Episode 32: How many cats do you have? -with Jenni Holm

Welcome back to another great episode! Jenni Holm answers this kid question, how many cats do you have?

TRANSCRIPTS:

Grace Lin: Hello. I'm Grace Lin, children's book author and illustrator of many books, including the middle-grade novel, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon and the picture book, A Big Mooncake for Little Star.

Grace Lin: Today, I am here with Jenni Holm, the author of the graphic novels, Babymouse, Squish and the Sunny series as well as middle-grade novels like the Fourteenth Goldfish. Hi, Jenni.

Jenni Holm: Hey, Grace. Thanks for having me.

Grace Lin: Oh, I was so glad to have you. Are you ready for today's question?

Jenni Holm: Okay, I think I can do it.

Grace Lin: Okay. Today's question is from a person named, Gabe and they say...

Gabe: How many cats do you have?

Grace Lin: How many cats do you have?

Jenni Holm: Oh my goodness, cats. Well, we are definitely a cat house. We have two cats, so for a while we've had one very fat cat named, Auggie. His full name is Augustus after the Roman emperor because he was 18 pounds at one point, so he was pretty much the size of like three small dogs.

Jenni Holm: And very recently, we got a little tortoise shelled kitten named, Livia who is in charge of Auggie. She just rules over him. And we love having cats. And it's kind of funny because I write a series called, Babymouse with my brother, Matt, and it's about a mouse. So, it's kind of ironic that we are cat people.

Grace Lin: Are there are cats in Babymouse?

Jenni Holm: There are cats in Babymouse. The mean girl in Babymouse, Felicia Furrypaws is a cat.

Grace Lin: Is she inspired by your own cats?

Jenni Holm: Felicia is not inspired by my own cat. So she is inspired, sadly, by a mean girl that I knew in real life when I was in elementary school. So my advice to kids everywhere is don't be mean because someday some author is going to draw you as a mean cat.

Grace Lin: Do your cats make any appearances in any of your books?

Jenni Holm: You know what? I think I'm definitely a bit cat crazy in my books. I'm in my book, Turtle in Paradise there is a cat that goes down to Florida with her, with the main character, Turtle. In the very first Sunny book, there is a whole scene about feeding stray cats. And in my new upcoming book, which has not been, I'm not allowed to talk about the title yet, but a cat plays a very prominent role.

Grace Lin: Ah, so there's cats in your books, but none of them are specifically about your particular cats?

Jenni Holm: No.

Grace Lin: Well they're waiting. I'm sure they're waiting to be stars soon.

Jenni Holm: They are. So, if you see a really fat 18 pound cat in a book, you'll know it's Auggie.

Grace Lin: What I like about this question is that it wasn't even, do you have a cat, it was, how many cats do you?

Jenni Holm: Gabe, you know me, you know me very well. I was actually saying last night, "I could go for one more cat maybe," but my husband said, "No way."

Grace Lin: Well, I don't have any cats because my husband is allergic to cats.

Jenni Holm: Oh.

Grace Lin: If it wasn't for my husband's allergies, I think a cat would be a perfect pet for me because they seem like they don't need a lot of maintenance. Like you don't need to walk them every day. And they seem like they'll just come up and pay attention to you when they want attention, which seems like a really nice kind of pet to have and they're nice and furry and everything. So I've kind of always kind of wanted a cat. Because my husband is so allergic, instead, we got chickens.

Jenni Holm: That's hilarious.

Grace Lin: We actually just got two new chickens, so I have six chickens all together. They're outdoor chickens, we don't bring in to the house, so they never become my studio mates. But I do go out there and I try to be inspired by them. But, I also have no books about... Well, oh no and I take that back. I do have a book about a chicken that is out of print now that I did a long, long time ago because I've always kind of had a soft spot for chickens. But none of my books with chickens are inspired at all by the chickens that I have.

Jenni Holm: Maybe someday you're going to make a book about like a fluffy omelet and it'll be somewhat inspired by the chickens, or like the eggs get together and have an egg party or something.

Grace Lin: That's true. I should do this. So who knows? In the future, maybe Auggie and my chickens will get together and they'll have a book together.

Jenni Holm: I think Auggie would like that very much.

Grace Lin: I don't know if my chickens would like it so much.

Jenni Holm: Probably not. Yeah, he'll eat pretty much anything.

Grace Lin: All right. Well, thank you so much, Jenni for that great question and thank you, Gabe for asking it.

Jenni Holm: Thanks for having me, Grace.

Grace Lin: Thanks. Bye.

Jenni Holm: Bye-bye.

Today’s BOOK REVIEW comes from Riley! We will be hearing about The Mysterious Benedict Society:

The book I would like to talk about is The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart. This book is about some special kids who were recruited to go on a special mission to get information about a mysterious bad guy. I like this book because it's a mystery book, and I like how the team had to figure out how to work together.

Thank you so much Riley!

More about today’s authors:

Jennifer L. Holm is a New York Times bestselling children’s author and the recipient of three Newbery Honors for her novels Our Only May Amelia, Penny From Heaven, and Turtle in Paradise. Jennifer collaborates with her brother, Matthew Holm, on two graphic novel series—the Eisner Award-winning Babymouse series and the bestselling Squish series. She lives in California with her husband and two children.

Grace Lin, a NY Times bestselling author/ illustrator, won the Newbery Honor for Where the Mountain Meets the Moon and her picture book, A Big Mooncake for Little Star, was awarded the Caldecott Honor. Grace is an occasional commentator for New England Public Radio , a video essayist for PBS NewsHour (here & here), and the speaker of the popular TEDx talk, The Windows and Mirrors of Your Child’s Bookshelf. She is the co-host of the podcast Book Friends Forever, a kidlit podcast about friendship and publishing (geared for adults). Find her facebook,  instagram , twitter ( @pacylin) or sign up for her author newsletter HERE.

Special thanks to the High Five Books & Art Always Bookstore, Ms. Carleton’s 2nd grade class at Jackson Street School for their help with our kid questions and reviews.