrible ones, and then eventually, uh, they got better, and then eventually, they got better.

And Lady Pancake and Sir French Toast was sort of at, I wrote that at the time where my writing kind of got to the point where it was almost publishable and all the other ideas. And there were many and many stories and many drafts that I wrote before that, that were really just practice books. But ultimately this was the first book that I, uh, had had published, it came out in 2015.

It's illustrated by Brendan Kearney. All of the books in the series are. And. It's about a pancake and a French toast. The whole series is about a pancake and a French toast who are friends, they live in a fridge, and they have adventures. And that's really all you need to know. You can read them in order if you want, but you don't have to.

I think there are some little things hinted at here and there throughout if you do read them in order, but, but really you can read them each as a standalone. And so, the first one was they're racing for the last drop of syrup, and it's just called Lady Pancake and Sir French Toast. And for some reason, that connected with, Readers and booksellers and librarians and, uh, the publisher was really excited.

They, they're called Union Square now, but they were called Sterling at the time. And when they published this book, they put a lot of publicity into it because they had a good feeling about it. And that really gave me a huge leg up because it, it. exposed the series to a lot of schools, librarians, and booksellers, so that they were actually interested in another one.

And so I wrote a second one, and they were like, let's see how sales do for the first one. And, but then it, uh, they were pretty decent, uh, looking ahead to it. So they actually acquired the second one before the first one even came out. And that's called The Case of the Stinky Stench, which is a mystery.

And I always try to think of fridge problems that kids and humans could have. So when I'm writing these stories, Lady Pancake and Sir French Toast was originally inspired by my kids. They were, they were fighting over what to eat for breakfast, a pancake or a French toast. And I thought, oh, that would make a fun idea.

Pancake and a French toast arguing. And they argue about the last drop of syrup. And that's because that's what they would argue about. And so that one was a race, but that's sort of a fridge problem that you or I might have. You know, have you ever opened the fridge and there was only one slice of pizza left or one piece of cake left and you had to argue with the sibling over who got to eat it or something like that?

And, and so with the second book, I always have a question, a real world question, like, have you ever opened the fridge and smelled something kind of funny? And That's what happens in the case of the Stinky Stench, where Lady Pancake and Sir French Toast have to help, help Inspector Croissant try to figure out why the fridge smells so bad.

And then the next idea I had, I, I loved Brendan Kearney's art so much, I just wanted to write more stories, so I thought, has anyone ever opened the fridge? And Things are a little bit too cold or frozen, like someone turned the thermostat down, they get a little frostbite, um, maybe your cream cheese turns into a block of ice.

And that's what happens in, in Mission Defrostable, which is another, I changed the genre with every book as well, which is kind of fun. So the first was a race, the second was a mystery, the third Third one is an action adventure spy thriller, Mission Defrostable, and in that one they help Lady Pancake and Sir French Toast help Agent Asparagus try to figure out why the fridge is freezing over.

And then I would actually, I was visiting a lot of schools and libraries and bookstores and the most common question I got was, how are Lady Pancake and Sir French Toast not stale yet? And so the fridge problem for book number four is have you ever opened the fridge and you want to take something out?

You're excited to eat it, but it was all moldy and spoiled and gross and disgusting and yeah, that's happened before and that's what happens in short and sweet. They do go stale but they visit Professor Biscotti, who has a de spoiling ray. Unfortunately, her de spoiling ray works a little too well and shrinks them into tiny little kids.

And so that one, the genre of a sci fi comedy, like, um, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, mixed with a magical body swap of, like, Freaky Friday or Big. And then I thought what else could happen in a fridge? What are the problems? And the next idea I had was, well, a light bulb went off and, and, uh, and I was like, oh, that's, a fridge problem.

Has anyone opened the fridge and the light bulb was out? I mean, that happened to me recently. I was staring at the wall in Home Depot for like half an hour trying to figure out which was the right light bulb anyway. But so but yeah, so that in that one is called the Great Caper Caper, which is obviously a heist.

And it's basically Ocean's Eleven in a fridge. It's a Lost Veggies heist. And the evil Count Caper, which is a type of food, he steals the lightbulb. And so Lady Pancake and Sir French Toast have to steal it back. That's why it's the great caper caper, the great caper the food, caper the robbery, which is the second meaning of caper.

And so we've had five genres, and then the newest one that comes out, um, in the fall of 2020, for so September 3rd. I'm not sure when this comes out, but so the fridge problem is, have you ever accidentally left something in the fridge that didn't belong there? Like that time I put my iced coffee down with my keys and I, and I couldn't find them the whole weekend.

I got locked out of the house. It was terrible. I had to walk everywhere, but anyway, so that's the fridge problem. I'm not sure you got to the ending or not, which we probably shouldn't spoil anyway, but I will say that. So that is attack of the scones, which is the newest one, and it is an alien invasion.

Now, based on who is actually riding the scones, which I don't really want to spoil, even though it's like a large part of the book, like it's like a third of the book. I mean, if we have to, because of questions..

Zibby: We know,.. 

Josh: Okay, you got that far. So there are hints. I got actually got the idea for this book after the third book, but I kept having to push it off because I didn't have a good enough title or a good enough reason to write it.

So after the third book, I noticed something about the first three books that there was, you know, and I wanted to use that as those were the things that were going to be invading the fridge. But I, I noticed that they didn't exist except for one time in book number one, there, there was one in book number one.

And so. I, I thought, well, I, I have to make sure that, like, we don't accidentally put any of these things in the fridge in books numbers four and then five, because what happened was, I, I knew I needed to address the, are they spoiled thing, because that's what kids kept asking me, so I had to bump this idea.

It was going to be book four, but then I had to bump it and then I had a great title for the Great Caper Caper, but I didn't have a title for this one yet because the things that are actually invading are not scones. Scones are just the spaceships that they're invading on. And so Attack of the Scones is a, is a great parody title, but I didn't have it yet.

And so I did the Great Caper Caper next. And then this. is finally I got back around to doing the story I wanted to tell, which should have been book four. But yeah, there's a lot of fun things about this series that you don't really get to do in picture books a lot, which is especially if you do read them all and read them in order, like in Mission Defrostable, I'm spoiling things, but I mean, this book's been out since 2018.

So if you haven't read it, that's on you. But so in Mission Defrostable, the, the, the, The villain is actually created by something that happens in the first book. There's a big bean avalanche in book number one. And the bean avalanche, I retconned in that the villain was created by this bean avalanche. Now if you go back and look in book one, You know, you just see the bean avalanche.

You don't see the actual villain from book three. We didn't think that far ahead. But in book three, we said, Oh, this is what happened. And we had a little flashback scene where, you know, it's in a sepia tone. So Brendan like it's so we actually they do connect in some ways, but it's kind of like you don't have to watch every Mission Impossible movie to see them, you know, to get what's going on or every Fast and the Furious movie like you know what's going on.

But if you've seen them all, then you're like, Oh, yeah, that was the big brother of this character. character and it makes sense why he wants revenge or whatever. But so yeah, so in this book, Attack of the Scones, it does tie back to something that is in book number one. And um, I've been looking forward to doing, sharing this for a while.

I know I just chatted for a long time, but that, that's sort of the history of the series and it's been going on for over 10 years and uh, well, I've been working on it for over 10 years. The first book came out about eight and a half years ago, but that is book number six comes out this fall and uh, Attack of the Scones.

It's, uh, it's a good one. 

Zibby: And do you have another one after that? 

Josh: I do, and I've written it, and the editor just accepted the final, final, final edits. 

Zibby: Yay! 

Josh: Announce the title. I will tell you what you, I will tell you the fridge problem. Wait, I think I have a fridge problem. Wait, what was the fridge problem?

Now I'm blanking on the fridge problem. I have so many things that I have to keep track of, but so I will tell you the genre that we are doing. It's, so we had a mystery in the case of the stinky stench, but that was, to be fair, it's not really a very good mystery. That was actually supposed to be a holiday book, but the publisher liked it so much.

They said, you know, we take out all the holidays. We want to sell it year round, which is great, but the actual stinky stench again, spoiler alert. It's a fruitcake. There's no other holiday stuff in the book that makes you lead you to thinking it might be a fruitcake because that's a, that's a holiday garbage.

I mean, holiday food. And so I, I thought that. So it's not a very good mystery, as far as mysteries go, like with clues and things like that. They're just kind of like running around the fridge, like sniffing and saying, Where does it smell? Oh, there it is. Funny stuff happens along the way. But it's actually probably has some of my favorite jokes in it.

There's the part where Inspector Croissant trips by Miss Steak. Miss Steak, get it? It's a steak who's a lady with French fry hair and stuff. But so anyway, this one is actually going to be another more specific type of mystery. A whodunit. So, I can tell you that that is, and I'm so focused on Tag of the Skulls, I'm not really in like, writing it.

So I don't remember what the fridge problem was. 

Zibby: That's okay. That's all right. 

Josh: Yeah. 

Zibby: Well now, whenever we open the fridge, we're going to start thinking of all the different problem searches. And we'll just send you our ideas. 

Josh: Yeah, I'm down. Or write them yourself. I would love to see them if you write. You have ideas.

That would be cool. I don't want to take your ideas. 

Zibby: I'm not good at picture books. I actually wrote a picture book. Thank you very much. But yeah. 

Josh: I was actually talking about you, nine year old. Yeah, not me. You should write it. Yeah. 

Zibby: Yeah, he wasn't recommending me. That would be weird. Oh, I 

Josh: mean, you know.

Zibby: That would be weird. So I did a podcast with this guy, and then I came out with the exact same book. He'd be like, yeah, that was a mistake. Uh, how did Baron Von Waffle come about? 

Josh: So, I mean, when I wrote the first book, I was Kids books, you know, whether they have a message or not, my books all tend to be about friendship.

Not just the pancake books, but I mean, the Attack of the Scones will be my 20th book. And in the last eight and a half years, and I've been very, very fortunate. The next eight and a half years are not going to have nearly as many books, but I will say that when you're starting out trying to become an author, you don't break too, too many rules.

You can break some rules. I mean, I write in rhyme, which is often frowned upon, at least in the industry, because it's really hard to write in rhyme or it's easy to do badly. But I, I did that. I mean, there's, you break some rules, everyone breaks some rules, but to try to, they, they, I knew neither one of the characters could get it at the end, or they would have to work together to get it.

But that didn't seem like it was the right idea, at least for me. But if my kids inspired Lady Pancake and Sir French Toast, then. You know, if they were fighting over a food, the last drop of syrup, the last piece of pizza, I would just eat it. And that I am Baron Von Waffle. I knew somebody else syrup and they'd have to just be okay with that, you know?

And it wasn't like the world was going to end if they didn't get the syrup. And in some of the future books, the world will end if they don't save the fridge. But, but yeah, so I think, you know, that's how Baron Von Waffle, it came. I knew that somebody else had to get the syrup. And I think that, The way, why is he Barron von Waffle?

Honestly, because of the, the books are written in rhyme and I need to find the right rhythm and rhyme of a word to go with it. And so that's kind of what it was. I see. You have a question. Let's let's jump to your question. 

Zibby's Son: So in a book one, you know how you said that your kids fighting over pancakes and waffles inspired you to do the book.

What inspired you? For them to like, go through like avalanches and like fall in lasagna. 

Josh: That's actually a great question. So originally when I started writing the book, there wasn't very much action. And it was the two characters were sort of arguing about who deserved the syrup. Now, to be fair, I started writing this book in 2012 when it was sort of the height of the second, Obama election, and so there was a lot of political stuff going on, him and Mitt Romney going back and forth, and so in my head, I was, it was like a political rally, I don't know why, or a political debate, I was like, each one of them was saying why they got the syrup, and why a French toast is better than a pancake, and why a pancake's better than a French toast, and it started to get really ridiculous, and, and I thought it was funny, it was like, oh, well, you know, I'm French toast, we were the first to the moon, and then the pancake was like, well, we got to Mars first, and like, but they were just talking.

About it and saying who deserved it and one of my critique partners actually said to me that there's not enough action in this book. You have to have some action and have have them going to different places. Have them different pictures on every page. You just can't have two characters, even if it is a funny pancake and a French toast.

You can't just have him standing there talking. You have to have some action. You have to have different pictures. Scenes happening on all 16 spreads throughout the book and I was like that is a great idea So it needed to turn in from turn into well out of a political race and into an actual race And so that's where I got the idea I got the idea rather than that is why they cause a giant mess along the way and caused Culinary chaos, as I like to say, that is, that is how I got the idea was from a friend of mine who was a writer.

They were the ones that suggested you need more action. So that's how I took it. 

Zibby's Son: I have another question. So in Attack of the Scones, you said that the scones are just their spaceship or their ship. But since every other food is alive, how come scones aren't? 

Josh: Yeah, so I don't know if every other food is alive because sometimes they sit on like a piece of cheese or something or stand on things.

So that's a very good question that I'm just going to say I don't really have a good answer for. You kind of just have to, and maybe they are alive, who knows, I don't know. Suspension of disbelief. Just kind of have to go with it. One of the regrets I have from this series, and it's, is that I have them end with, sharing the butter in book number one.

I don't think they eat it. Once this, once this book series kept going, I was like, I'm not sure that they eat or they don't eat food. So like, I don't know what they're doing with the butter. Why are they in the butter? The butter is like, it's like, Hey, we can split up that butter right there. And then the butter's smiling, and then you see on the next page, it's like, a third of the butter is missing, and they're clearly holding pieces of butter, and the butter is still smiling!

And so I was like, I don't, what was I thinking? I, like, if I could undo one thing, it would be something about that ending, like, cause I don't really know, I don't, they don't eat. Nor do they go to the bathroom. That actually was a problem in the most recent book. There was, with my, my editor, one of the, one of the last edits that they had were, there was a scene where they were in the whodunit, they were searching in a bathroom.

Like some of the characters were going to the bathroom and they looked at the closets and toilets and, and my editor was like, I really don't want to think about their toilets. Can we do that? And I was like, you know what? We're just going to say that they don't use bathrooms. So there's no bathrooms, but there's also no eating because they are food. I think I know what your next question is going to be. I have a guess, but let's just see. I'll say.. 

Zibby's Son: It's not a question at the end of the first book. I love the page. Like,.. 

Josh: Oh, the gatefold, the page that folds up. That was not what I thought you were going to ask. What I thought you were going to ask was, are there ever going to be people in the fridge that end up eating?

And the answer to that is no, there are no people in this world. So there, there aren't any people in this world, but, um, but as the gatefold though, that is a great, I, you know, I didn't even know. That the book was going to have a page that folds out at the end. I mean, we all know what center folds are, but it's a gate fold.

The last page folds down, and that's what it's called. When I saw the digital versions of the book, I knew there was a vertical page. I thought it was going to be one of those that you just turn the book sideways. I didn't know it was going to fold out. And all of vertical. the series have that page that folds out at the end afterward.

And, uh, and I, I think it's pretty cool. It's, it's definitely super fun. And I think it, it adds a little bit of element of charm that sets, sets these books apart from other books. Sometimes I will say, I know that it, It does sometimes get damaged more easily because of that, but just means you have to buy a second copy.

So I think that's why the sales are so good. And another thing too, and we didn't do this in the first book, but once we started doing more, every other book has a band at the end that Brendan has made up. Brendan Kearney, the illustrator, he makes up a fan name. Now the version I sent you of attack of the scones was missing it.

The funny band name in this one is, is, uh, Brad Zeppelin. But in, he's got the, the Peach Boys, Spuddy Polly and the Croquettes, uh, Juice Springsteen, a whole bunch more. What, in the fourth book, he had a whole festival where there was like, Jimi Hendrix and Apple McCartney and a whole bunch. But so, that's another thing that he does on, uh, at the end of every book, starting in the second one.

And in the first one, it just, once we had the first one down. We kind of knew we could just keep pushing it even farther and explore the world deeper and make, make everything a little bit more nonsense. And yeah, it's essentially Toy Story in a fridge. 

Zibby: Have you ever thought about replicating your actual fridge?

Like replicating the book in your fridge. 

Josh: I've seen some people take photos. One of the best April fool's day, and I know this is not going to air anywhere near April, but one of the best April fool's day things that I've never done it, it was never done to me, but I've seen people do, and they always tag me is to put little googly eyes.

Um, in the fridge, just get, all you do is just get like a bag of a hundred googly eyes and just put them on all the foods. In fact, that's a good one for kids to do to their parents is to put some googly eyes on all the food, not the actual, actual food, like the containers I'm talking about, like don't actually stick it on like, you know, every chicken nugget should not have it.

So I haven't, I haven't made my fridge like this. I will say, you know, I'm, I'm actually vegan. And so, but I still couldn't resist some of like the mistake joke, like we had to have that. I couldn't not, not do that one. So. 

Zibby: What is your pick? French toast or pancakes or waffles? 

Josh: So, yeah, I always ask kids, who's on team Lady Pancake?

Who's on team Sir French Toast? I'm, I'm, I'm Baron Von I already told you why. If my kids were fighting over something, I would just eat, eat it. And so I am Baron Von Waffle, but I love those waffles that you get at the hotels when you pour the batter in. They're not usually vegan, but, but yeah, that's my favorite is, is those batter when you like flip it over and it beeps after.

Zibby: Yep. Yep. 

Josh: Yeah. Those are the best. 

Zibby: Remember how we stayed at the Hampton Inn? You could pour the 

Josh: Yeah, the Hampton Inn always has them. 

Zibby's Son: Is that the one you eat your broccoli? 

Josh: Yeah. This episode is sponsored by the Hampton Inn. But, uh, yeah. We actually, no, we got one of those little, like, tiny ones that cost like 10 at Target and it's lasted.

It makes like the individual waffles. So we make those with the vegan waffle mix. Vegan pancake, pancake batter works just the same as waffle mix. 

Zibby's Son: Oh, you mean those little, this things? Yeah, exactly. You put the batter in, then you close it? 

Zibby: Yeah, yeah. 

Josh: Oh, You gotta, you gotta make sure to clean it afterwards, but as long as you do, um, yeah,.. 

Zibby's Son: I see.

I see people on YouTube like melt gummy bears or gummy rooms. Oh, and oh yeah. Don't that they put the batter in the pancake thing, they close it, then they bake it or like whatever it's called. Then they open and then they eat it. 

Zibby: Clearly we need more restrictions on, on YouTube. 

Josh: Yeah. 

Zibby: Yeah. . Okay. So what advice do you have for an aspiring children's book?

Josh: Well, for children or adults, I guess I would say, I have advice for both, but I would say for, for adults, I think that my best advice, I have a resources for writers section on my website and it's, it's mostly kid friendly. Well, it's entirely kid friendly, but it has links to other places that might not be.

But you know, you, the best advice I have is to keep writing new things. Because if you write a story and you're like, this is really important story to me. And it's, you know, it, it, it's about something very, very personal. Chances are your first story is not going to be the one that gets published. You're you're going to improve as you write, you know, Lady Pancake and Sir French Toast was probably my 10th or 12th manuscript that I had written because the first, but I needed to write the first 10 and submit them to agents and editors, which was a mistake looking back on it.

But everybody does that and you have to write them and revise them and get Feedback from friends and other writers and, and go to conferences and share them and get critique partners and, and, and go back and forth. And you need to do that with, you can't, but chances are your second story that you write is going to be in, starting off in a better place than your first one will.

And your third even better than that. So, you know, keep writing new things. And don't get tied to one idea too, too much because it's also a business and like, it's hard with who knows what's marketable and over time things change and there's ebbs and flows to all of that. And so, you know, I jokingly say, don't, you know, stay away from the farm when you're writing a story because we have enough.

Children's books about farms. We've had them since the beginning of time for picture books, at least. But unless your book is going to do something drastically different with farms, like the, the animals are going to learn how to type and send a letter to the farmer, like the Clackamoo, or, you know, it's like a, they're, they're having a punk concert, like punk farm by Derek or Saska.

So like. You have to do something different because we have enough farm animal stories, but for kids, I think the best thing for, for kids to do, if you want to, if you have any interest in maybe being an author, which by the way, when I was a kid, I did not think I was going to be an author. I wanted to, at first I wanted to be a pitcher for the Boston Red Sox.

I wanted to be a, um, a rock star. Then I wanted to be a software engineer, which I am still a software engineer. That's my day job. And then I wanted to be a picture book author. But, you know, who knows, 10 years from now, you might be doing a different podcast and, uh, you'll have me on to talk about how I've been teaching kids how to do ballet.

You know, I mean, who knows? Probably not, but you never know. I still don't know what to do. 

Zibby: Moms don't have time to do ballet. 

There you go. Coming to you live, 2034. 

Josh: Exactly. And, but so, but for kids, I think the best advice that I have is just, you know, you need to have fun. Both reading and writing, because the more that you read, the better you're gonna know what makes a good beginning, and a satisfying ending, and great characters, and despicable villains, and compelling dialogue, and awesome action scenes, and read all different kinds of things, read fiction, non fiction, picture books, chapter books, graphic novels, comic books, fantasy, mystery, biographies, read all kinds of things, because that way you'll know what you like, and once you know what you like, just write something that you would want to read.

Write something that entertains you. Write something that might entertain your friends or your family. Because if, if you're writing something that makes you laugh, chances are it'll make other people laugh too. And, you know, and, and that's what I like to do. I like to write funny stuff, silly stuff, goofy, sometimes gross out stuff.

I don't know, a lot of kids like scary things. Like any kind of emotion that you can make people feel. But yeah, so write something that you would want to read. And if you like it, chances are other people will too. So just read a lot. And have fun with it because, you know, not all writing is to make a book writing can also be something where, you know, when I grew up with my friend, Ben, he and I used to write stories together as kids.

And I didn't know it at the time, but he he knew he wanted to. Write and act and be in TV shows and movies and Hollywood. And, but we just had fun writing and he became the editor of the school newspaper. He went to Harvard and was on the Harvard lampoon and he has one picture book you might be familiar with called the book with no pictures.

He goes by BJ, but the two of us used to hang out and write and Yeah, we, but, like, we just had fun doing it, and you never know if it's going to turn into a book, or maybe you'll end up wanting to write for TV shows, or movies, or, I mean, they can't start, I'm a big video game fan, you can't start making a video game until you have a story for it, you know, like, I like the Zelda video games, and, so if, if, games like that, you need good characters, and you need a good story before you can start Coding and animating that stuff up.

And so it really all all of those things on a screen. They all start with a story And so yeah, just having fun writing because you never know where it's gonna take you. 

Zibby: Amazing. What do you say? 

Zibby's Son: Thank you! 

Zibby: Oh my gosh, I'm talking in a normal voice. Thank you so much. 

Zibby's Son: Thank you so much. 

Zibby: This was really fun.

Zibby's Son: Thank you. 

Zibby: Really appreciate all your time and effort and.. 

Josh: Oh, my pleasure. Thanks. Thanks for having me and definitely, you know, tag me on all the things when when it's done. Yeah! 

Zibby's Son: Yeah! 

Josh: It was good talking to you, and you too in the back. Bye. 

Zibby's Son: Hey, say goodbye. What are you reading? 

Josh: What are you reading over there?

Zibby's Son: It's called Out There by, I can't pronounce the name, Something Miller. 

Zibby: Out There by Something Miller. 

Josh: Oh, sounds fun. Yeah, I don't know, I'm more into like the mysteries and fantasy are my two favorite genres. 

Zibby: Oh, nice. 

Josh: You into graphic novels at all? 

Zibby's Son: Yeah, we love them. 

Josh: You love graphic novels? 

Zibby's Son: Are you reading a graphic novel?

No. 

Josh: I'm actually going to a book event tonight with Rajani LaRocca and Kate Messner. The two of them are doing a si I'm just attending. I'm gonna go to their signing at, uh, the where are you located? 

Zibby: We're in New York City, 

Josh: New York. That's what I thought. Yeah. It's in the outside Boston. So the silver unicorn is a fun bookstore in the Boston suburbs.

So I'm gonna head out there right now. 

Zibby: Amazing. 

Josh: And it was good to talk to you. Thank you for taking 

Zibby's Son: Thanks! 

Zibby: Thank you, bye.