Dads on Books

David Patrick (00:01.558)
I'm David Patrick.

Dad's on books, two minutes later. But we are dads on books. We're addicted to books, we sit on books, and we even talk about books.

Welcome to another episode of Dads on Books. And here we are again for the first time today. Welcome to the 13th episode of Dads on Books. You already know who we are because we said it at the very beginning without any music under us.

Yeah, today.

David Patrick (00:38.2)
Amazing Sound Engineering by Mike Walker.

Well, thank you very much, David Patrick. I was about to say, you know our full names. I live in Elmira, New York. And David, where are you from?

I'm from Princeton, New Jersey.

excellent, excellent. So if you need to find us, look us up.

Hey, a language alert. That's why I say y'all all the time, because I'm from New Jersey.

Mike Walker (01:09.514)
And actually I say y'all sometimes too, probably more frequently than people in New Jersey.

Well, it is contagious.

So that's an interesting discussion for another day though that we could get into is like regional colloquial isms. That was a really hard word to say.

That's okay,

EEEEH

Mike Walker (01:38.75)
It made me think of it because my family, my big family Extended is extended. That's the one I was looking for. They live in Western Pennsylvania and for the longest time I've heard yin's which you wins. I'm not sure exactly what the translation is, but it means all y'all.

David Patrick (02:04.654)
Well, being from Princeton, New Jersey, which is near Eastern Pennsylvania, and I did actually live in Philadelphia for a little bit over a year, so I am familiar with yin.

Yes, yinns. So welcome family from Pennsylvania. hope that you're listening and enjoying and... Word. So this week's book, the world according to Humphrey. I don't know why I made a jingle out of it, but I did. It is by the illustrious author, Betty G. Burney.

Shout out to my Jersey family, what's up?

David Patrick (02:38.382)
It's a jingle now.

Mike Walker (02:45.804)
I don't know if she's illustrious, but I came out.

I like it. There are no illustrations now that you're mentioning illustrious. Zero.

Ooh, I will call you on that. I will look at the front of the book and say, illustration?

Okay, so, yeah, no, yeah, yeah, And I have the exact same one. Yep. Okay. But I will challenge you. Okay. I will counter you, if you will. The cover doesn't count. This is cover art, cover design.

fine, get all technical and defining on everything.

David Patrick (03:22.87)
You can take the guy out of the yearbook, you cannot take the yearbook out of the guy.

Well there's an operation for that, I think.

Okay, my wife's a doctor, be careful. So, of course, the portrait of Humphrey in the front is actually a photograph, not just an illustration. But the good news is this might very well be one of the very first episodes where I don't say illustration. Yep. So you said the book or the author rather, the author is illustrious. Tell me more about the book. for example, why I cut you off there, I'm very sorry.

Good job.

Mike Walker (03:52.323)
Yes.

Mike Walker (03:57.902)
No, need to be sorry. We'll just carry on. I'll harbor deep, deep resentment with the rest of. Okay. That's done. So we chose this. The resentment part was done.

Yeah, okay. I got someone who

I'm looking at David's face going, what is he not understanding about what I just said? Maybe I wasn't clear.

For those of just listening, I've got a great face for podcasts.

World According to Humphrey is a book about a tiny little hamster named Humphrey and his escapades in the world of room 26 and beyond. So we chose this book for the very important reason that my daughter was reading this and I was like what is that book and this is years ago I mean not that many years ago because she's not that old

David Patrick (04:42.19)
Dun dun dun!

Mike Walker (04:57.422)
But I think it was second or somewhere between second and fourth grade. She was reading this and I think the first one they read for class and she brought it home and I started reading it and I was like, Oh my gosh, this is really a fun, fun, fun, funny book. Fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun. And I just really loved it. So I actually.

remember reading this out loud like parts of it to her. don't think I don't remember if we read the whole book, but I definitely read it for bedtimes a few times and maybe not just the world according to Humphrey because there are, you know, 30, well, uh, I don't know. There's a bunch of other Humphrey books on that's just on the back cover. And that was at the publishing of this here book.

10 on my back.

David Patrick (05:56.568)
Did you do research again?

Only a little bit. In fact, in this, at the very beginning, it does say, and look for these other books featuring Humphrey, Humphrey's book of fun, fun, fun.

Talk about the rule of three, everybody.

Wee wee wee not wee wee just wee wee wee

Oui, oui,

Mike Walker (06:18.764)
So I don't know when this was, it was originally published in 2004, but in 2004, there was only this book. Got it. And I do remember looking and seeing online that this is not the original cover. This red cover with the little tiny hamster named Humphrey popping out of a piece of, lost the word, construction paper, popping out of the construction paper, which I think

construction paper is drawn so you know that part's drawn but the hamster on the cover is truly a real hamster.

Well, and on the back of my version, it says cover photo copyright Steve Grubman 2008 cover designed by Jeannie Henderson.

in DDDD. So this book brings back memories of reading with Ruby.

I love it. I first heard of this book when you suggested it during the recording of our last episode, which in real time was only about four or five days ago. No, it was last week.

Mike Walker (07:23.586)
We mentioned it last week. Yes. that was two episodes ago.

And now that you say that, I do remember because I thought, okay, I'll just check it out for my library. And I think I have access to three different libraries online. It was checked out at all of them. So I put it on hold. And then I thought, Nope, I better just buy this because it costs me $6 on Amazon delivered the next day. And I realized, I think I looked online and saw that it was a chapter book and over a hundred pages and thought I can't. No.

Can't read that one last minute.

So, but what I've also done is one of the libraries after I bought it, of course, I think Amazon has this brain center where as soon as you buy something, says to the library, okay, now you can release it. So one of the libraries said your hold is available and I was about to cancel it, but I love my libraries and I want to boost their circ stats, if you will. Circulation statistics. I'm still going to check it out, but I will say to you, I am extremely glad

that I bought this because I absolutely love this book. And I mean absolutely. And even though I do superlatives quite often, dare I say, I can't necessarily say of the 13 books that we've read, this is the best, but I can say of the 13 books, sorry, that I've read, this one affected me the most. And I had no idea that it would do that.

Mike Walker (08:28.419)
Meet

Mike Walker (08:50.506)
I had kind of forgotten about the fact that it is so, it's very touching. It is. It's amazing. You look at it you're like, it's a story about a rodent.

And you were being nice, I was thinking rat.

Which is funny because Betty, Betty actually in the little thing that she writes in the back, she says that she's never had a hamster and actually doesn't like rodents. But she considered having a hamster, but her dog would not hear of it.

And spoiler alert, her dog is apparently a character upon which one of the characters in the book is loosely based. Certainly the experience. But Mike, really want to thank you for, I don't want to say exposing because this is a family friendly show, but for recommending this book because I am serious. This book is so good, it made me want to write. That's how good it is.

Yes.

David Patrick (09:56.238)
And that is probably one of the high praise you can give to a book, is it makes me want to write a book. That's how inspiring it was.

I agree. Even this time reading it, I was still getting emotional at some of the things that happen. It sneaks up on you and you're like, how did that happen? Why am I crying?

Exactly. You use the perfect words. It seeks up on you. Yeah. One of my favorite movies is fried green tomatoes. And then the screenplay was written by the woman who also wrote the book and she also has a cookbook. And yes, I own all of the above. But in fried green tomatoes, there's something that happens and it's almost like it punches you across the face. And then something happens again. Yeah. And it sneaks up on you. And that is fantastic storytelling, whether it's a book or a film or a play.

And this book does that. And there's even a couple of things that happen. You know, it's funny, I wrote somewhere in the notes, okay, we have to do spoiler alert, even maybe pause. If you've not read this book, press pause right now, go buy the book. Don't check it out from the library. Do both. Search stats. both. Read it.

stats search stats search stats that's yeah I tried to say it like Humphrey would say it he can't say that

David Patrick (11:18.328)
No, you can't say that. And Dr. Seuss is rolling his grave right now. Dope! Why didn't I think of that? Squeak, squeak, squeak. For squeak's sake. No, but I've decided, you and I don't need to talk about any plot stuff on this one. And I want people to not have to pause and go listen to it. And I don't want to ruin anything. And so I won't. But this book is, it's just so good. And it is silly at first.

It's very silly at first.

extremely, actually silly throughout. She doesn't let go of the silly.

No, absolutely not. It's definitely written for a certain age and their parents.

I was gonna always add that, in the back it does say ages eight and up. But you said that Ruby read it when she was about six, is that right?

Mike Walker (12:03.852)
Now I think second grade. So it would have been about eight.

Okay, nevermind. Okay. But it's just, it's so good. I, okay, I broke one of our unofficial packs, pack, One of the typical things is who does the research on our books? Who? Yep. I broke it a little bit because I got curious, like, who is this Betty? And I did look in the back and it turns out she's married to a guy who's an actor. Yep. So I did do some, some research.

Me.

David Patrick (12:36.13)
I was like, well, who's the actor guy? Well, that led me to realize that he has since passed away, but he was 80 something. Does not make it less sad. But they apparently had a very lovely marriage for many, many years. But I don't know why I'm even bringing this up. No, she wrote in children's television, wrote and produced a lot for many, many years. And you can tell in this, and I mean that in a good way. She just, she's really good at storytelling. It's...

It's such a great device because it really is the world according to Humphrey. It's his point of view and perspective on the world and it's really,

Absolutely. I was on her website and Wikipedia, because you know that's where I go. So I was doing my bit of research, even though I already knew that you had done some research, then I felt like I had to do some research to keep up with you. Are you kidding me? Probably. Very competitive on this show. Extremely. I win! What? no, you didn't. Anyway.

Yeah

David Patrick (13:26.542)
out research.

Mike Walker (13:38.518)
So I went and read some some stuff from her website and from Wikipedia and from other places and and and she speaks about writing this book and the idea came to her and then over the next couple of years she tried to sit down and write and I remember this is the funniest thing I thought it was hilarious. She

at one point sat down and started writing and Humphrey came off as Humphrey had an English accent and she was like, my God, this is so wrong.

But I could see that I'm like, oh my god, I could see Humphrey playing an English hamster. Do they have hamsters in England? I know someone from England. Let us know. Give us a call at five five five. But yeah, so she talks about the writing process, not only of this book, but she talks about how her years of writing for children's television and really television in general.

Mike and Dave.

Mike Walker (14:48.77)
really gave her a sense of how to outline things and know where you're going. Because when you know where you're going, you know the end point. If you need to change things in the middle, you can shorten things, make things longer, whatever, to make it fit in that time that you're trying to stick to. Yeah. So it's actually really fascinating. And it's interesting because David and I and our friend Tim,

very cool.

Mike Walker (15:17.686)
A few short, six months ago, started having meetings on Zoom and talking about actually on Meet. Yes. And we started writing because there's this thing that Tim has been doing for much longer called the artist way. And basically he writes three pages every morning and it can be about whatever you want it to be about. It's just getting in the habit of writing and

One of the things that she said in those blog posts, I think, was that the writing process, doing it every day, it makes you better. And it, you don't have to write about what you are planning on writing a story about, but you just have to write. So I thought that was very interesting. And coming from someone who made their living writing for TV and film for years.

before she wrote this book. Wow. Yeah.

So it sounds like she had the craft. Yes. The storytelling, but the habit, the habit of, I wrote down, write every day. And the reason why I wrote that down is

So that you had written today? Yes.

David Patrick (16:33.678)
You mean after my page and a half of notes that I wrote just from finishing the book this morning? So one of the reasons, actually not one of the reasons, the reason why I know Mike is because I met his lovely wife Kim at the second city in Chicago in the early mid 90s. And we both took classes there, went through the conservatory, but I ended up being the assistant to the director of a show there.

And the second city does sketch comedy shows and the assistant to the director, which is what I was, record the things that they say and write them down and create scripts. But David Keckner is a working actor. He's been working for decades. He was on Saturday Night Live for a season and he is in Anchorman. He is the sports cast or guy with the cowboy hat. But David has a great career because he writes a lot of his own stuff and he has for decades. And he gave me this advice. He goes, David.

Write every day. And that was it. Just write every day. So whether it's morning pages, whether it's what our good friend here, Betty G. Burney said, just writing every day. Every day. It's the morning pages that Tim introduced us to. Neil Simon, the famous playwright, would write three pages every morning and three pages every night, whether he was writing a play or not. If he's writing a play, he'd obviously spend a lot of time writing a ton, but he wrote three pages every morning, three pages every night.

every day.

Mike Walker (18:02.444)
not to belabor the point of if you're a writer, write every day. But when I first moved to LA, my brother-in-law, Bill Wolkoff, said, I hope you don't think that I'm blowing you off and that I don't want to spend time with you. But my job is I'm a writer. I don't get paid for it right now, but it is my job. I am a writer. I will spend

eight hours a day with a break in the middle to eat some food. But he wrote for eight hours a day, every day of the week. It was a 40 hour a week job, probably even more, but that was his job. And you just have to look at that and go, wow, that's dedication. 40 hours a week of writing. And he wrote and wrote and didn't get paid.

for much, for a long time. And then all of the sudden he was writing for different series. And now is the show runner on the Star Trek series, Strange New Worlds, which is in its third or fourth season, depending on when you listen to this episode. But he also wrote a really great animated series called Kipo and the Age of the Wonder Beasts. And I really loved

That, obviously, I'm a little biased, but I think he's a great writer, and so watch all of his shows. Anyway, but the point was that he wrote every day for eight hours, whether he had another job or not. And obviously, he had to have another job for a while.

every day.

David Patrick (19:55.832)
was gonna say. Because writing without getting paid doesn't pay.

Really? No, no, there's a lot of paper in it, but not paper that you can deposit the bank.

Mm-hmm. Well, we've talked about this before and another writer, a guy named Bill or as we know him, William Faulkner, he said it very succinctly, don't be a writer, write.

Absolutely. Mic drop. And I think that that can be said about really anything that you want to do. If you want to be an artist, don't try to be an artist. Be an artist. Take your craft and do what it is that you want to do.

Yeah, don't be an artist. Art. Wait, what?

Mike Walker (20:42.67)
Well, you know, there's so many different forms of art. I think we mentioned that in one of the other episodes.

We probably have, I'm going to use that as a segue to go back to the book. Cool. Because if there were a kid named Art in the class, is it room 26, did you say? If there were a kid named Art in room 26, then she would probably call him or they would call him, don't be an art.

26 yes it is

Mike Walker (21:09.198)
Don't be an art art. Don't be an art. No

Again, I'm not going to get into any plot points in the book, but I will get into some of the literary devices that they do. There's a really funny thing where certain kids have nicknames that are based on how adults address them. I wrote, raise your hand, Heidi is really funny. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So I have a question for you, Mike. If you were in this class, what would your name be?

Yes. Speak up, Sia.

Mike Walker (21:35.491)
Go ahead.

Mike Walker (21:40.578)
Well, in thinking back to my elementary school days and my report cards that always had a comment on them and this was the days when they just had different letters and then you'd flip it over and look at what the comment meant. I believe I was always an Talks too much.

Talks too much,

yeah. Shut your mouth, Mike. And look at that. I wasn't planning on making a career out of that, but I certainly have.

is outstanding. I love it. And what's funny is I thought, ooh, I'm going to stump Mike with this exercise of what he would be called now. And then you went back to your childhood. And then I went, what about my childhood?

is that not the question? okay.

David Patrick (22:33.888)
No, it was. No, no, no. It totally was because I wrote for my nickname, slow down David, because I talk too fast. Sometimes. OK, how about slow down sometimes, David? He says really quickly. Anyway, the point and also I thought maybe you could have been Walker Mike. Yeah, but I don't know how much you walk.

Sometimes.

Mike Walker (22:53.708)
Or actually, because what's my name? Mike. What do my parents call me when I'm in trouble? Walker. Which translates to Walker, MD. I'm a doctor.

Walker.

Michael David Walker.

David Patrick (23:05.742)
love it. Dr. Walker. That's awesome. But also Walker Mike is just a nod to Golden Miranda, whose real name is Miranda Golden in the book. So now I've got to go back to my past and go, I don't know, stop being funny, David. That would be my name. mean. Sit down, David. Oh, I love.

Absolutely

Mike Walker (23:25.416)
Sit down, David.

Don't just David

and also what y'all don't know, what would you just say? What was that again? that's awesome. Don't jest David.

Don't jest, David.

Mike Walker (23:39.342)
Cause all of a sudden I just had a picture of you and a jester's outfit.

that's hilarious. And my mom would always say, don't be sarcastic, even in jest. I thought you were channeling-

My mom. Well, I was, but you know, I always channel your mom. What channel is she on again? Okay, cool.

Channel 13. That was the PBS station in Dallas back when we had, know, it was the fourth station.

That was always the PBS station from what I remember. It was always Channel 13. Really? I think so. Okay. Like that was, that's my memory of PBS is that it was on Channel 13 and that I never watched it because there was always something weird on.

David Patrick (24:19.278)
I watched it a lot because in third grade, which for me was the summer of 1977, my friend Mark Dubose and I stayed up late. Ooh, yes, that is one great thing that happened. As a matter of fact, plenty of you mentioned that. I spent the night at Mark Dubose's house in the summer of third grade and we stayed up late. We did an all-nighter, which was crazy. We started watching Channel 13, because that's what kids did, and there was this insane movie.

about King Arthur and there was like a killer rabbit and an outrageous French accent and there was a canigot. There was a knight who was really, really scary until they chopped off his arm and then another arm. Anyway, channel 13, the PBS station in Dallas Fort Worth in the 70s is actually what brought Monty Python to the United States.

He's got fangs!

Mike Walker (25:14.888)
And now that you say that, that was my introduction to the Benny Hill show as well. I didn't pass by it every time. Sometimes there was running.

Hahaha

And yeah, so that was your story about your friend staying overnight watching my night by the on Mark Dubose, Mark Dubose.

So I had another story about him, but then I remember it wasn't Mark DeBose, it was Jimmy Knight. So nevermind. Okay. Anyway, so the book is really, really good and it inspired me in two ways. One is to write, which I told you about, but among other things, I am a teacher and I'll be teaching public speaking, improv and acting electives at my girl's school. I'll also be starting my own improv school to teach kids improv. And it was very moving about how the teachers and the adults in this book.

dialed in to the kids and to what was going on. And I'll just leave it at that because I don't want to cry again in this episode. But it just really inspired me of how I can be a better teacher and a better parent and a better husband. And I had no idea that a book called The World According to Humphrey with a hamster bursting out of construction paper would have that effect on me. Yeah.

David Patrick (26:31.788)
So if you want any of those kinds of effects, I highly recommend you pick up The World According to Humphrey by Betty G. Burney.

Absolutely. So I kind of have the same feeling, but I'm just gonna try and say this one thing before I cry.

There's no crying in baseball.

What I found after reading about it and thinking back about the whole thing is that Miss Mac, at the very beginning, when she is taking him home from the pet store, Petorama, she says, you can learn a lot about yourself by taking care of another species. She told me on the way home the day she got me.

You'll teach those kids a thing or two.

David Patrick (27:24.558)
Stop it.

Sorry. What I love about that is that she is telling him that the children are going to take care of him and they're going to learn something by taking care of him. He takes it that, I have to take care of these people. I have to learn how to deal with them and learn, you know, learn more about myself by helping them basically.

But yeah, I was like, my gosh, that's, and it's on the first page of the book. Yeah. But I re I remembered, when I finished it, when I finished it, I remembered that, yeah. What, what, did she say at the beginning? my God, that is so cool. And then in doing research, you know, it just kept coming up. So yeah, an awesome, awesome, awesome book.

totally forgot about that.

David Patrick (28:21.379)
Yeah

Mike Walker (28:25.454)
There I said it three times. Just like Humphrey. So we both agree that this is a great book for anyone. Eight and up because it says eight up on the back. But really, you could read this to any kid and they'll love it. Yeah.

and you can even have an adult read it, even just to themselves like I did.

Or you can read it out loud to an adult. And if you do that, then send us an email at dadsonbooks at gmail.com and let us know of your experience and maybe we'll talk about it on the show. Thanks. you're welcome. I like good ideas. Insert music here and here's the end of our show.

That's a great idea, Mike.