Christopher Cerf, A SKUNK IN MY BUNK!
[0:09]I'm Zibi Owens, and you're listening to the web-e-nominated podcast,
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[1:17]I'm really excited to be here today with Christopher Serf,
[1:20]who is an Emmy and Grammy award-winning author,
[1:23]composer, humorist, and producer.
[1:25]A charter contributing editor of the National Lampoon
[1:28]and a former senior editor at Random House.
[1:30]He has written 300 plus songs for the Sesame Workshop productions.
[1:34]He's the author of children's book.
[1:36]There's a skunk in my bunk.
[1:38]Spinglish, the expert speak.
[1:40]Blackie, the horse who stood still with Page Peterson
[1:42]and many other books.
[1:43]So welcome, Chris.
[1:45]Well, it's a big, really great to be here.
[1:48]Great to have you.
[1:49]So first, I want to talk about your latest book.
[1:51]There's a skunk in my bunk, which is fantastic.
[1:54]I could read a quote, but it would be a rather short quote.
[1:57]Boat, goat, coat, moat.
[2:00]Float at the boat with the goat in the coat,
[2:02]and the moat does not float.
[2:04]And my little guys loved this book,
[2:06]and they think that you are Dr. Seuss.
[2:08]So tell me about how this whole book came about.
[2:12]Well, there is a little bit of Dr. Seuss involved in the story
[2:15]in that back in the 1950s, my mom and Dr. Seuss
[2:20]started beginner books.
[2:22]It was based on the fact that Dr. Seuss had already written
[2:26]the cat in the hat, which he wrote because,
[2:28]John Hersey, the novelist wrote a piece in Life
[2:31]magazine suggesting that American kids weren't
[2:34]learning to read because their primers were so boring.
[2:38]Someone like Dr. Seuss should be writing the music the same
[2:41]wordless that the people who wrote chicken
[2:44]Jane books were using.
[2:45]And Ted Geisel, Dr. Seuss said, OK, I'll do that.
[2:50]He wrote it, the cat in the hat as a result,
[2:52]using only about 300 different words.
[2:55]And with each eye cat, a cat right away, obviously,
[2:58]the public felt books like this would be needed.
[3:01]And besides, it was a great part.
[3:03]But Ted didn't plan to do any more.
[3:06]But my mom had the idea, why don't we do a whole series of these?
[3:11]Ted, you could do some more.
[3:12]And we'll get some other writers that you and I picked to do it.
[3:16]And they started beginner books.
[3:19]Ted then wrote another book, My Dad, who
[3:23]co-founded Random House, who published all these things.
[3:26]My dad bet, Ted, that he couldn't do a book with just 50 different words.
[3:31]And Ted took the bet and wrote Green Eggs in hand.
[3:35]Next beginner books, Ted always claimed,
[3:38]my dad never paid off the bet.
[3:41]Old tens and millions of copies, so that would be pretty silly.
[3:45]But in any case, beginner books were a great hit,
[3:48]and have been going ever since.
[3:50]But over the years, they got away a little bit
[3:53]from the original formula of how Ted said,
[3:56]the pages should be laid out, so kids should understand them.
[4:00]And the word list and all that.
[4:02]And Random House got in touch with me a couple years ago and said,
[4:07]Chris, you've been writing all these sesame street songs.
[4:10]You worked at beginner books with your mom at the beginning, which I did.
[4:14]Do you think you could write a book in the old beginner book style
[4:18]using the original rules?
[4:20]And I said, I sure would love to try.
[4:22]And that would be bringing things full circle.
[4:25]And I tried, and I wrote his book in my book,
[4:28]and they liked it.
[4:30]And it was just published a couple months ago.
[4:32]So it happened.
[4:33]Oh, that's so exciting.
[4:34]That's such a great story.
[4:35]Oh my gosh, over all those years and coming back to where it all began.
[4:40]That's great.
[4:41]Do you have more of these coming?
[4:42]Well, I hope so.
[4:44]Not yet.
[4:45]But I'm planning to do another one.
[4:46]They would like that.
[4:47]Go ahead.
[4:48]Because I'll show a really good start.
[4:50]My kids would also like that.
[4:51]So you have a little fan club in the house.
[4:56]Oh, I'm thrilled to hear that.
[4:58]So you've been very focused on childhood literacy.
[5:00]I feel like throughout your career with all the work you've done on sesame street,
[5:04]the show that you did between the Lions, which I want to hear more about.
[5:07]Somehow, I don't.
[5:08]I must have been in the wrong age when you were doing the show.
[5:11]But tell me a little more about between the Lions, the literary show that you did.
[5:15]OK.
[5:15]Well, between the Lions, we saw a show on PBS
[5:19]that our own company series thinking produced in collaboration with WGBH up in Boston,
[5:25]a great public station there.
[5:27]And it was on the air for 11 years.
[5:30]So it was a great run.
[5:32]And it was very much in the format of sesame street
[5:36]and that we used a wraparound story and lots of little segments that
[5:41]were designed by teachers and writers together to help kids learn to read.
[5:45]And the show was set in a library that was run by the Lions that ordinarily
[5:52]only stand outside.
[5:53]But our library was actually run by Lions.
[5:56]And the point, of course, between the Lions has to do with reading.
[6:01]My dad always said that great projects always start with terrible puns.
[6:05]And that's a really tough.
[6:07]I love it.
[6:08]Great projects start with terrible puns.
[6:10]A lot of the original Muppet performers working on it.
[6:13]And a lot of writers from sesame.
[6:15]Tremendous educators from Harvard and school and other places.
[6:19]From Brown.
[6:20]Really tough people.
[6:22]And we had a great run.
[6:23]So and I think we chose some kids to read that
[6:26]research shows that it was very helpful.
[6:29]And now we have a new project to take that show and take the best segments from it
[6:34]and actually put them in your classrooms
[6:37]as part of the first grade reading curriculum.
[6:39]Oh, wow.
[6:40]That's great.
[6:41]I'm talking to university on that.
[6:43]Doing a lot to help kids learn to read even now.
[6:46]What about putting them all on Netflix or something?
[6:48]Have you, are they on Netflix or?
[6:50]We love to do that.
[6:52]And I hope we will get there.
[6:53]OK.
[6:55]I have faith.
[6:55]I bet you'll find a way.
[6:57]We'll talk to each other's UBH about that.
[6:59]OK.
[6:59]But there is a performance right.
[7:01]Some things that need you happen.
[7:03]But I think it's going to happen.
[7:04]OK.
[7:05]And I'll let you know when it does.
[7:06]Yeah, please do.
[7:08]For sure.
[7:09]What was it like for you contributing so much to these amazing
[7:13]shows like Sesame Street songs, electric company,
[7:15]all of these classics?
[7:17]I mean, from when I was little, I mean,
[7:18]how did you come up with all these song ideas
[7:20]and what's it like writing a song versus writing a book?
[7:24]I haven't tried to write a song, really.
[7:26]I don't know how to answer that.
[7:27]Exactly.
[7:29]It's fun.
[7:29]I love doing it.
[7:31]I love the idea that I can do things that are fun and funny
[7:35]and that help kids and that parents might like to
[7:39]and that I might like to.
[7:41]And we get your work with incredible performers.
[7:43]The Muppets are amazing.
[7:45]And of course, the music people are amazing too.
[7:48]We've had a lot of celebrities in addition over the year.
[7:51]So I've gotten to work with some of the people that I
[7:54]don't like singing my songs to help kids learn to read.
[7:58]You can't answer much more than that.
[8:00]And that's your question about how do you go about it?
[8:03]Both Sesame Street and between the Lions had a curriculum
[8:07]that was drawn up by, as I mentioned earlier,
[8:10]top educators and they're learning goals in that curriculum
[8:14]that might be that kids should know the difference between
[8:17]the letter B and the letter G because they look alike
[8:20]or they should know that EA sounds like E or whatever.
[8:24]And you just take something on that list or they sign you one.
[8:28]And you write a song about it.
[8:30]It's actually easier for me to write a song
[8:33]that I'd assign it like that.
[8:34]And just sit down with a black piece of paper
[8:36]or computer screen, write anything.
[8:39]I don't know where to sign them.
[8:41]Yeah, assignments are always really good.
[8:43]I like assignments.
[8:45]So it's so funny because I feel like there is this huge backlash
[8:51]against screens, right?
[8:52]Too much screen time, limiting screens, blah, blah, blah.
[8:55]But Sesame Street and all these shows and the kind of work that you did,
[8:59]you're literally helping kids learn to read through screens.
[9:03]So how do you feel about this backlash?
[9:05]It's sort of not, it's like not fair.
[9:07]It should be more parsed out, right?
[9:09]Well, what do you think?
[9:10]Obviously, there's such a thing as too much screen time.
[9:13]There's also too much violence and a lot of stuff.
[9:17]Some things are great and some things are terrible.
[9:20]But that's true of books as well.
[9:22]It's true of comic books.
[9:23]When I was a kid, everyone thought comic books were terrible.
[9:27]Now teachers are actually recommending them
[9:30]because kids are reading when they read them.
[9:32]So it's really a question of quality and time limits.
[9:36]If kids watch TV or play video games every single minute
[9:41]and get no exercise, they make no friends.
[9:45]You know, they're not socialized.
[9:47]They're not learning how to get through the world.
[9:49]So there's obviously too much of a good thing.
[9:53]But obviously we try to do things that are very helpful.
[9:56]And we don't suggest that you watch them 24 hours a day.
[10:00]do nothing else.
[10:01]Right.
[10:02]So it's really just about balance.
[10:03]Like everything.
[10:04]Right.
[10:05]Balance and quality.
[10:06]Balance and quality.
[10:07]Yes.
[10:08]Balance and quality.
[10:09]So you wrote the book Blacky with Page Peterson who I've known forever and who I adore.
[10:13]Tell me about that book and how that one came about.
[10:16]Oh, we had a great time doing that book.
[10:18]Actually, as you know, since you know, Paige, she's from Tehran out in Marin County.
[10:25]There was a horse there named Blacky, who was in a pasture that you would drive by as
[10:31]you drive down the name, name three in your town.
[10:34]And he was famous for being an incredibly lazy horse.
[10:38]He just stood still all day and barely ever moved.
[10:42]So he was always kind of just standing there and he became kind of a legend in the town.
[10:47]And everybody knew Blacky and Blacky's pasture.
[10:51]And it seemed like a fun idea for a book, a horse who stood still.
[10:56]And I tried to think with Paige of all the advantages that would be like, he never got fuzzy
[11:01]in pictures because he stood still or he would see what was going on around him while
[11:08]others didn't.
[11:09]He could be observing it, etc.
[11:11]And we made up a crazy story about him.
[11:14]And then we did a book which was used to help raise money to preserve things in the town
[11:20]that needed preservation.
[11:21]So it was kind of a charity project.
[11:23]But of course, we found a wonderful publisher who had a chronicle book that then had
[11:29]her own publisher.
[11:30]Welcome books, which is distributed by Random House, just like beginner books are.
[11:35]And I wrote it in verse because that was fun for me.
[11:38]And Paige painted amazing pictures, put a lot of her friends in, not identifying them.
[11:45]And she got a lot of their chibberons surrounding centre of the book obviously.
[11:50]She grew up there.
[11:51]And we've had an eye fit with it, it's been through many printings, it helped raise some
[11:55]money and it's still in print.
[11:57]So I'm very happy about that too.
[11:59]That's great, fantastic.
[12:01]So you've worked with some of the most elite literary authors out there over your whole
[12:06]career at Random House and all the rest of it, people like George Plimpton from the Paris
[12:11]Review.
[12:12]And then you've worked with people, oh, not even people.
[12:15]And you've worked with like Snuffle up again.
[12:17]So do you see anything that the muppets in the literary elite haven't common?
[12:23]Absolutely.
[12:24]They have to really be into what they're doing.
[12:27]You can't write a book on assignment.
[12:29]I was talking about assignments unless you want to.
[12:32]If you write down to kids because you think this is good for them, but you don't like it
[12:37]yourself, it's not going to work.
[12:39]So passion is one thing all these people have in common and talent.
[12:44]And talent.
[12:45]I mean, Snuffle up, I guess, was originally Jerry Nelson was one of the very first muppetiers
[12:50]and Marty Robinson took it over many because it's such a heavy costume, Jake's two people
[12:56]and so I didn't Jerry's back was never the same.
[12:58]I don't know how Marty does it, but they are great performers, but people like George
[13:03]Plimpton wrote a great, his book called The Rabbis in Brella, actually, and well, as
[13:07]his adult things.
[13:09]And my dad used to say, even though he published incredible adult authors like Wayne Faulkner
[13:14]and Truman Capote and Wayne Styron, that he said at least privately that Ted Geisel might
[13:20]have been the greatest genius of them all.
[13:22]Of course, he didn't say that to John O'Hara or Wayne Faulkner's face, but this is just
[13:28]as brilliant as the others, if not more so.
[13:30]But it's all about talent and passion.
[13:32]That's such a say.
[13:33]And creativity, of course.
[13:34]So you grew up in this insanely talented literary family.
[13:39]As you mentioned, your dad was the co-founder of Random House Books, your mom with the
[13:43]beginner books, even your brother wrote a book.
[13:46]So for someone who's been so involved for so long, where do you think the publishing industry
[13:50]is going from here?
[13:52]What do you make of where it is and what do you think is coming next for the industry?
[13:56]Well, all of media are changing so fast that it's very hard to answer that question.
[14:01]Nobody really knows.
[14:03]I think people will always like to hold a book in their hands.
[14:07]I love to read on an iPad, actually, because I can bring lots of different books with me
[14:12]wherever I go.
[14:13]But I still love the feel of a real book.
[14:16]And if I love a book, I'm almost sure to buy it, even if I read it on the iPad for it, just
[14:21]because I like to have it.
[14:22]And with his books, that's even more true.
[14:24]It's just different to have a book and turn the pages and look at the pictures.
[14:29]It's not the same on an iPad or on a computer.
[14:32]But beyond that, I think publishing is changing and a few ways are disturbing to me just
[14:38]being older and having grown up when Rand Mouse was tiny.
[14:43]When I worked there first, when I worked for my dad, Mom, there were fewer than 100 employees
[14:48]and now there are tens of thousands worldwide.
[14:51]So it's hard for the top people in publishing house to give the kind of attention to
[14:56]single authors that executive used to.
[14:59]But as long as there are little divisions within those houses or the small publishers can
[15:03]still do that, I think one of the problems that I was, now that publishing has become such
[15:08]a big business, the bottom line is more important.
[15:12]It always was important, but not book by book.
[15:15]When I was in an editor at Rand Mouse, I was supposed to turn the profit.
[15:20]My book list of books should make money or at least break even, but nobody said every
[15:25]single book alone had to do that.
[15:28]If you wanted to build a new author, maybe they would lose money for a while, but you
[15:33]take a chance on them and some other book would sell a lot of copies and make up a different.
[15:38]I don't think that's as true now, which makes it harder to break in.
[15:42]And if you have a fairly successful first book, but your second book doesn't do a lot better,
[15:48]that is a lot harder as a writer to keep going.
[15:50]It used to be easier to have nidless books.
[15:53]I'm getting into the weeds here.
[15:55]No, that's interesting.
[15:56]So I hope that smaller publishers are the smaller in-prints within big publishers will keep
[16:02]being allowed to experiment, and the best publishers always permit that, I think, and the
[16:08]best publishers still do permit that.
[16:11]Excellent.
[16:12]So what do you have coming next?
[16:14]You might do another skunk in my bank, beginner book type book.
[16:18]What else do you have cooking over there?
[16:20]Well, as I mentioned earlier, our big project now in our company is adopting between
[16:25]the lines for classroom use, which I think can be incredibly important.
[16:31]A lot of shows like Sesame is another example.
[16:34]There are decades worth of incredible video that has the highest education standards and
[16:39]the kids love that are just sitting on shelves, you know?
[16:43]And imagine if we could use those at just the right time in the classroom.
[16:47]It can't just be any time, but if you were learning the letter B, and we could play the
[16:52]letter B song, I wrote with Sesame Street at exactly that moment in the classroom, it might
[16:57]really help.
[16:58]Or if a kid were having trouble with that and the computer noticed that from a game the
[17:02]child was playing and then played just the right video or gave them the right game thing
[17:07]to help them learn that.
[17:09]That could be great.
[17:10]So that's the kind of thing I'm really working on in my day job, still lots of fun.
[17:16]And I'm still writing songs and working on kinds of other education projects.
[17:20]I'm trying to do a funny book once in a while for grownups too.
[17:25]And what do you think people can do to help children's literacy if they can't write songs
[17:30]for Sesame Street and other amazing things like you?
[17:33]What if I just want to get involved and help with that effort?
[17:36]What do you think?
[17:37]What should I do?
[17:38]Thank you.
[17:39]Well, one thing is read aloud to kids that's been shown over and over again to be
[17:45]what fosters a lot of books and reading.
[17:48]And without that level of reading, it's going to be a chore for kids and they'll never
[17:51]really get into it.
[17:52]And if they don't learn to read, how are they going to learn everything else?
[17:55]So that's one thing every parent should do and every caregiver should do.
[18:00]And other thing is make sure that books are in children or available to children.
[18:05]I'm on the board of an incredible organization called First Book, which allows kids who
[18:11]are less affluent to get either free books or books in their classroom and that they
[18:16]can be purchased very much lower prices than normal right schools have been.
[18:20]And you could give to them or your reading is fundamentals and other great organization.
[18:25]So that's another way to help.
[18:27]But I think making sure that their books and kids environment is the most important thing
[18:31]you can do and getting them to love reading.
[18:35]And do you have any advice for aspiring authors out there?
[18:39]Yeah, keep writing and realize that it isn't easy that some people think kids books are
[18:45]much easier to write than grown up books.
[18:48]And they may be easier and theory, but writing a good one still takes a lot of care and
[18:53]work and inspiration.
[18:56]And unless you're just an absolute natural genius, you have to be prepared to work at
[19:00]it, to take advice, to be rejected, don't give up and make sure you enjoy it.
[19:06]If it's a drudgery for you, you're never going to, I think really stick with it long
[19:11]enough to make it work.
[19:13]And I love the stuff I write.
[19:16]I think all of a success in history over 50 years now, it's the 15th anniversary of the
[19:20]show, believe it or not, all of us have had an amazingly good time doing it.
[19:26]And I think that's why people like the show, it shows that everybody is having a great
[19:31]time.
[19:32]They think it's funny.
[19:34]The actors love the characters, they play the puppeteers are brilliant.
[19:38]We love writing and seeing what those puppeteers will do with our material on every level.
[19:43]It's just enjoying it is keen to check, I think.
[19:47]I love that.
[19:48]Well, thank you so much for sharing all of your hard-earned wisdom with listeners of
[19:53]some fun.
[19:54]Lots of fun.
[19:55]Kids do have time to read books and moms don't have time to read books.
[19:59]Thanks so much.
[20:00]Thanks again to my sponsor, Libro FM audiobooks.
[20:05]Thanks for listening to Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[20:07]You can follow me on Instagram at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books and at Zibi Owens
[20:13]and my new podcast at Kids Do Have Time to Read.
[20:16]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound for the Sound Editing.
[20:20]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and outro music.
[20:25]Thanks for listening.
[20:26]You can always email me at zibi at zibiowens.com.