Why Do Some People Love Licorice And Other People Loathe It? (Cool Weird Awesome 986)

It's National Licorice Day. People who love it, love it - and the people who don’t aren’t shy about saying so. Maybe it would help if we explained how we got to this impasse?

By |2023-04-12T07:55:12-04:00April 12, 2023|Categories: Cool Weird Awesome, Podcasts|Tags: , , , , , |

How Choose Your Own Adventure Books Let Millions Of Young Readers Pick The Ending Of The Story (Cool Weird Awesome 951)

Today in 1931, the birthday of Edward Packard, who along with R.A. Montgomery founded a book series that let millions of young readers pick the ending to the story: Choose Your Own Adventure.

By |2024-02-16T08:07:42-05:00February 16, 2023|Categories: Cool Weird Awesome, Podcasts|Tags: , , , |

A Sprained Ankle Helped Bring Pippi Longstocking To The World (Cool Weird Awesome 742)

Today in 1944, Astrid Lindgren of Stockholm, Sweden fell on ice and sprained her ankle. While stuck in bed, she decided to write down some stories she'd been telling her daughter, stories that would lead to one of the most popular children's book series of all time.

By |2023-12-26T12:12:00-05:00March 28, 2022|Categories: Cool Weird Awesome, Podcasts|Tags: , , , , |

Donald J. Sobol’s Encyclopedia Brown Books Taught Young Readers To Solve Mysteries (Cool Weird Awesome 626)

Today's the birthday of a mystery author known to millions of kids, Donald J Sobol. He wrote the Encyclopedia Brown series, about a 10 year old detective who solved cases because he knew, as his nickname suggested, all sorts of unusual and obscure facts in the era way before the internet. Plus: it’s National Taco Day, and here's the story of one of the largest tacos ever made. 

By |2021-10-04T09:14:12-04:00October 4, 2021|Categories: Cool Weird Awesome, Podcasts|Tags: , , , , , |

How The Baby Sitters Club Became The Book Series All The 80s Kids Were Reading (Cool Weird Awesome 333)

Netflix is about to release a show based on The Baby-Sitters Club I used to re-shelve all the time at the public library where I worked. Here's the story of how the series came to life. Plus: if you could use a little beauty in your world right now, check out the photos of Trung Huy Pham, documenting Vietnam's annual water lily harvest.

Does A Book With 1,250 Endings Ever Really End? (Cool Weird Awesome 262)

I grew up reading Choose Your Own Adventure books, some of which had dozens of possible endings. But a new book from a celebrated Sri Lankan children's author had a world record 1,250 endings! Plus: a pilot in Austria does his part for social distancing with a flight path that spells out "STAY HOME."

A Big-Time Librarian Kept “Goodnight Moon” Off The Shelves For 25 Years (Cool Weird Awesome 215)

Despite being one of the most iconic children’s books of its time, the New York Public Library didn’t have a copy of “Goodnight Moon” for decades, because an influential librarian didn’t like it.

By |2024-01-30T09:08:30-05:00January 14, 2020|Categories: Cool Weird Awesome, Podcasts|Tags: , , , , |
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