Dads on Books

Mike (00:00)
I'm Mike Walker. I'm David Patrick. We are dads on books. Dads on books. But we are dads on books. We're addicted to books, we sit on books, and we even talk about-

Well, welcome again.

David (00:24)
It's good to be back!

Mike (00:26)
it's glad, ⁓ it's, I'm glad to see you. It's been so long. ⁓ thank you.

David (00:30)
glad to hear you. It

has been a while. For those of who listen to us a lot and think all of you and there are many of you. It's only been a week, but Mike and I just got back from a podcast convention.

Mike (00:45)
We sure did. It was terrifically informational.

David (00:48)
It was good stuff. Podcast movement is actually what it was called. And we moved. We laughed, we cried. It was wonderful

Mike (00:55)
It was hashtag #PM25 if you want to tag anything to PM25 because you were there with us.

David (00:57)
What's up?

I love it. Hey, it's good to see you again. All of you who are there with us and are now checking out this latest episode. So Mike, tell us and them and you and everyone what book we are talking about today.

Mike (01:09)
Absolutely. So yes.

Well, I'll tell myself first because I really want to know what book we're discussing today. So we are discussing the ever popular Pinkalicious, which I mentioned this morning in the car with Ruby when I was dropping her off at school. And she said, ⁓ I love that book. And I was like, that's great. Cause when David mentioned it, I wasn't sure if I remembered it. She was like, I love when she turns pink.

David (01:21)
Okay.

Awesome. that that should be a review in case the sales are lagging. They can use that review. I love that book. Spoiler alert. I loved it when she turned pink. ⁓ That's awesome.

Mike (01:46)
kind of funny.

Completely.

Yes.

And I said, well, didn't remember that she turned pink. I had to read the book to remember it. So,

David (02:04)
were surprised all over again. That's outstanding. I love it. That's the power of not remembering something.

Mike (02:06)
I was, it was like the first time ever that I read it.

Absolutely.

David (02:14)
Yeah, so it's Pinkalicious and it's written by Victoria Can and Elizabeth Can. And once again, I didn't do any research on how do you pronounce those names, but it's K-A-N-N. So I'm assuming it's Can and not Con.

Mike (02:27)
I guess you can.

David (02:28)
⁓ Kahn I?

Mike (02:32)
⁓ Yes, yes you can. You're such a con.

David (02:34)
And

I am definitely, I'm not a con, I'm a pro.

Mike (02:39)
That's right. That you are a pro. Moving on.

David (02:44)
Anyway, so one thing that I do remember from when I read these books to my Monica and I read these early on to our girls and we had a funny conversation the other day because Monica listened to our Fancy Nancy episode, dropped a few weeks back. And she texted me and said, something said like, Hey, Laura gave us that book. And I thought, wait a second. I thought Laura, this is a friend of hers gave us Pinkalicious.

Then I thought, shh!

Mike (03:10)
Thank goodness, for a second

I thought it was Laura Ingalls Wilder.

David (03:14)
⁓ Yeah, she's 190 years old and loves Pinkalicious. But anyway, the point is, we got this book early on. in my looking at the title page, I realized I have a first edition. Yeah, it's not often that I have that. But this goes in the category of books that obviously neither of us read as kids because A, we weren't girls and B, these books were written and published in

Mike (03:31)
Whoa. Wild.

David (03:41)
sometime in the mid aughts, if you will. And I do remember loving it and I do remember reading these to my girls a lot. And I remember them loving this and the other alicious books as well.

Mike (03:45)
the mid-aughts.

So I remember that we had this one, and I remember reading it to them, but with all the books that we read, I can't remember everything, so I kind of forgot about the story, which was great, because when I went back and reread it, I was like, I'm surprised, awesome! But, but I do remember having this one, maybe another one, maybe one other one, but

David (04:13)
That's awesome.

Mm-hmm.

Mike (04:22)
We didn't I know they do purple-ish-ous and silver-ish-ous. I don't even know, like people turning silver. I don't know about that. I don't even know if that's what this story is about. So, you know.

David (04:30)
Yeah.

Spoiler

non alert, nobody turns silver in Silverlicious. Yeah, so a quick word on the series. ⁓ Pinkalicious is actually the name of our protagonist, this girl, and each of ⁓ has a... The color is related to it, but it's necessarily that she turns that color. And again, with the spoiler alert, she does turn pink in this book.

Mike (04:40)
⁓ good. I'm glad.

David (05:02)
And you didn't know that and you haven't read it, I'm sorry. Please read it again in about 10 to 15 years so that you can have the joy of rediscovering that.

Mike (05:11)
Thank you, Journey.

David (05:12)
So speaking of Journey, me, tell us something about this book that you like. Let's just get into the book.

Mike (05:20)
Well, I like I don't know, I like the drawing. It's very simple. It's colorful. It's not too out there. So it was a nice kind of a bit of a change up from things like.

Jamie Lee Curtis's

words for little people but it still had a lot of fun it. So

one of the things I really, really loved about this book was on page seven, Pinkalicious is getting wild and crazy she's eaten so many cupcakes. She's bouncing off the walls with sugar and hanging Yes. I mean, on that page alone, she eats

David (05:59)
Yes, hanging from chandeliers with sugar.

Mike (06:07)
Five cupcakes, maybe. on the very next page, I had to laugh because daddy waved a tired finger at me. You have had enough.

David (06:09)
Yes.

Yes, however, in my version, it says you have had ENOUGH because enough is all caps.

Mike (06:24)
Correct.

Yes, I didn't stress it enough because my mouth was too close to the mic and I didn't want to blow everyone out.

David (06:32)
Mike, didn't stress it enough. No, but that's for me. I love that page and passage two, because daddy waved a tired finger. I love that she describes the finger as tired or the waving is tired. Have you ever waved a tired finger because I know I have

Mike (06:35)
ENOUGH! That's enough.

I have definitely waved a tired finger and the look on daddy's face, I'm quite positive that I've had that look many a time.

David (06:56)
Yes.

I've definitely had that look with less hair and less hip clothes. He has skinny jeans and stuff, but

Mike (07:15)
He's kind of dressed more like Michael maybe, your brother.

David (07:17)
indeed. For those of who don't know my brother Michael, he dresses nicely and I don't. Okay. can I get back to something that this particular page actually reminds me of that you said earlier? Yes, the arcs, the animation, the illustrations, that's the word I was looking for, third time's the charm, is simpler and less busy in this book than in some other books that we've read. But there's something that they do.

that's different. Some of the things look like they might be if not photographs of things, but then maybe cutouts of some sort. Because there are certain things like the chandelier here. there are other pages where certain toys, even back on the preparation and making of the cupcakes, there's a colander that is very clearly some kind of colander that they took a picture of or something. And it's something that happens a lot in these books. And it's it's pretty cool and interesting, or even better.

Mom's apron at the very beginning is clearly a cutout of a handwritten recipe.

Mike (08:20)
Wow, I had to get really close to the book to see that, you were, yeah, it does look like that.

David (08:21)
So there.

So in other words, it looks like a little bit of a collage or a kid is cutting, literally not computer cutting and pasting, but cutting some things out and pasting them in. It has that look and it's subtle, but it's there and it's one of the many things I love about this book.

Mike (08:38)
Yeah,

is very cool. did not notice that, but you know, you're the king of noticing things.

David (08:46)
on the crown prints of noticing illustrations.

Mike (08:50)
You are the illustration guy. So what was a part of this book you really loved?

David (08:58)
One of my favorites was when she, again, this is plot sensitive, spoiler alert kind of stuff.

are two things that I'm going to go before I go to the bump bump bump. I'm to go to at one point it's early on and I love it because it's a phrase that I used and even still use with my kids a lot. Her mother says to her when she at first is saying, just one more cupcake, just one more, just one more. And her mother says, you get what you get and you don't get upset. that's the thing people say that I don't remember if

Mike (09:30)
Yes.

David (09:35)
The first time I heard it was in real life or when I read this book, but I have been saying that to my daughters for years, even now that they're much too old or at least older to hear that. And yet I'm still saying it the same way I read it to my girls.

Mike (09:42)
Yes.

That's so funny. I've developed over the years and now somebody will just say, you get what you get. And then, you know, one of the children will be like, are you get upset? Whatever. They don't really do that, but I thought it would be fun.

David (10:01)
you don't get upset.

Yes, exactly. And of course she says, but I got very upset. And so that's the part that just stood out. was one of the things I love about rereading a book that I definitely write to my girls is it's reminded me of, yeah, I said that.

Mike (10:13)
Yes.

yeah! You sure did!

David (10:25)
And sometimes I can hear myself saying it in the same way that I read it to my girls.

Mike (10:34)
such as, give us an example.

David (10:35)
Such,

well funny Mike, that you should ask me that. I have a lot. So later on in the book, when Pinkalicious finally begins to recognize the error of her ways and she begins to correct them, she says, knew what I had to do.

And that's one of those phrases that I've not been repeating a lot over the years that really just reading that brought me back to that. I loved it. And it was so fun and so cute. And one of the things I love about this book is that Pinkalicious has a journey.

Mike (11:13)
Yes.

David (11:14)
She starts at the beginning and she makes mistakes. She does exactly that. And on top of that, there's a middle part.

Mike (11:17)
ends at the end.

Yes,

and there's a journey.

David (11:25)
And there's a denouement and there's an arc and there's other theater and words, plot words that I've

Yeah.

Mike (11:33)
been a long

It's been a long time since English class.

David (11:36)
Yeah, for me, it was in the 1900s. So anyway, it was just really, really fun. And it was also fun that to pick up little elements of the denouement or the whatever all those words are. And one of them was I knew

Mike (11:39)
Hmm, me too.

I knew what I had to do.

David (11:54)
Dun dun dun! And then she did it and it worked.

then there was another phrase like that, that, no wait, what else stood out to you? Give me a part, a phrase, a quote that really stood out and spoke to you.

Mike (12:07)
Well, going to go back to where I started, with dad because you know, this is dad's on books. should talk about the dads. Of course, cause the dad is in here twice. And once he is, that's enough stress.

David (12:11)
Mm-hmm.

Of course!

Again, the waving the tired finger

was 50 % of our dad. What was the other half?

Mike (12:31)
The other half just read the passage. was no longer red. I was no longer pink. It was me. And I was beautiful. So what happened to the rest of the cupcakes, Pinkalicious? Daddy asked. Just then, Peter ran in and yelled, Spoiler alert!

David (12:49)
You must read the book now.

Mike (12:51)
Because, not because you're going to go read the book, but because brought this passage up, that page shows dad again. But this time he looks like he's had some sleep. It's in the morning. He's got his happy morning face on. He probably had some coffee, maybe a Danish.

David (13:05)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mike (13:16)
So yeah,

so, but again, he is dressed smartly. and it's funny to see the kind of dichotomy of tired daddy and awake daddy.

David (13:30)
Cause I don't know about you, but I've been both.

Mike (13:32)
I have often, often. Yes, about 6 45.

David (13:33)
that maybe even today. No, too much.

Cock-a-doodle-doo. but what's fun is I don't remember when this last happened, but it happens a lot. When I was about to tell you one of my favorite parts and then my voice said, David, ask Mike, I was already on that same page. And I was going to say, dude, figuratively, literally, metaphorically, allegorically, and other literary terms that I forgot what they mean.

Mike (13:52)
That's so funny. We are so on the same page.

David (14:02)
But I was about to say, I was me and I was beautiful. And that is a beautiful line. And that is a beautiful lesson. And my girls were young enough that I didn't say, I wasn't didactic banging them over the head. I just, exactly. Yes, indeed. Not just didactically, but figuratively, just so you know.

Mike (14:06)
Yes.

with a pan, because they're still alive.

No, yes, yes.

No, I totally agree with that sentiment. It is a great thing to tell a kid or for a kid to realize that I was just me. And enough. Cause I'm just me and I'm beautiful as me. So I think that that's a sentiment.

David (14:35)
Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Can you stop making me cry, please? I don't know why it's hitting me. No, it's...

Mike (14:49)
I'll try, but man.

David (14:54)
It's just a combination of thinking of my girls in that line. And that beautiful doesn't, the point is it's not physical.

Mike (14:57)
Yeah. Yeah.

No,

you're a good person. You've learned from mistakes you've made because we all, everyone in the world has made a mistake, at least one. ⁓

David (15:12)
Yep, I've made two.

I've made twice as more than most people, sorry.

Mike (15:20)
mean, it's, you know, as dads, always want our kids to do their best and be all they can be, know, like in the 80s, join the army. And I think that when they realize

David (15:26)
Mm-hmm.

Mike (15:38)
how amazing they are, it just makes us cry because we're sappy.

David (15:40)
Yeah.

Yeah, in the first half, I was me. So be beautiful and know that you're beautiful, but be yourself. Be authentic. I think another reason exactly. And another reason it hit home for me is because I'm years old. Yeah. And I'm still learning that lesson for myself.

Mike (15:54)
Exactly. And that's how you are beautiful.

Still?

Oh my gosh. Yeah, totally. Totally. I think, um, every day you realize a little bit more that, you know, there's just so much about life and you just have to figure out who you are. And we do that, I think throughout our lives. And I'm also 50 years old.

David (16:14)
sound.

Absolutely. And we're back.

Mike (16:41)
and

David (16:42)
Who needs sound effects? We have each other.

Mike (16:46)
Yeah, so as we go through life, we just have to remember lines like that. I was me and I was beautiful.

David (16:54)
good stuff.

And I hope to be making that realization in my 90s. You know, maybe not in my hundreds. That's, that'll be, but you know, we'll see.

Mike (17:03)
By then I

just want to be hanging out and everybody else can just bow down to me and, you know, do everything for me. Not really. I really hope that maybe I will have taken up yoga so that I'm still limber and can move.

David (17:12)
Exactly.

It's never too late.

Mike (17:21)
No, it's not. So I think ⁓ that is an amazing amount of information we've given about the book. That is more, I think, than we ever have in this short period of time. And I'm amazed.

David (17:30)
Yes.

getting a...

I am too. Are we getting efficient-er?

Mike (17:41)
I don't know. I think yes, maybe, but also like it's a combination of us doing this for now 20 episodes. And mean, I think we've always felt comfortable in doing this together, but I think that this book lent itself to like

David (17:53)
That's right!

Mike (18:08)
We got into it really well and it just is a quick book and it's great.

David (18:14)
Yes, absolutely. And

⁓ it's all about that book, about that book. No clutter. No, it's a... ⁓

Mike (18:19)
about that book.

Actually, there

isn't a lot of clutter in the yard on this one. Yes. Yes.

David (18:25)
You are correct. You are

correct. There isn't.

my copy. There's some reviews on the back of the book and I want to I want to put Ruby's in there.

Mike (18:38)
Awesome. I'll let her know that.

So David, you were, we were talking the other day and you were teaching and where were you teaching?

David (18:47)
Yes.

At Holy Trinity Catholic schools, the school where my girls and I teach middle school public speaking theater improv like

Mike (18:54)
Yes.

you weren't reading this book during that. Where did you read this book?

David (19:03)
No, yes.

you should ask Mike, I read it. So what I do is I find places where I can office at the school before or between classes. And I realized, hey, I'm in the library at my girl's school reading a book, isn't it? And the librarian was with me. Yes. And we will have, I did, because I know her and she's

Mike (19:20)
How weird. Whoa.

Whaaaa-

So did you talk to the librarian? Did she say

shh?

David (19:33)
I was waiting for her to and being scolded and she didn't, because I realized, wait, we are colleagues in a library by ourselves.

Mike (19:41)
Tell me more.

David (19:41)
Miss Dickinson,

well, Miss Dickinson did tell me that she would love to be on our show one of these days.

Mike (19:49)
Well, when we finally have guests, we will ask Mrs. Dickinson. We'll ask her, what in the Dickinson?

David (19:53)
Yes, exactly.

Is it Emily or Charles? That is the question. one of the things she and I talked about is, especially this was appropriate in a Catholic school, ⁓ the Kann sisters, Victoria and Elizabeth, are really good with their commas. it's separating two adjectives or if it's an independent or dependent clause and will spare the details of the rules.

Mike (20:00)
Exactly.

David (20:24)
But I started really looking and they're really, really good with the punctuation. And that makes me happy.

Mike (20:30)
Yay. I love it. Well, I'm glad we had this discussion of punctuation, ⁓ because I had a conversation the other day about the ellipse and how it's overused by old people in text. And I said to ellipsis, maybe that's what it is. The dot dot dot. Yes.

David (20:31)
Yay.

Yeah.

Yes.

⁓ is the ellipse? Go ahead.

but he's up the dot dot dot. Yes. And

you said.

Mike (20:56)
I was reading an article to my family about, you can tell if the person who is texting with you is over 50. a couple of the things were that you capitalize letters, you use puncture, you use punctuation.

David (21:10)
Ha

WHAT?! Can I guess one? At the end of a sentence after the period, you put two spaces.

Mike (21:15)
Yes,

no, that actually wasn't one of them. I know. Do you do that in a text?

David (21:22)
What? Okay.

Well, I do it because I always did it when I was, yes, I'm old enough. I actually used a typewriter. I transitioned to a computer and now there's a phone and texting and you don't need to put the two spaces, but I still do. And there was a reason back in the day that that happened.

Mike (21:31)
Typewriter. Yep.

I

believe it was because the, ⁓ if you're typing fast enough, think the keys, ⁓ the ha I don't know what they're called the hammers. ⁓ as you push the thing, the thing went down and smacked your paper with the ink. those things would get caught up on each other sometimes. So if you double spaced, I think it was a way of keeping it from doing that. But if I'm wrong, ⁓ drop it in the comments below.

David (21:51)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yes, because we.

Mike (22:11)
and let us know. Cause

I would actually like to know that and not research it.

David (22:18)
Now, as much as you like the research and I allegedly don't, yeah, I'm like, boy, I want to go down that rabbit hole. But yeah, let us know if you know the answer to that. And can I also give a related question? So since my girls go to Catholic school, they write in a language that many people don't, and it's called cursive. And my oldest daughter graduated in May and goes to our local ⁓ public high school, Keller.

Mike (22:29)
Yes.

Yes.

graduated

eighth grade. Yes.

David (22:44)
Yes,

I'm sorry. Thank you. Graduated eighth grade. She now goes to Keller High School. And she said that one of the teachers was writing something in cursive and she had to translate for one of her classmates. But the question I want to get back to is, and I won't answer it, but I'll ask it. Cursive was invented for a specific reason. And the hint is it did help solve a technical problem, just like the double space on a typewriter did.

Mike (22:54)
Mm-hmm.

David (23:11)
So if you know that story, tell us in the comments and we'll discuss later.

Mike (23:16)
Yes, we will bring it back on another episode. That sounds awesome. but the whole point was to this, this ⁓ lesson in language is that the ellipsis, I believe that's what it's called, ⁓ is overused by people over 50. And along with all of the other things in this article, ⁓ I asked,

David (23:22)
Yes.

Mm-hmm.

You are correct.

Mike (23:46)
My children, does your mom do those things all the time? And they said, Oh yeah. And I said, okay, I know I use punctuation, blah, blah, blah. said, but can I ask one question? Do I overuse the ellipsis? And they sat there and thought about it for a second and they went through it and they're like, no, actually.

David (23:52)
Hahaha

Mike (24:15)
I think when you use it, you're using it properly and it doesn't come off as being passive aggressive. I said, okay, I feel like we've all learned a lesson that if you sporadically use punctuation, it makes you seem like, I don't know, you care.

David (24:23)
⁓ awesome.

That's awesome! ⁓

Well, I'm going to harrump and I will not sporadically use punctuation. will correctly. Exactly. Well, absolutely. No, no, no, no, It has a purpose. And I don't know if you're still on the ⁓ not tired, not mad dad page. Just then Peter ran in and yelled dot dot dot. That is a duh, that's a lot higher. Sorry.

Mike (24:49)
just don't use the ellipsis all the time. And don't use it as a space, like dot dot dot, no, or a dash. Exactly.

I am. Of course.

Why do you think I brought it up?

David (25:12)
That was like four minutes ago. have no idea. No, but yeah, again, to circle back on all the punctuation, but with any kind of literary device, language device, dare I say swear words, if you use them a lot, they lose their emphasis and power. So use things correctly, but use them intentionally and use them with real meaning and purpose. And QED.

Mike (25:14)
Yeah, I know.

precisely.

David (25:40)
That's it, arrest my case. No further questions, Your Honor.

Mike (25:43)
Well then, I guess we can take this to the jury. Well, jury, why don't you send us a message on email at.

David (25:46)
Yeah, we shall

Mike (25:58)
or drop us a line on our Facebook or Instagram page, preferably Facebook right now, at least in August of 2025, because we are still over 50 and haven't really totally learned the whole Instagram language. But we will someday. So get back to us in 2042 when we totally figure it out.

David (26:10)
Hahaha!

Yes, when it's the fifth generations away from the next best thing. But hey, we did delete our prodigy.com email. So I'm very proud.

Mike (26:34)
What about Hotmail?

David (26:36)
⁓ you're right. We got rid of that one. ⁓ We were using the CompuServe for a while, but then we discovered this new thing called AOL.

Mike (26:39)
Okay, we did, okay.

I was totally going to say that.

David (26:51)
Okay, so that was another fun episode and this is when we decide on our next book? ⁓

Mike (26:57)
It is.

think got two books that we should either do I think we should do the book called El Deafo or Percy Jackson and Thief.

David (27:13)
I love it.

excellent. So stay tuned. One of those books will be our next episode. Thank you for listening and thank you for sharing your love of books with us, letting us share our love of books with you.

Mike (27:28)
Yes. And yes. And.

David (27:29)
Yes. Excellent.