#854: Tish Rabe — 200+ Children's Books, Getting Picked for Dr. Seuss, Lessons from Early Sesame Street, How to Write 300+ Songs, and More

Transcript from https://podmenti.com/t/46764d1917e43c0a

Optimal minimal.
At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. And then also does some questions.
Now it is.
My cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal empty scale.
No
Tish, it is lovely to finally connect. I've really been looking forward to this and thanks to my old friend and your new friend, Alon Lee.
Here we are. We made it happen. So thank you for making the time. Really excited to be
Meeting you.
And I don't even know where to start. We could start with the two hundred children's books, more than eleven
Million copies sold, we could start with three hundred children's songs. But maybe
We can
I suppose start the journey with
What you studied in college. Were you always intending to end up where you are now?
Or where did the story start? Where did the story start? As a matter of fact, I did not start out to be a children's book author.

I started out to be an opera singer. I went to college to be an opera singer.
So that was my plan.
Had a great plan. In high school, I tell the kids I talk to a lot.
that I had two things I loved. I love to sing and I love to write.
So all through high school I was are you gonna be a singer or a writer, writer or singer?
And finally, I had to apply to college and I really knew in my heart I wanted to be a singer.
So I have a four year degree in opera with a minor in jazz. And everyone always asks me, so how did you end up?
you know, being a singer and ending up being an author.

And the very short story is I came to New York.
And I was auditioning everywhere.
and my high school
Music teacher.
Got a job as assistant music director on Sesame Street.
Season two.
Yeah.
And I went to meet him and told him I was auditioning and
And he asked me if I could type.
And I said, yes, I can sing and I can type. So I got a job as music production assistant at Sesame Street.
And all I wanted to do was sing with Jim Henson's Muppets.
And my first job was hiring the jingle singers in Manhattan to sing
With Jim Henson's Muppets.
So I sang all day.
I sang when I typed and I sang when I filed and I sang when I answered the phone. Sesame Street, may I help you? Well, after a year. Everybody was so tired of listening to me sing all the time that they said, Would you like to sing on Sesame Street?
With the with the puppets. And I was say yes.
So I sang with the Muppets. I sang on the show.
I say
on the albums and I sang on the
Special.
So I sang on everything and it was just so much fun.
And my first big break was I sang
With Oscar. I love trash.
Everything dirty and ditchy and dusty. Anything ragged and rotten and rusty. Oh I love, I love, I love trash.
And I don't know that my parents ever got over it, to tell you the truth.

Well let me ask you
When you got the job.
On Sesame Street, when you first got that job, what did it feel like?
at that time for season two. And I'll tell you something that I haven't told many people, which is
I have
A season one staff jacket.
From Sesame Street because a friend of my family
Who lived nearby when I was growing up.
worked on Sesame Street in the early days. So I grew up going next door.
As a little kid hearing her stories, looking at her emm's
And my love affair with Sesame Street in a way began before I ever started watching it.
So I have a long history. What did it feel like?
To be
They're
in the earliest stages of Sesame Street. What was the vibe like? The environment?
First of all, the most creative environment
Anyone could ever be in.
Basically the John Stone, who is executive producer, and Jim Henson
And
All the puppeteers and all the Muppeteers and everybody
were so creative they just made stuff up.
Oh.
Day long.
Another interesting thing to share is that
They were very worried that this show was gonna bomb.
You know, a six foot yellow bird, you know a
Monster that only eats cookies, a grouch in a trash can, a multiracial cast. How do we think this is gonna go in nineteen sixty nine or whatever? And Joan Cooney, Joan Gans Cooney, who created the whole thing.
Just let them
Be creative.
You know, whatever you guys want to do, you know, go ahead.

And it was so much fun.
To be a part of it and I believe in my heart.
But my background on Sesame Street is how I can do what I do today.
Because I was
Enveloped with this every single day.
One of the interesting things that happened
Was
Sesame Street.
They needed books, but
They needed toys.
They needed merchandise.
Who knew this was gonna be a massive hit?
Yeah.
And they literally asked the staff if they had ideas for books.
And I uh you know
courage. You know, oh what the heck? Well I got nothing to lose. I'll go down and, you know, try.
And
I went down to the
book department and I told them about when I was a little girl.
And I broke my great grandmother's tea pot and it shattered into a million pieces.
Yeah.
And my mother came in and saw the broken glass and she said, I'm not mad or anything.
I love you more.
Than any cheap pot.
And I went down and I pitched my idea to Sesame Street Books.
And it's your classic, right? You go you pour your heart out on this story and there's dead silence. I mean, nobody moved. I'm not
So I'm standing there going, Oh
Okay, that went well.
And from the back of the room.
The editor for Sesame Street books said, Could you make it a story for Bert?
In my very first book, here it is.
Look at that. And the broken teapot.
It's out of print, but I have a few, but
And in this book, Bert breaks David's
Favorite tea pot, spends the whole book trying to get it fixed.
And in the end, David says he's afraid David's not gonna be his friend anymore because he broke his favorite teapot.
And David says, Uh You'll always be my friend, and can you help me?
In my
Restaurant next week.
And at the time it got just create awards and letters because, you know, it it's easy to have things be about stuff.
And this the message obviously was that the you know, their friendship meant more.
Tennis
Tea pot.
I
But that was book one.
So let me peel back the layers a little bit on
What you mentioned. This
this wellspring of creativity just being steeped, I suppose, to borrow the tee. Steeped in this creativity. What did that look like? Were people just ad libing all the time, like of Robin Williams times the number of staff? Were there meetings
Different. What did that actually look like?
In practice when you went to work.
It was one of the first TV shows that had
educational research behind it.
So we had topics.
We're gonna try to teach every single season. There was a notebook like this thick.
with what are the you know, what are we trying to teach kids? You know, obviously numbers and letters, but
compassion and sorting things by shapes and whatever it was.
Yeah.
And then you would watch the writers just come up with stuff. And
It was absolutely fascinating and f they just kind of made stuff up as they went along.
But the big thing I learned.
From the Sesame Street Writers, and it has saved me
Many, many, many times.
Yeah.
Is that they wrote the endings first.
So
They used to look at Abbott and Costello movies and Marks Brothers movies and they looked at everything
And
They used to tell me, okay
Abbott and Costello are
Pushing a piano.
Across a bridge in the jungle.
with a gorilla coming across the bridge at them.
How did they get there?
So as an
Children's book author.
I always write my last page first.
So in my I believe bunny books, my inspirational books
One of them ends with
Just like the I believe bunny.
Yeah.
May get a surprise.
You can make a difference, even a bunny your size.
Then I wrote the whole book.
About how he helps his friend who can't swim and blah blah blah blah.
And then end at that page.
It's a very important page in children's books'cause it is the last page they hear before the book is shut.
Go to sleep, take a nap, go out to play, whatever.
And I always write the last page first.
Always.

Did you have much interaction with Jim Henson?
Yes.
I worked for Jim for years and
Somebody said once he was a gentle giant with a mind of steel, you know, he's a great businessman, but so creative and so nice to all of us because we were low in the totem ball. I mean, we were production assistants.
And
He just worked and worked and worked and worked and
He would do a Sesame Street
day and then fly to London and do the Muppet Show and then fly back you know.
He just worked all the time.
But he was just a very, very nice.
To me, always.
Did you learn anything about him?
Or how he managed anything that stands out that distinguishes him aside from just being a man possessed.
With with his work, which certainly doesn't surprise me.
I think the thing was you could just watch his creative mind.
The creative minds on Sesame Street
When I was there.
Yeah, something would happen.
And they would just make something else up.
You know, and
the sense of humor and the lightness of what they were doing and
It was almost like
Oh, and by the way, we're teaching kids.
You know what I mean? Oh yeah, okay. The other thing they did, which was really something, is they
were one of the first to do double level humor.
So they wrote stuff that was funny for kids.
But had all kinds of stuff in it.
For adults.
Because all these studies had done if the
Parents watched
the show with their children, the kids learned more because the parents were there to help them and that kind of thing.
And
You know, some of the early children's shows, you know, no parent would be caught dead sitting in front of
But Sesame Street was so nuts that everybody loved it.
And that really, really made a difference.
Big difference. The double level humor. Yeah. I remember first being struck by that, not to make my side of the story all about Robin Williams, but was Robin Williams and the songs in the first
Disney animated feature of Aladdin and just how many levels there were to that and how effective it was because parents would go back, take their kids to the theater multiple times in this case, right? Obviously watch the television show.
How did your music training if it did
Mm-hmm.
Help.
what you ended up doing.
Not only at Sesame Street, but afterwards. And I suppose I'm just asking if
Some of the tools or sensitivities that you developed
actually ended up being assets.
As you move forward.
With these other supposedly separate art forms.
Well one thing that I used to do
The songs were all pre recorded.
And so the Muppeteers puppeteers would go into and record their songs in advance.
So now you're big bird, right? And you're gonna sing the song on Sesame Street.
But they are doing their dialogue.
So how are they gonna know when the song starts?
So I would stand next to one of the cameras and count them off.
So measure one, two
Three.
Four.
And then they would sing.
Yeah.
So Carol Spinney could see me enough to know that
When I pointed to him, he had to sing the song, the pre recorded song. We don't move the
Costume, you know, move the puppet.
So he was singing the song.
And the first two times I did it, I was scared to death. I was only 21. I think this is gonna be the one. I'm gonna go one, two, three, and start him, and it's gonna be the wrong place, you know. Oh no. But that's really where my musical training came in. And
Also, we used to sing the jingle singers in New York.
In the seventies.
Literally
You come into a session.
To this day, I'll never forget it. And
Literally.
But he would sing it through once.
We are the sound of the sound of the fountain.
Count, count, counts down.
You know, four part harmony.
And they look at each other and say, You take the route, I'll take the third
Did she take the fifth and then somebody do the active.
One, two, three, go.
Ha ha
And I remember holding on with a thread to this thing.
And the other thing that I love about those early days
Back then we had orchestras.
So the Christmas I'll never forget this, the Christmas special
Full orchestra.
I mean violins and Carol Spinney was trying to sing I hate Christmas.

So
He's behind this microphone and he's going.
I hate
Um
I hey Chris
Uh finally.
They said, Let's take a break.
Everybody all the whole orchestra. Let's take ten minutes. Everybody just give them a minute.
And I was standing next to him when he moved over and
And opened the case.
And took Oscar.
Out.
Of the case.
I was standing right next to my head, the music and everything.
So everybody comes back, these violins and cellos and clarinets and
And they started it again.
And Carol moved over.
And Oscar sang.
I hey
Christmas.
Perfect.
I never got over it. I was like, Whoa But this kind of stuff went on every single day.
All day.
I
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And when you were working on Sesame Street
What was the reaction?
from people at the time when they would ask you, What do you do?
I don't know.
the magnitude of the success when you joined versus later on in your time there. But what just to paint a picture for people.
Mm-hmm.
'Cause there are I'm sure
Some older folks who listen to this podcast who
Uh maybe even had
really, really early exposure, or maybe are much older and had really young kids who were exposed to Sesame Street, then there are some in the middle who certainly remember watching it. And then there are some who have probably never seen it.
Right. What was the reaction that you would get from people when you told them?
What you did for a living.
Well, it's funny, when I tell the story that I got to New York and I was auditioning
And
It was going to
Okay, I would get a jingle here, a jingle there, but I couldn't support myself.
And I am convinced I went home one Thanksgiving to my hometown. I'm from Needham, Massachusetts.
Outside of Boston.
And
I got literally got out of the car.
And my mother told me that she'd read that my high school music teacher had gotten this job.

And she said you gotta get all dressed up and you gotta go see him and he hasn't seen you since you left high school four years ago you've been in college.
And I have to say, it took a lot of guts.
for me to go and come see him again.

And you know, he
buy me lunch once a week because I wasn't eating, you know, the whole thing. And I think when I look back,
It was timing.
And luck.
To a lot of extent.
Because would I ever have walked into Sesame Workshop and said, you know, do you need to have a job for me?
No.
I was convinced I was gonna be a star. It was just a matter of time.
Singing.

And
Back then, I'm sure they still do this.
You would audition and they would literally let you sing nine notes.
So you go, Oklahoma where the wind goes. Thank you.
Really? I am dead serious. Anyone who auditioned and this That was it. And you you were there and you had your music and everything.
So the fact that I actually was able to get a job
In music.
On a television series was just magic stuff.
And was the public's
Reception at the time. So you have this sort of confluence of factors and synchronicities that get you in the door. You still have to prove your metal.
So you get the job and
Was it
Just the bell of the ball at that point, Sesame Street. Or was it still in kind of growth mode? So some people knew it, but not all people. Where was the public awareness of Sesame Street when you joined?
Well, I think when I started it was just really taking off, you know, literally. And I don't think anyone recognized that it was
You know, as I said, they were sure how it was gonna go.
And something a lot of people don't know about Sesame Street is it was originally created
To help
Every child
learn their alphabet and their numbers.
Because there was a disparity.
Between kids who had
came into kindergarten knowing.
their letters and their alphabet. And the kids who came in
Not knowing.
And started behind.
Before they even got started.
I don't think anyone really realized that this was gonna have such a huge impact.
Because kids then
We're going into school and singing.
The numbers song.
One two three four five six seven eight nine
Alligators went to the alligator picnic.
Okay, yeah that's this went on all day long, you know.
So they think
The kids now there was more of an even playing field when the kids all hit kindergarten.
And that was
People just didn't see it coming.
And it was true.
What happened that led you from Sesame Street to
All that followed. All that followed. Yes, exactly. Um Well, among my other things that that happened is I was at Sesame Street and as soon as I started writing
My Bert and the Broken Teapot book.
I just kept writing and writing.
And writing, and writing.
And this is just on your own time or was it all for people started hiring me, I wrote for Scholastic and I wrote for, you know, Houghton Mifflin and Random House and everybody.
How did you make those contacts?
So I was working at Sesame Street.
And then I produced
Big bird in China.
I was part of the crew that went to China with Big Bird in China.
Nineteen eighty two, something like that. Eighty two, correct. And then I was senior producer for three two one contact.
Which was another whole story.
And then I just kept
Writing and writing and writing and writing and
I ended up
At Brandom House as their director of
Video.
This was back in the VHS days.
And
Once I was in there directing all the videos.
Back in the day they used to just take the artwork for the book.
And move the camera around.
It's called animatics. And I produced all the music and all the voiceovers and all everything for that.
But now I'm in random house.
So
I'm a author
proven author and I happen to work there.
So in the hallway, they'd say, you know, could you write a book about butterflies? Sure, when do you need it? You know.
So it was kind of a two way thing. I was working as a producer, a television producer. I also with three to one contact, that's when I started writing songs.
Because three two one contact is a science series.
And
It would took more time for us to explain to other composers what we needed.
than just to write it in house.
So I wrote songs about electricity and mammals and, you know, anything you needed. My favorite, my favorite was.
producers would come into my office and I'd they'd say we need a song. I said, Okay, okay.
What's it about?
Never forget this. And the guy producer looks at me and says
The gestation period of different animals.
I said a singing for me already.
The gestation. So I wrote a song called I'm Waiting for My Baby.
I'm waiting for my baby feels like a long, long time. And we just took stock footage of chimpanzee and an elephant.
And Chiron, that was back in the day we called it chironing.
The amount of time.
you know, elephant two years, whatever it was to have a baby. And then at the end it was, and baby, you were worth the wait.
You know, so so we made stuff up and of course, happily for me, I sang a lot of it.
So that was fun too.
If we open the hood and look at the workings of making a song.
Mm-hmm. Yes.
What does that look like for you when they are successful? Do they have common
Patterns where you start with something. And then there's second, there's something else, and third, there's something else. What did that process?
end up looking like for you.
Well, the first thing I did back and have done a lot of is
Perfect example, you know, what's the science? What are we trying to teach a child in this song?
And then I always
Make sure that I have a verse and then a
What we call a B section.
So the the song goes somewhere.
And then comes back.
That's always very, very key.
So you decide on those two pieces first. What are we trying to cord of wood. That's a perfect example. I wrote a whole bunch of example. It would be great.
Cord of wood. I can only remember how it goes, but court of wood. Well f you could find out how many
Toothpicks.
Are there in a court of wood?
How many do you know picnic tables can you make out of one quart of wood?
So you gotta figure out what you're putting in for the the science and how you're gonna make it rhyme and you know that kind of stuff. It certainly helped me that I had been a singer so long that I was so used to singing rhyming lyrics.
One quick thing to share because very few people know this.
While I was at Sesame Street.
The executive producer asked Joe Raposo.
Joe Raposa wrote the theme and he wrote
All the big songs.
And
He said, I wonder how Kermit feels. Have you ever thought of how Kermit feels living on this crazy street with all these
Nutty people.
And
Joe Raposo went home.
And wrote.
Being grieved.
But the big thing about being green is
All of us who write songs for kids
Have in the
Rhyme.
Sunny day seeping the clouds away on my way to wear this sweet can you tell ya how to get how to get to Sesame Street?
Everything rhymes at the end, right?
Being green there's not one rhyme.
It's not easy being green, having to spend each day the color of the leaves, and
When it would be nicer to be red or yellow or gold or something much more colorful like that.
It's totally talking,
There's not a rhyme in it.
And he came into the office and sang it for the first time, and people were
Thunderstruck.
And of course it became a mega hit.
So yeah, I just started writing songs about everything.
What possessed him to break the mold? Had that been done before, or was that something that
struck him. I'm wondering if you know the backstory.
Of why I always felt that
This is a long time memories of these things, but I sort of felt like maybe
One of the writers kinda challenged him.
You know, there's only one other song any of us could find and it's Moonlight in Vermont.
Also doesn't rhyme at all.
But
I don't know if someone said
Yeah, why don't you write about how Kermit feels about living on this
Street.
And not have end rhymes. I don't know. I don't know if anyone challenged him, or he just went home and said I mean the man was a genius, whether he went home and just said, You know, I have an idea. I got nothing else to do this afternoon. I'll try to write a song that doesn't rhyme. I don't know. But they'll say one thing that was really amazing is
Basically Joan
Gans Cooney told them all.
She had faith in them.
Cheers.
Do it.
Let's go.
So it was so free flowing.
That
People just made stuff up.
I have a favorite song, people always ask me my favorite song, that I did not write.
It's called I Just Adore Four.
I just adore for the number for me I just adore for its
Let's see, uh less than five, more than three.
And the other thing is the lyrics were so
Grown up.
Right.
Аміна'сх.
But the kids, you know, just
Ate it up.
They just understood it. They understood what that meant, you know. So
It was wonderful because
Every day you went into work, you had no idea.
Who's gonna come up with one today?
How many drafts or
Versions.
Made the cut.
I'm wondering in such a free flowing creative
environment where you're allowed to throw anything against the wall and you're given permission and people say they believe in you.
My assumption would be that you come up with a lot of ideas and not all of them work. That's right.
So I'm wondering how many
versions you might come up with before you
End up with one.
But
Makes it to air.
The real challenge on that show was
The
Curriculum.
was king.
So
Yeah, you could go off and no write a story about your lamp.
Whatever the curriculum of the day was. Today it's seasons or
Cooperation or I don't know, whatever they were, that was true. They had to get that by.
that team. And it was a whole team.
The other thing they did a lot of is focus groups.
They played stuff for kids.
And this was groundbreaking at the time. And
They tell stories about how, you know, Oscar was originally orange and the kids didn't really like it. Whatever it is, you know, they change stuff.
So although it looked easy.
There was a lot of background.
on what they could do and not do.
The focus groups, I mean, that does sound really
innovative for the day, especially with kids. But I imagine if you're trying to sell
Shampoo.
And you've got Bob the adult in your
Focus grouping be like, Bob, uh how much would you spend to buy
Hurt shampoo or whatever it might be. And Bob can give you an answer. What
types of reactions or feedback were they looking for when they
Tested. It was great. They wanted to know things like
Did the kids walk away understanding that
Ab Kedefki is
A B C D E F yeah, A B C D E D G H I, what you know. Because
They always wanted to pay attention to the fact that if they made it too sophisticated.
the kids would be lost.
That's a very fine line.
Because by doing the double level humor
Like I just adore four.
Maybe
Genius.
Joe Bailey wrote that one.
That
They didn't leave the kids.
Lost.
'Cause that's not was not the point. You know, the point was to teach them and get them ready for school.
Oh the curriculum.
Curriculum number one.
There's a question that I could ask about
songwriting, but I could also ask it about book writing. So
Can you explain how
Doctor Seuss enters the picture.
So
As the years went by, I kept, as I said, writing for everybody. Never turn down, never turned down a book.
Offer.
You know, we need scholastic. We need a book on butterflies, you know.
In a week. And I'll go, Okay, a week. You know, it's like, how long is that gonna take me? You know, how much am I gonna earn an hour? You know, whatever it was.
But uh wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote and
In
Nineteen ninety one
I always go by how old my kids were. I guess they were like three and four.
I submitted a rhyming book to Random House.
I was there. I was the senior producer for home video.
I was singing.
on all their TV stuff and I was singing on VHS for them anyway. I was right there.
And I sent in a manuscript.
For a book.
Moris Aurorus was a brachiosaurus who had the best voice in the dinosaur chorus. He liked to play tennis and swim in the sea, but mostly he liked to eat fresh broccoli.

Oh Kido. And the end of that one was so his friends try to get him to eat something else.
And he said the got his friends go, broccoli's fine, it's got color and crunch, but you eat it for breakfast and dinner and lunch.
Yeah.
So you talk him into eating something else and the last line
Yes. So one thing is true and you cannot deny it.
Like it or not, you won't know.
Till you try it.
Fine.
Type it up.
Walk down to the m book department and ran a mouse, hand it to the book department.
And here.
Nothing.
This is and I tell the kids this is before texting, voicemail, you know, we're s you using payphones at this point. And I hear it things like oh that didn't really work, but okay.
So I finally get my courage up and I call.
And I finally get somebody on in the phone in that division, and I say, Tell'em who I am and that
Oh oh.
She said, We're supposed to call you.
I said, Well nobody called me. I said we're sitting right here, but nobody called me. And she said, Okay.
She I'll never forget it. She said I have bad news and I have good news.
What would you like to hear first?
And I said,
I'll take the bad news. And she said we cannot publish Moris Aurorus brachiosaurus.
Because we are the rhyming home of doctresses.
Okay. All right.
Yeah.
However
She said.
How would you like to write?
A new series.
For Dr. Seuss.
Um, sure. You know, you never say no. Never.
Turn down a freelance tab.
And they literally
Handed me.
Doctor Seuss, not me, doctor Seuss.
wanted to write a series of books for kids about science in rhyme.
For early readers.
Four to seven year olds.
Yeah.
And died before he could finish the first one.

So they handed me a stack.
of research on mammals.
A huge stack of research on birds.
They said we are so far behind with this because we've been trying to find someone who can write
in his rhythm and his rhyme scheme.
And Morris Aurora's brachiosaurus was both.
Thank goodness.
And they said, Can you have two books ready in four months?
And I carried all this stuff home and I went, Well uh okay
And
I just started writing as a camel a mammal.
And fine feathered friends.
And I never stop.
After that.
What an incredible opportunity. I mean talk about just the right ingredients at the right time.
And
My brain will not let it go unless I ask. So with the Morris Aurorus.
Still think.
I mean that sounds like a great book, but
That couldn't fly because Dr. Seuss basically had exclusivity on that nature of rhyming book.
For Random House, yes. For Random House, for Random House. And he not only did he write exclusively for Random House, but he created the beginner book series.
Which other authors
Also wrote.
So he was head of the whole thing.
And one thing
To share about him, which is and there are many
authors that do this, but he was an author illustrator.
And I'm clear to tell everybody I write the words, but I do not.
Draw the pictures.
And
I had heard I missed meeting him, and
By one year.
But he they used to tell me that he would come in
With a brand new book.
Let's say Horton here's a whoop.
Whatever. And literally
Art directors and the editors at Random House did not have to do anything.
They didn't have to fix it. They didn't have to tell'em to fix the elephant. They didn't have to do anything.
They were so perfect when he showed up with them.
So that was just as always amazing.
That he could do both.
I actually never spoke to him, but I spoke to
His widow.
Audrey Geisel.
And she called me because
To this day, I could never forget it. She called me, I felt like on the phone. I couldn't believe I was actually talking to her.
And she said, Do you remember when years ago in the fifties
They did the study.
where they had pregnant moms
Talk to their babies and sing to their babies.
And when the babies were born, they recognized and the dads too, they recognized the voices and they waved their little hands and their eyes linked and stuff. And what they used on the
The study.
Was
They all read the cat and the hat.
The original Cat in the Hat book.
So here we are. It's two thousand eight, I think.
Audrey Gaisel called me and said
Could I read
All forty one.
Uh
Ted guys, let's
Doctor Seussbooks.
And right.
A buck.
With
You know, references
To all of them.
And she wanted it called O Baby the Places She'll Go.
To be read.
In Utero.
I'm sitting there going
Oh
Okay.
Sure. So I went and read all of them.
Cort and here's a who, if I ran the zoo, if I ran the circus, the whole you know, Yurdle the Turtle, Fid with the Moose, I read'em all.
And I wrote, Oh baby, the places you'll go.
And turned it in.
And I love this story'cause by then my kids were in middle school, I think.

And I was going to pick them up from school and I had my car keys in my hand.
My phone rang, it's random house. They said we are sending the files to the printer for oh baby the places you'll go.
We need a bio from you.
really short and it has to be funny.
And we need it right now.
Yeah.
So I just said I can't you gotta give me two minutes. And I hung up the phone, never forget it. And all of a sudden
I thought, Oh wow.
And I called them right back.

Tishrabi's a mom who thinks that it's cool.
to be home rhyming rhymes while her kids are at school.
And they went bananas. They're like, Done'cause okay.
Just make this stuff up. It's what I do all day.
And oh baby, the places you'll go is the bestseller flies off the shelf.
So O Baby, the places you'll go. Oh, baby the places you'll go. And you know, the other thing I just real quick about that, I am very careful to say to everyone.
You do not have to have kids to write for kids. Many, many, many fabulous authors did not.
However
The last page of O Baby the Places You'll Go.
I don't even know who drew it'cause I don't think Ted drew it, but there's a little pregnant mom.
Susie and little pregnant mom sitting there, you know.
And
I
had two kids, I have a son and a daughter, and at the end I wrote
It's a scrumptious world, and it's ready to greet you.
And as for myself, well.
I can't wait.
To meet you.
And I really have to say
I think if I've never had kids, I don't know that I would have come up with that.
That's the last page in this best selling book.
But it just was flew off the shelves.
Still does.
So when you got that first assignment
Here you go.
Pile of research on birds. Pile of research on fill in the blank.
Couple of questions related to that. So you can tackle whichever one you'd like to tackle. Okay. So one question is how on earth do you pick what to include out of these many, many stacks? Because you have to be really selective. The other question is
What?
guardrails slash rules do they give you?
Two.
Keep you within the universe and tone and feel of Doctor Seuss.
Well, a couple of things. The first thing about what to put in the book.
They did the research for me for the first two books.
But for all the
many, many books I wrote after that.
I did my own research.
And what I did that really saved me and surprises a lot of people is
I went to the children's department in the local library.
and pulled everything they had on the topic.
Because already
It's not in rhyme.
Fine.
But it's already been simplified.
So I would get a spiral notebook for every book.
And write and write and write and write the facts.
About
space the facts about
Insects of which I knew nothing. And
Get'em all written down, and then figure out if anything popped as a rhyming.
Potential word.
One of my very proudest was
When birds want to go on a winter vacation, they all take a trip and they call it migration.
Because at one point I was writing down that birds migrate.
And migration I thought Oh vacation. You know what?
So that was one thing.
And as far as guardrails.
There are two kinds of rhyming.
In children's books.
And migration
And vacation.
is perfect Susie and rhyme.
Farm.
And Barnaby.
Is what they call a slant rhyme.
Close.
But it's not a pure rhyme. Dr. Seuss insisted on two things. The rhythm had to be.
Perfect.
On the fifteenth of may in the jungle of Nu
Horton the elephant sat in the pool.
Doesn't vary, it never varies, and the end rhymes are pure.
Something Ted did and I did as well.
Is if he was in trouble for a rhyme.
He made up.
A word.
So, you know, in a sleep book, one of my favorites is Have you met the Van Vleks?
Or something like that. Um when they sleep
They yawn so wide you can see down their necks.
You know, so he made up the Vlex. So in my book, Oh, the Pets You Can Get.
Oh, the pets you can get takes place in grouplets.
Where they know quite a bit about caring for pets.
So I made up for plants to to homage to Ted because when you're in trouble, it makes sense that's what he did.
It's a clever fix. That became his trademark or one of his trademark. I mean it was genius. I mean he just made this stuff up all the time.
So
Those were the two things. I how to get what the effects were for the books.
Keep it simple.
Make stuff that rhymes the kids and what really works well about rhyme.
Is there our kids that would not have ever known what the word migration meant.
But they love the rhyme and they remembered the rhyme.
So it's a very, very successful
After that.
Every single one of my books rhymes.
Because it works. It is their first exposure to a mnemonic device. Right. Oh, I see. And yeah, I've done I mean, I think you would blow me out of the water. I have so many questions about
How your mind works. But
I did a bunch of cognitive testing recently, yeah, with a pretty well vetted studied battery of different tests. And I'm forty-eight, but I aged twenty. Now the only reason I age twenty is because I have these mnemonic devices. I've trained myself to be able to do it. And rhyme is a fantastic
in some ways instinctive example of that. Have you always had a mind for
Rhyming or is that a trained muscle and also your recall?
I mean
Good Lord.
Recall. Have you always been that way? Are other people in your family like that?
It's interesting because I had a phenomenal English teacher in high school.
Хай скул формі
Uh, Needham High School, Needham, Massachusetts. Not only did my music director end up getting me my first job.
In New York.
But my uh Mr. Allen, my English teacher, was phenomenal. And what he used to have us do
Is write poems.
Sonnets.
We wrote plays and
it helped me understand the format and also how to, you know, figure out end rhyme and
Limericks.
I have a book that is still not published. I think I'm going to end up publishing it myself, but I sort of built on the Morris Aurorus book.
And I wrote a whole book for him, three actually for Nickelodeon.
That are in limerick rhyme.
You know, have you met Morris? He's and I changed him to an oopsasaurus because he's kinda clumsy.
A twelve foot tail. But anyway, have you met Morris and Upsasaurus? A dinosaur, if you can't guess.
But sometimes he bumps things and sometimes he thumps things and sometimes he makes a big mess.
So the entire books in Limerick arrive.
But yes, that background.
And I am sincere saying that I was really torn.
between majoring in English in college and being a writer.
Or a singer.
I'm very happy I decided to be a singer'cause now I can do both. But

Yeah.
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So do you think the ability to construct rhyme came from that education?
And the practice in the English class? Or do you just have the equivalent
of some type of perfect pitch for rhyme rhyming out of the box. What do you think?
I will tell you this is funny because when I first started, my husband bought me a
computer program that was called A Million Gazillion Rhymes.
Seriously. And I would sit there all day long and type the word in.
What rhymes with antenna?
You know, anything, hello? Then after over the years, I have gotten to the point where now I just know what they rhyme.
But speaking of mnemonics, I think you'll get a kick out of this.
This is the page in my best selling
Solar system book.
Dr. Sears, right? All about our solar system. All about our solar system. So things are going fine and I write this mnemonic
You've seen all the planets now here is a trick to remember their names and remember them quick.
And I write the whole thing.
The Mallory Valerie Emily Meets'
Just served up.
Nine hundred ninety nine pizzas.
So so far, so good.
Except pizza
Stood for Pluto.
So I get a call from Random House, Pluto has been demoted.

And I'm like, what? I'm on the phone.
And they said, Can you fix this?
But
We can't get the illustrator to change the art.
So Emily here, Valerie Memory what is her name? Mallory Valerie Emily Meets'
Was holding pizzas.
So I'm like, okay.
So I changed it to Mallory Valerie Emily Mickles.
Just showed us nine hundred ninety nine.
Nickels.
And all the art guy had to do was change the pizza boxes to nickels.
Saved.
Ha ha ha.
But I'm like, what? What do you mean, Pluto? Give me a break. I mean seriously. We went from nine planets to eight. I'm not prepared for this.
So this kind of stuff goes on all day. This is what I do for a living, but it is fun. I mean, you have to, you know, keep your sense of humor.
I'm gonna move on to asking you more about the craft, but
If you don't mind me asking. What is your age at present? I at the moment I am seventy four.
I'll be 75 in July and I started my own company.
When I turn seventy one.
Seventy one. And we are we are definitely going to talk all about that. Do you have siblings? I do.
Is everyone in your family
As razor sharp as you are. I mean, that's a hard question. I don't want to throw your siblings under the bus, but I'm I I'm so curious.
to what you attribute.
being I mean you're sharper than ninety nine percent of my friends uh who are my age or are younger. Yeah. And I'm wondering to what you attribute that.
Well, a couple of things are interesting about my background.
And we'll talk about this, I know, in a few minutes, my military book, but
My parents
got married as World War Two was starting.
And when my father came home, he was a prisoner of war.
You can tell you more about that later, but
When he came back, they wanted to start a family.
And they had two little boys and a little girl, and the little girl was me.
Yeah.
And my father used to come home and play piano for about a half hour after work, but I do not come from a musical family at all.
My mom was an English major, so she loved to write.
So she was a writer.
But music was not a thing in our family. My brothers didn't play much and it was fine. They played sports.
Well, supposedly when I was seven, I was in first grade, my father was playing this song. He played every single night. It was my mother's favorite.
And I just stood up and started singing with him.
And they still talk about it.
It was a song called Tammy from Tammy and the Bachelor movie. My mother loved it.
I hear the cottonwood whispering above Tammy, Tammy, Tammy's my love.
My brothers were doing their homework, they stopped. My mother was doing something at the kitchen, she stopped. My father stopped every
I was like, I don't even know what just happened.
And I was just encouraged from day one, you know, to pursue music and writing. So it was a very receptive and I I'll be honest, when I went to college, I told my mother I'm gonna get a degree in singing.
Well now you'd say, Well what are you gonna do to eat?
You know, that's nice. You know, if you but if you don't make it on Broadway.
What are you gonna do?
I was the only one in my class who
Ithaca College, class of seventy two, that did not

in education back up.
I didn't want to teach music.
I didn't want to teach kids, you know.
Dorami Faso Latido.
I wanted to be a star on Broadway.
It's just like are people missing this? No, what part of this you guys missing? So I literally
was convinced I would leave college and come to New York and within a year.
Name and lights.
Piece of cake. You know and only any only anybody as nuts as I am would think that, but hey. And you know, my parents never blinked. They they said, sure, if you think this is gonna work.
You know, good luck.
But uh anyway, it just w has always been a part of my life.
The music, I think more and more, I mean I
Wanted to be a neuroscientist way back in the day. And was a major in the department and the whole nine yards. Things ended up taking a turn and I ended up where I am now. But I'm still very involved with science and the more
I look at music. The more I talk to musicologists who are in dialogue with neuroscientists, the more important andor therapeutic.
Life giving music seems to be.
And it's impossible to say you pull this one lever and you get
X, Y, or Z result, but
It seems to be a commonality.
that musicians or people who engage with music regularly just
retain their faculties.
And hone their faculties a lot longer than people who don't. That's just my impression.
Well, the other thing that's huge is that music is
Unbelievably helpful to teach kids.
And the sound of it and the rhythm of it and the rhymes.
Every single one of the books I've created myself has a song.
In it.
And
What I do is I write them to public domain melodies.
Because people know these songs.
Most of them.
And my first one
The first book I created was a little book about going to sleep.
So I wrote a lullaby, you know, night is here, today is done, it's time to sleep, my little one.
to the tune of twinkle twinkle little star.
So smart. So smart. And it really works. And I really encourage everybody. I get this all the time. Everybody's always
Yeah, but you've got this beautiful voice and you sing all the time and I can't sing and
And I just try to say to everybody, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart.
You can sing. Just it doesn't mean if it's croaky, it doesn't matter what it sounds like. The only voice your child wants to hear is yours.
They want to hear you sing to them.
And yes, I have me singing them on my website and I try to help everybody learn to sing them and uh
But
At the end of the day, it's your voice resonating in their ear.
I forget w how I said it in here, but it's like, you know, that is the voice.
That every little kid wants to hear.
The sound of your voice when you read and sing is
Is what your child loves more than anything.
Isn't sweet dreams here, but
What made sweet dreams?
Work.
Even more broadly, what makes
Lullabies work. What are the other ingredients you mentioned? The mapping to a public domain melody is
Really smart. I mean that makes so much sense at a lot of levels. What else?
Makes that book work.
Yeah, well it was really interesting because I started my own company
Right during Covet.
twenty twenty.
Covid's flying around and what am I gonna do? And you know, turn seventy, what now what?

And
I was introduced to a program with a friend of mine said you have to meet
The people at Pajama program.
It's now called Beyond Bedtime, but then it was called Pajama Program.
So I went in and I found out that they give free pajamas and storybooks to kids facing
Adversity.
Many kids don't not having any pajamas, any story books.
So I kinda went in to meet with them thinking, well, maybe I could do a fundraiser or get my girlfriends to, you know, send in some pajamas or something.

And they said what we really need is to help
Parents learn how to get their kids to go to sleep.
And I said the best thing that works for this.
Is to write a story book.
They'll read to their kids.
And then put the tips in the back.
And they'll read them too.
And then I put them all in rhyme.
So thirty to sixty minutes before you tuck them in is the perfect time for their bedtime routine to begin.
So and what's happening is parents read the book.
And they read the tips out loud to the kids.
So the kids are going, Oh, thirty, sixty minutes. You know, we're supposed to be in bed now. You know. And then of course it has to and and then you're to sing a lullaby.
'Cause singing is in and so restful.
And the kids get now.
It's been out for a couple of years.
Everybody knows the songs, the kids know it.
you know, the kids at school or they sing at school.
Take care, you know. So yeah, it's very, very powerful.
I wanna come to starting
your company and the reasons behind that. Why did you start a company
That's seventy. And there's nothing wrong with that. Oh, I know. What are you what are you nuts? What the reasons were behind that. Well, it's funny. I ended up marrying a guy I met in high school. Ne at high school. It was shaped my whole life. So many produced everything. So many crown jewels. So many jewels. And uh my husband and I live in Mystic, Connecticut.
And he's an avid fisherman.
So during the fishing season he fishes three to four days a week.

So I'm sitting there going, Well, then what am I gonna do? You know, let's think.
And I really felt that I had some ideas for books.
that the other publishers weren't doing.
One book I'm very proud of.
It's called Love You, Hug You, Read To You. It was my very first book.
And it's a board book.
And
I had begged all these publishers I work with
To do a book with what they call dialogic reading.
and dialog reading.
Has little questions.
So you got the adorable Mummy Cat reading to her little kittens.
And the little thing below says, What do you think the little kittens are thinking?
And that
helps the child go, I think they just love that their mom's reading to them. And it sets up a dialogue. That's my dialic reading.
I couldn't get
Anyone.
to let me write a book for them.
So I finally said, Well then I'll just do it myself.
So
What I'm doing now with my books is
I have the ability to do what
I wanna do.
And the the messages I feel never got out there.
Yeah.
It has been a huge learning curve or spike.
Because I always just turn the words in.
And somebody magically, a year and a half later
Sent me ten copies of the book.
Now I've got to find an illustrator and a you know printer and a shipment thing and be on Amazon and you know sell books on my website and ah, you know.
But um I absolutely love every minute of it.
It is so much fun.
Well let's uh
This is gonna be I suppose maybe off topic, my listeners gonna be like Why are you asking about fishing? What does your husband love so much about fishing?
I went on my first wilderness.
Like outdoor survival training trip in Montana specifically. And
the guide brought along something called Tankara rods, which are these very simple rods with a Japanese design. They are simplicity
itself and we would just stop at random holes and
Give it a shot. And I found it so therapeutic.
But it was my first real enjoyment.
Uh
Fishing. I'm just wondering what your husband gets out of it.
We have
four children and two live in Boston and two were living in Manhattan. So we sort of picked Mystic Connecticut because it's kind of in the middle.
And it is the best fishing in New England.
'Cause we are right on the ocean.
next to Rhode Island and Black Island and all of that stuff right around.
And he goes out and they have the best time and they
Catch sea bass and all these different kind of fish.
Yeah.
And it's out in the water, you know, beautiful.
Ocean.
twenty four foot boat, you know, the whole thing.
And he brings back fish and people we give it away and he cooks it and it's just really fun.
Love it. But he literally leaves at seven o'clock in the morning and gets home at four.
So you know I was like well I better do something or I'm gonna go nuts.
And I tell you there is nothing.
Like giving a book to a child who doesn't have a book.
You know, I am on this lifetime mission of trying to get free books to kids who don't have any. And
I have to say, having started at Sesame Street, when that the idea was to lift everybody up and help everybody and teach everybody how to read.
It's amazing to me we're here at 2026, but I'm doing what I can to make sure kids get books.
Many as possible.
Read, read, read.
Well, let's talk about Alaska.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yes.
The what is the context on what I just mentioned? Keith.
Tell the story? Yes, I can. The aegis of this book is interesting, as I think I told you
I am the child of a world war two hero.
And uh my dad was in college when he enlisted and he was in engineering.
He's an engineer.
So they made him a navigator.
And a navigator
Gonna be seventeen.
sits in the front with the pilot.
And shows them the maps and stuff like that.
Yeah.
And his plane was hit by enemy fire.
Burst into flames.
And he jumped out.
And was arrested and spent a little under two years in a German prison camp.
That's when he came home, they had my brothers and they had me.
Two boys and a little girl, and a little girl was me.

And all through the years writing children's books, I had wanted to write a book for military kids and military families.
Yeah.
Honor of my father, but also because I felt no one understands this life.
No one understands the sacrifices they go through.
And I'm the grandmother of two little girls who are five and three.
And I got thinking about
What it means to my granddaughter when my son isn't away on business for two days.
And the military kids see their parents, their moms, and their dads go for a year.
And
I tried everything. I
Try it.
Department of Defense, Department of Education, the Naval Bases. I'm like oh can somebody help me do this, you know?
Fast forward, I'm starting my own company and I got clearance.
To go on the base.
At the Grattan Naval Base, which is right next to Mystic, Connecticut.
I went into their library, I got permission to go into their library. I read every single book for military children in the library.
And
Didn't see anything that was helpful for this topic.
And I was literally leaving and the librarian said, What are you here for?
And I said, I wanna write a book for military kids. And she said, Oh
And she smiled at me and she said, You just need to reach out to United.
through reading.
And I looked at her and I said, United through reading, okay.
United through reading.
Records deployed service members reading books to their kids. Hold it up, read the book.
Then they send
The video recording
Home to the child.
with a free copy of the book.
So that they can all read together.
And when I heard this story, I said, Well, what I wanna do
is write a book from the point of view it's lovely that they're reading Cat in the hat.
And there's no place like space, and that's all nice.
But I want them to have a book that reflects their story.
This is where I am. I miss you, but I'm fine. You know, you're fine, I'm fine.
It's fine.
And
The first thing I did was I interviewed
Service members, spouses.
Partners and kids.
It took me months, I have
Notebooks full of this stuff.
About what it's like.
To walk away from your three year old.
And hope you'll be back to see her someday.
To serve our country.
And keep us safe.
Yeah.
And I got inspired to write the book.
And
The people I interviewed gave me tips
To put in the book.
for young families facing this for the first time.
And one of my favorites was
Early interview she said
When my husband leaves, he traces his hand on paper and I put it up next to the door.
So the kids can give him a high five.
Every time they leave.
I mean really.
You know, so sometimes a part always in my heart.
Helping military families send love from far away.
I was honored to write it. I've received a lot of big awards.
For it.
It's really a passion.
Project for me because
I cannot imagine my son walking away from my granddaughters.
For a year.
But it happens every day.
And then the funny thing about Alaska, this is really fun. Here's Alaska.
I actually was going to So Alaska is a is a little stuffed dog. He's a little stuff dog and I went to buy my
Granddaughter a little present.
And he literally
Fell in my bag.
And I'm looking at him going, he's awful cute.
And then I thought, wow.
I was right in the middle of writing.
Sometimes apart always in my heart.
And a lot of service members have to leave their pets. It's horrible.
Because they get
relocated and sometimes can't take them with them.
Yeah.
So I said to myself, Okay, I'm gonna have the bear family.
Have a dog.
Here he is, right there.
And have him
Adopted from a shelter.
And then I thought
Well
There's a lot of training in Alaska.
And I Googled one thing, all of you, if you ever want to create a character.
First thing you do is Google the name.
Because in for me, if I find out that I was gonna name him
Tony and I've s put in Tony the dog and there already is one.
I would name in something else.
It's just not worth the hassle.
And I put in Alaska.
And the only thing that came up was Alaskan Huskies, but not the name Alaska. So I named them Alaska.
But the cool thing was I sent
One of these little dogs.
to my art director and my illustrator.
And from the first minute
she was able to put him in the book.
The way he really looks.
And one of the things that happens to service members, that's him getting adopted from the shelter. One of the things that happens to service members is they all said to me,
But with the hardest thing.
Is missing their families and missing the day to day little stuff.
So in the bear family, daddy bears on a location
And they adopt Alaska while he's gone.
So in the the last page of the book is
Alaska jumping on'em'cause they just met.

I also wanted to have this little dog, so the kids are reading the book and they also have a little soft guy to go with them. So he's on my website, right, Alaska? Yes.
So really inspired.
To write that one.
And is the best place for people to find the book and Alaska.
At
Tishrabibooks.com. Where would you suggest? Alaska and the the book in Alaska are on Tishrabibooks.com. We have e commerce all set up.
You know.
You're just ready to go home, right? With anybody.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So yes, you know, that was another fun thing. Who'd ever made a plush dog before?
You know, and the nice thing was the only thing they had to do was put his little bandana on.
'cause this is the the real dog I found, but oh he just had just says Alaska and the name of the book.
They didn't have to build a whole new
Doc.
To just adapt.
So the spelling folks, I'll just remind you, Robbie is R A B E so
T I s h R A B E Books dot com. What else can people find on your website?
What else will people find that's there's a lot going on on my website. I have a lot of books in development. I just started my company. This is always makes me f laugh. This one is called Days Can Be Sunny for Bunnies and Money. I got a call from a bank in Ohio they wanted something for kids because financial literacy.
Is a huge thing.
You know, you gotta start young.
So I came up with these three bunnies, they're triplets.
And honey fern likes to earn, Sunny Dave likes to save, and funny Ben likes to spend.
So anyway, so um the thing goes on, and at the end they also give some of their eggs to the library.
And this is them giving them eggs to library.
So I love doing
You know, content based books.
you know, something that's gonna teach somebody about something.
And uh I've I've got a big new book coming out in a month.
That's actually all about Central Park, New York.
Yeah. So um it's a rhyming storybook. Uh Central Park you can see is the best place to be.
It's coming out.
How did that come about?
Well, it was funny. We moved here to Mystic.
And
I've never had this exactly happen before, but I joined the
Small business
The Mystic Chamber of Commerce, right?
Because I thought well I'm running this tiny company by myself. Maybe there are other people who are running small companies who could help me with advice.
Something.
So I go to this coffee shop to meet their head of membership.
So the Mystic Chamber of Commerce.

Membership.
And honestly, I think she's gonna want me to put something about me on her website or something.
And she literally looks at me and says
We have a huge
Anniversary coming up.
Would you write a children's book about our town?
And I remember looking at her going, Well it was February eighth.
And I would never forget it. And I said, Well sure. I said, When do you need it by?
And she looks at me and she goes.
July.

I remember looking at her going, Ah sure, what do you need it? Anyway, here it is. Mystic by the Sea is the best place to be.
But the thing that was amazing, and it's never happened to me before, we're in a coffee shop.
At Mystic Seaport.
Coffee shop. I'm looking right at her. Beautiful, beautiful young woman, right?
And she says, Can you get it done that fast?
And I thought I I
And all of a sudden
I saw four
Seagulls.
Fly.
Over her head.
Right in the middle of a coffee sho I'm obviously they weren't real seagulls, but in my head.
I saw four seagulls.
And I got to my car.
And I said, I've got it.
It's a family of seagulls.
Who fly all over Mystic.
Looking at the sea port, the aquarium.
The boats, the you know, blah blah blah.
And I wrote the whole thing in like two days.
This is downtown mystic.

So, you know, who knows where these ideas come from. I don't know. But that was the first time I ever had a complete hallucination in a coffee shop.
Was Central Park something that you wanted to do, or did that come to you a different way?
I work with a friend of mine whose name is Jennifer Perry, and she was the s uh vice president and publisher of Sesame Street Books for a long time. And as soon as I started Tishraby Books, she came on as my executive editor.
But interesting thing about her, she is a trained greeter.
Greeter, G R E E T E R Greeter, at Central Park.
In New York.
And she
Came to me and she said, Every single family comes in with the kids in the stroller and the blah blah blah. And the first thing they ask is, What should I show my kids?
Where should I take my children?
She said they need a book.
They need a rhyming children's book. And I was kinda like, okay.
So
Literally
Central Park is eight hundred and forty three acres.
of open land and lakes and waterfalls and
How to get that into twenty four pages.
Sure, I got it. And so it took it's taken a bit for us to get that done, but it's coming out in uh a month and a half. Exciting. Very exciting.
And I'm working on a big campaign, which is going very well.
To get people to help me fund.
Free copies.
Of the Central Park book.

Manhattan, the Bronx, Staten Island, Queens.
In Brooklyn.
And
Again when I met your friend Alan.
From this group in New York, this influencers group.
I met a w a young woman who said, I'll help you do this. It's on the landing page of my website, and we are absolutely crowdfunding.
Enough money to give a book.
to every first grader in the community. Incredibly exciting. Very exciting.
I love that.
Oh
I may have a group that could be also
Maybe of interest or could be interested in the book itself, but donors choose dot org, which I was involved with. I suppose still I'm I was involved with for ages. In any case. So I will certainly will link to the website and and link the uh crowdfunding separately for people who would like to
contribute to that is you mentioned twenty four pages. Is that
The
Canonical length. That's probably not the right modifier, but is that the default length of most children's books?
They're all kind of all over the place. The
Dr. Seuss books
These books are
Forty two pages.
And
What's happening is
Hopefully, we hope hope of hope. Is that
parents read to their kids when they're going to sleep or you know, in their home, you know.
From school.
And
It's kinda tricky'cause if they're too long.
You know, it gets
Too much.
So starting my own company, I thought well let me start
with twenty four pages.
The interesting thing also to share, we do other languages. Here's Sweet Dreams in Spanish.
And also
Pace of you know, not a million words on a page. Kids love to turn pages.
There's a whole kind of, you know, part of this that's just how it works. Adults like to turn pages too.
Exactly. Exactly. Are we gonna turn are gonna see more artwork here or what? The other thing I I urge people who want to write a children's book is to really think about the illustrator.
I had worked with Jill Guil in London.
On a number of books. We did the uh Huff and Puff.
Train books.
And
I knew for this book, which is all about
Reading and snuggling and going to sleep.
That she was the perfect illustrator.
And a book like Bunnies and Money, it's supposed to be funny, it's this wacky group of kids.
This is another kind of artwork.
So it really depends on what your message is and what your style is.
Of who you pick.
If you're stuck on a book
If that ever happens. But let's just say something's not working. Yeah.
What's your go to move? Do you
Change the idea, the meter, the sentence. How do you start to get unstuck if something isn't working? It's really interesting. I did a presentation to a group of writers called Girls Write.
W R I T E now.

And I had young women in my
In the room with me, and then we had Zoom calls cross country.

It was the first time anyone has asked me if I get writer's block.
No one has ever asked me that this was a couple of months ago. And I remember thinking
Yes.
I do.
And what I do
is if I get hired to write a book and I still write for other people
I just finished another book for Harper Collins.
If they say we have to have your first draft by
April first.
Okay, yeah,
I write in.
It's due February fifteenth.
Because I know there's gonna be a day.
When I cannot.
Do this. I can't figure it out. It's not going anywhere. I'm stuck.
You know, so when that happens, I stop.
If I just say
I cannot think one more minute about what funny Ben spent his money on.
For instance, just a for instance, I will let it go.
Work on something else, you know.
Work on another book.
Do something.
Because you
It is true. You get
Circled in.
Like a soft dissolve in
You know, you're just so
So
Consumed by it.
This is a great example of that. This is interesting. This is the one that I wrote
All about
the things you can do that are good for you.
Yeah.
And this was the only time
that I
Got this assignment.
And honestly, Tim, I thought that is the most boring idea I have ever heard. They wanted a book. The American Academy of Pediatrics wanted a book about go to sleep.
Eat healthy.
Exercise.
Yeah, yeah. I thought oh
I can't. This is oh my god. First of all, you cannot write this stuff without sounding preachy.
Do this, do that, do this, do that.
So I call I got my courage up and I called Random House and I said, How would you feel?
If I created my own Doctor Seuss characters.
Like
Zing singing Zans who loves washing her hands.
And my editor at Mano House said, We cannot
Call Mrs. Geisel.
And say that you, mother of two, living in Connecticut.
Are gonna start writing Doctor Seuss characters?
All you can do is write the whole book.
Forty two pages, all rhyming.
And will submit it to her.
And if she turns it down, you gotta start over.
I know. Oh, great. Okay.
So I write the whole book.
Here's one. Here's the Zing Singing Zans.
Who loves washing your hands?
Squishily washly washly wish, squishily squashly, squashly squish.
Wash your hands carefully, it's up to you.
You soap and warm water, it's easy to do.
Rinse them and while we all sing this refrain
Germs from your hands will slide right down the drain.
So for sure, fine. Okay. So I turn this in.
I turn this in and I go, Oh boy. I told my husband I got no B I have no B plan B does not exist. I had the sneeze, snicker, sneeze who loves brushing your teeth.
Anyway.
They loved it.
Thank you, Mrs. Geisel. And um they put it out.
And Michelle Obama funded sixteen additional pages.
with exercises and all kinds of stuff she loves. But that was a perfect example of
What am I gonna do?
I said this is so boring. And it turned out to be a huge bestseller, but it is funny. I just, you know.
Woof.
Mm-hmm.
We're gonna land the plane in just a few minutes. This has been so fun, but I wanted to also ask you, nineteen eighty two, Big Bird in China, what was that like?
That was really an extraordinary situation. We were the first crew allowed into China.
The first film crew. A couple news guys had been in, but it was the first time anybody walked into China.
With a six foot yellow bird, among other things, right? So somehow we got permission to shoot this thing. I don't know how.
And we walked in and they shipped
One big bird.
Costume.

And
I was a production man when I was associate producer at that point, I guess. And they literally said to us, you cannot shoot this bird in the rain.
Their hand
Painted their hand dyed.
Feathers.
If it starts to rain, you've gotta pull Carol out, Carol Spinny out of it, and you've gotta get
Put it somewhere dry.
Yeah.
So I thought I really knew what I was doing. I
schedule thirteen rain days. We were there a month in China. It poured.
the first thirteen days. I mean, poor. I mean not just little you know, little rain, you know, you put so we would literally push him out and have him do one line.
I don't know. Should we go this way or that way? Oh, pull'em back in and you know, change him and It was nuts.
So okay, but it did win the Emmy for Best Special for NBC. And uh it was a 90 minute special. That was another thing that was crazy. That is long.
Oh my God, we got back with all this footage.
First thing NBC said
You know, maybe it should just be an hour.
And we're all looking at each other'cause it had really complicated plot.
And he's looking to find the Phoenix and the end, she finds the Phoenix. How do you cut the middle out? You know, we got So anyway, but so we did here as as 90 minutes.
But for us it was just
Crazy.
I mean everything that possibly could have gone wrong went wrong.
But we came home with it somehow, but it was really soft. How long how long are you there in total?
We were there a month.
And
There's no coffee.
You can't have a film crew with no coffee. You just can't.
So the first day everyone's looking at me and going, Where's the coffee? I'm like
Coffee or in China. I mean no tea is tea. They didn't want tea, they wanted coffee. I said, Well, you guys are gonna have to, you know, get it together because this it's not gonna happen. Oh man. Nineteen eighty two. It was crazy, nineteen eighty two. Wow. And I sing a song on that one. I sang the Monkey King song on that show, but
How fun. It was crazy. What an experience. What an experience.
And she has the lead, right? And she and Big Bird travel all around.
She spoke.
No English.
Zero.
She didn't even know how to say hello, right?
They taught this to this little girl by rote.
So she finally understood what I love you meant finally by like the last day of the shoot. But we would send them scripts.
And then we would change the scripts.
But then we met her.
And she'd memorise.
The original ones.
So you'd be out in this shooting outdoors and all of a sudden she'd say
I don't know, big bird, let's find out. And we go, We cut that. Didn't we cut that? Like a year ago. I mean wait a minute. It was crazy. And we shot at the Great Wall of China at four o'clock in the morning. And we anyway.
But that's another whole wild experience. I was mild I was in China at at two universities and
Nineteen ninety six, I guess it was. And
It is just a different
experience entirely now. I can only imagine nineteen eighty two.
Well, the interesting thing for us was yes, there's a billion people.
But back then they were all walking everywhere in bicycles. Now, of course, it's cars. Yes, but just the sheer volume of people.
Mind boggling. Yeah. I got mind boggling. I got there at the tail end of the bicycles. So I got to see people in big big green jackets. It gets cold, depending on where you are. It can get really chilly. But but a wild experience.
Tish, let me ask you a question. This is a metaphorical question, but it's a question I like to ask guests.
And that is if you could put
A message could be lyrics, could be a line, a quote.
A mantra, anything at all on a huge billboard for lots of people or lots of kids to see.
Does anything come to mind that you might put on that billboard?
I would say
Right now I would say
Remember the children are our most precious
Gift.
I get concerned about the way the world is going.
And I just want everybody to remember that they are the most precious
part of our world.
'Cause they are the future.
They are the dreams of the future and we must take good care of them.
And read, read, read. Read, read, read, read, read, read. And
I hope you keep writing, writing, writing as well. Uh that is the plan. Tish, is there anything else you'd like to
mention any closing comments, anything at all you'd like to cover or point people to.
Well one thing I would like to say, I have another big book coming out.
It's called kindness is caring, friendship is sharing.
And it is written with international rotary clubs.
And Rotary Clubs are all across the country, all around the world.
And it comes out in three weeks.
And it's a gentle story, it takes place in Africa.
A little zebra.
And it's about
Just that.
Friendship.
Caring, sharing, and making the world a kinder place.
And I think
The world has never needed it more.
And I'm very proud of it and it'll be out in three weeks.
I just think we all have to be kind.
to each other.
And I'm doing the best I can to make that happen.
We do.
Rotary Club. Amazing, amazing organization also.
Yes. Uh who I met.
Who can't for Rotary Clone.
Well, the other thing too that's fun about it is it's a book for kids, right?
But when young parents read it, we're hoping that they see it learn about Rotary and say, Well oh let me find a Rotary in my community.
So we can get some new members and keep going. I love it. We'll see. I love it.
Tish.
You're such a joy to spend time with. Thank you. Thank you. You too so much. And
Everybody listening, we will link to all things in the show notes, but
Do not miss going to Tish Robbie Books. It's T I S H R A B E Books.com. Contribute to the crowdfunding.
And buy a few books while you're at it.
And we'll link to all of your social
Media and so on.
But people definitely check out Tish Robbiebooks.com. We'll link to other things that have come up in this conversation at Tim.blog slash podcast. You'll be easy to find. You're the only Tish. I know. I know. There's only a few of us out there. I know. It's a beautiful thing. Yes, beautiful. So it makes it very easy to find you. And
To everybody listening, as always, this is how I close my shows.
Be just a bit kinder than is necessary when you stop listening and go on with your day, not just to others, but also to
Yourself.
And Tish. Lovely. What a
Wonderful, wonderful time.
I really appreciate you.
Making it.
The time to have this conversation.
And you're welcome, Ben.
Yeah, I hope we cross paths, I guess. I'll end with what I say to the kids. Reading and writing both are so exciting. Read a book or write a story, start, right?
No.
That's how we close it.
Thank you so much. Thank you.