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Speaker 1: Arrow dot net isn't just a podcast, it's twenty different

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podcasts a r r oe dot net something for every

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flavor and need, such as view from the Writing Instrument.

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It's all about those of us that have been chosen

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to write, to hear from the authors, to go into

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your deep way of thinking, to understand your paths, situations

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as well as you're healing. It's called view from the

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Writing Instrument on ero dot net aar r oe dot net.

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Enjoy your exploration. Wow, what an amazing journey that the

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two of you have been on. And I gotta tell you,

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I have sat with more teachers over the past couple

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of weeks talking about this because I mean, it's like

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you're taking something that was so amazingly effective and you've

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planted in a world right now that needs this story. Again.

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I mean, it's so amazing how you have figured out

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this plan on how to put it in the center

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of where we are currently growing.

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Speaker 2: Oh, thanks so much, Erro. We're proud of our book.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I agreed, Thank you.

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Speaker 1: Does it go beyond a book because I mean, it's

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got like a legacy attached to it because the stories

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that I have of Rumpel Steel skin. If I were

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to sit down with somebody from Alpha or Beto, the generations,

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they would look at me and go, wow, you've got

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a different interpretation of what I've got in this present day.

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So I mean, it's almost like you're taking something from

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the past and you're saying, here, hold onto this for

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a little bit.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, this is a very old story.

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Speaker 2: Rumpel steel Skin is a fairy tale.

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Speaker 4: It's a folk tale, which means the story that's been

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told for hundreds of years, and at first it was

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told out loud through generations. Then it was set down

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by the brothers Grim and different writers different versions of it.

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That's what we do with fairy tales, right We passed

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them between generations, and their meanings change depending on who's

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telling the story and who's listening to it too.

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Speaker 5: See.

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Speaker 1: And what I love about this is that you're showing

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that up and coming author right now, they're just readers,

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but we all know that it's the authors that inspire

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tomorrow's writers. And the thing is is that you're allowing

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them to understand. It doesn't have to be a love

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song that broke your heart. It can be a Rumpel

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steel Skin. It can be something that affects us in

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different ways. Just right.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that's something, Carson that I both love

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about this story.

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Speaker 2: It's just the super turbo story.

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Speaker 6: Like, it's got revenge, riddles, magic, danger, tricks.

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Speaker 4: It's got so many emotional movements in it.

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Speaker 2: What makes it so fun?

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Speaker 1: Now, Carson, what's interesting about what you have done with

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this book is you have stayed very authentic to it,

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to its quality of the past. It's almost like you

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are saluting where this story originates from. And I just

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and the coleren and everything. Here is why we want

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a picture book in our lives, so we can read

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what is coming from Mac and then we step into

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that photo and go, I understand, I get it. Oh

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my god, there's such a collaboration between the two of you.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, Mac and I are old friends. We've

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been friends for almost twenty years. Oh And unlike the

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case with many picture books, where the author and illustrator

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have no interaction, don't speak throughout the process, and maybe

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never even communicate or meet each other, we feel really

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lucky that we get to make books together because we

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are such good friends and we're able to kind of

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figure out what we both love about the story and

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what we want to do with it. And yeah, I

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think Mac had a big part in me figuring out

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what the illustrations for this book would look like, partly

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because we both loved medieval stuff, and so I think

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we had this idea that it would be a very

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medieval and that's a very classic fairy tale stealing book.

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Speaker 1: One of the things that sticks out so much, and

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it's going on in today's world, and I think what's

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really interesting about making the connection with what's going on

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wise cracks. I mean, it just seems like that we're

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all getting in trouble for wisecracks, but it's okay for

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Rumpel steel Skin to have them. And it's almost like

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you're opening up that door saying, have a great wise crack.

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Don't make it hurtful, just make it a wise crack

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to where we can all go hmm or go WHOA,

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what was that? So you almost reintroduced us to the

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legalization of a good wise crack.

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Speaker 6: You know.

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Speaker 4: I'm a bit of a wisecracker, so I like to

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put those in books.

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Speaker 2: And I do think that Rumbel still.

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Speaker 5: Skin is a funny guy, and I guess he's not

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although he is punished severely at the end of the story.

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Speaker 2: It's not for his wisecrack, it's for his baby's stealing.

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And I think as it should be.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, because I've always my entire life, and I

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swear to you that I always thought that Rumpel Steelskin

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was Don Rickles because of the way that he was

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able to move from travel to travel, to travel to

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travel to say a wise crack and move on. And

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I kept sitting there going, is he trying to figure

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out if somebody's gonna spin some gold from for him

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inside some bales of hay, Because I mean, it really

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does fit into what's going on.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, And to be honest, I don't know

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that I ever saw Don Rickles and Rumpelstilskin in the

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same place.

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Speaker 3: Ah, that's some of the Max's famous wife.

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Speaker 1: Now with you, Carson, when you do your illustrating because

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I mean, you're inviting people to step into your interpretation.

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What is that like for you as a creative mind

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in order to do that? Because you're not just getting

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the YA readers right now, You're gonna get the attention

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of the gray haired people as well, because we all

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have a connection to this storyline.

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Speaker 4: You know, I just I wanted to tell, uh, the

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best version of the story that I could me. What

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was interesting was returning to what I think the soul

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of this story is. And of course what I think

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the soul of the story is is going to be

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different from you know, what you might think it is,

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but that's that's what you do when you tell the

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story out loud. And that was just like I felt

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like I was sort of tapping back into that old

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oral tradition here and just figuring out, like, how would

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I tell that?

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Speaker 2: What do I think is important?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, please do not move. Mac Barnett and Carson Ellis

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are coming up next. The name of the book Rumpels

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still Skin. We are back with Mac Barnett and Carson Ellis.

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You know what's so interesting about what you just shared,

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Mac is the fact that just on iHeartRadio a few

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minutes ago, I put a story like that up there. Now,

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bet it's because you inspired me to do this. Is

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that what we write down on paper through interpretation is

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in fact what you know, that's the way we were

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supposed to receive the story. And it's almost like that's

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that's what you've done. You have received this story. This

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is your interpretation, and we're all sitting there going, oh

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my god, I am moved by what he has put

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on this page.

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Speaker 2: Oh I'm very happy about that.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I would say like the being moved, especially by

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some of the more somber moments. I think that was

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something that was really important for Carson and me too.

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The story contains so much emotions, so many moods, and Carson,

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that was a big thing that you were trying to

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unlock when you were approaching the pictures.

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Speaker 3: Right. Yeah, it's such a beautiful retelling by Mac that

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really does move from very funny, very desperate, to very funny,

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to very somber and desolate to scary back to funny.

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I think that's so hard to do with a story.

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I think mostly people are trying to tell a funny

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story or a scary story, or a sad story. And

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the fact that it very gracefully he does all these

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things one after another, I think makes it just a

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great book to read to kids, because it's just seeing

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there's so much that you go through in the process

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of reading the story, and it also made it really

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fun to.

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Speaker 1: Illustrate well the way that you depict Ruppel steel Skin himself,

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you know, with the red jacket, which to me shows power,

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and then you've got the kind of hardened, chiseled face,

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which to me gives me that little bit of scare.

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But I'm going to listen to him because he seems

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to be so playful, because he's so tiny and cute.

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But yet you have to sit there and say, but

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can I trust Rumpel steel Skin.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 5: I actually was very strategic about that.

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Speaker 3: I thought a lot of ways about of a lot

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of ways I could have made that character, design that character,

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and then I decided he should be ambiguous in the beginning.

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So when he first walks onto the scene, he's sort

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of waving hello.

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Speaker 2: He has a hood over his.

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Speaker 3: Face, so you can't see what he's all about. It's

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kind of hard to tell if he's a good guy

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or a bad guy. But then when he makes the

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deal with the girl for her baby, then that's the

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first time he pulls back his hood and you see

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that he has these kind of sinister, glowing yellow cat eyes.

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That's meant to be everybody's cue that he's actually like

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a pretty bad, bad dude.

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Speaker 1: But we need that challenge in the anxiety for us

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to be able to look at the real world. That's

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what I love about this. You can't trust everything that

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you see that's in front of you, and that's what

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I love about this. It's almost like you're giving a

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sight of the insight that we need to focus in on,

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if you know what I mean.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's really right. I think that's one

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of the most powerful things about fairy.

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Speaker 4: Tales is that they do contain some of those darker

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rhythms of life.

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Speaker 2: And kids are attuned to that. We of course want.

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Speaker 4: To shield them from those things, but they feel it

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every day, and I think they really respond to stories

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that acknowledge that those rhythms are in the world.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, and a story like this where you do where

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there is an ambiguous character and you have to look

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for clues and the story is kind of what his

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deal is is like, I don't know, it's it's a

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really cool critical thinking exercise for kids, and they're so good.

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Speaker 1: Why is it though? Why is it?

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Speaker 4: Though?

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Speaker 1: When we know the ending of the story, we still

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go back to the beginning and start it all over again.

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I mean, it's not going to change, but yet we

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just feel like start all over do it again, and

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we do it again, and you're doing the same thing

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with your version of it. It's like, okay, so that's

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the ending, go to the beginning. Let's do it again.

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Speaker 2: M yeah, I mean I think that that hopefully.

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Speaker 4: You know, we spent a lot of time on these

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words and these pictures, and we're trying to make something

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that holds up to rereadings, both because.

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Speaker 2: We know that that is how kids read, but also.

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Speaker 4: Because we want to just make something that's the best

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we can for our audience. And you know, this is

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a story that's been told over and over again, so

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even you know, you can reread ours. But also we're

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just tapping into such a long tradition of telling a

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story that everybody already knows.

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Speaker 2: Well.

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Speaker 1: I can't wait to walk in to imagine on here

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in Charlotte, which is the Children's Library, they believe so

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much in children and it's books like this that they

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are I mean, when they sit down with those little

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imaginations and they read a book like this, you have

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no idea what it does to the adults. The adults

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are embracing what you authors are planting for us to

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have today.

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Speaker 2: Oh, thank you so much. We feel very lucky to

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have this job. We have the best audience in the world.

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Speaker 4: Are such smart readers of stories so true?

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Speaker 1: Where can people go to find out more about the

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two of you? Because ten minutes with either of you

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is just not enough?

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Speaker 2: Ah?

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Speaker 3: Thanks.

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Speaker 4: I have a website.

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Speaker 3: It's Carson Ellis dot com.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, my website is mac Barnett dot com. I also

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have a news letter that I write for adults about

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picture books. It's called Looking at picture Books. I write

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that with my friend, the illustrator John Clawson.

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Speaker 1: Oh see, you guys are so connected. Please come back

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to this show anytime in the future. The door is

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always going to be open for you, you know.

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Speaker 4: And just like Rumble Stilsk and we don't even need

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a doorp up.

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Speaker 1: Listen. All I want is I want this to be

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a twelve part series on Netflix or Hulu. And it

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has to start Al Fanning. That's all. That's my biggest request.

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It's got to start Al Fanning.

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Speaker 2: All right, let's put it out there.

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Speaker 1: Be brilliant today, you two, Okay, thank.

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Speaker 3: You, thanks for having us.

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Speaker 2: Thank you