(upbeat music) - [Announcer] This Gumband's podcast is made possible by the Buhl Foundation, serving Southwestern Pennsylvania since 1927 and by listeners like you.

Thank you.

- Welcome to Gumband's number 12.

(upbeat music) Brooke Barker is our guest.

She writes and illustrates books that may look like they're intended for children, but I think they're full of such interesting information and sly little jokes that I can't imagine an adult who wouldn't enjoy them too.

She's known on Instagram as @sadanimalfacts.

Let me say a few words of thanks too to Paula Zetter, who designs all of our graphics.

Dave Hollowell, who promotes us, and Ryan DiCaprio, who gets us up on the internet in all the right ways.

Shouts of thanks too to Frank (indistinct), Ash Warren, and my co-producer Rich Capaldi.

The three of them work the cameras on this episode.

If you're enjoying Gumbands, we all encourage you to look for the donate link in the description wherever you're finding this podcast.

Become a member, and enjoy this talk with Brooke Barker, born in Pittsburgh.

Alright, this is Gumbands number 12.

I'm really happy today.

I'm here with Brooke Barker, who is a author and illustrator of these, I would say, unusual books.

- Maybe a bit unusual.

- That I love, and part of it's I love the way you draw, which seems very simple, but extremely detailed, and they are full of things that I would never think about.

(Brooke laughs) - Well, thanks so much.

Thanks for having me and for saying that.

I'm laughing already.

I'm delighted to be here.

(Brooke laughs) - Good, good.

I would say that the title that seems to be most associated with you is Sad Animal Facts.

- Yeah, I have always been obsessed with sad animal facts, animal facts in general, but especially the sad ones.

- And I think it's maybe in the little intro to that, you mentioned that your grandmother had animal cards.

- Yeah, so my grandmother, when I was born, she gave me a book when I was born and in it she wrote, "May you be a friend to every creature."

It was an animal book, so growing up, I think it was a pretty dramatic child.

Hopefully I'm a less dramatic adult, but I really felt, I was like, "I need this to be true.

I need to be a friend to every creature," but I didn't have any pets, so instead I sort of became this animal obsessed kid and loved reading about animals.

- Wow, like your career determined from birth.

- Yeah, I like to think so.

- And where was that?

Where are you from?

Where were you born?

- I was born in Pittsburgh, actually.

Yeah, I was born in Oakland, Shadyside area.

My parents were students at CMU and Pitt.

- [Rick] Oh, I think maybe I knew that, but then you've moved all over.

- Yeah, so then since I was here a month, but it really left an imprint, and then I grew up mostly in Minnesota, and moved back here about five years ago.

- [Rick] And were you in Portland for a while?

- Yeah, in Portland, Oregon, which is one of my favorite places and great animals there.

- [Rick] And Toronto?

- Yeah, Toronto in Canada.

- [Rick] Can I just say other names of cities?

(both laugh) - Yeah, just name 'em.

- But I think I learned of you or learned about you and your husband Boaz, because he called me to be on a podcast.

- Yeah, he, Boaz had a podcast about sandwiches, and we had become such big fans of you.

We had sort of had this obsession with Pittsburgh.

When you have like something you say to each other all the time where you say like, "Oh, this is all going really badly.

We should like move to Chile and start a bean farm," and ours was, "We'll just move to Pittsburgh and get a dog" was what we wanted to do, so we were just really, that was our soothing quality time was just like to look at videos of Pittsburgh and your videos came up a lot, obviously, and so when he started the Sandwich podcast, he was like, "It'd be amazing to get Rick Sebak back on it."

- Oh, that's interesting that there's a Pittsburgh connection because I thought the connection was through this national PBS documentary I'd done about "Sandwiches That You Will Like" - That may have helped us find Pittsburgh in the beginning.

It's a chicken and egg scenario.

- All right, well, and I love that podcast.

It was, I think it's two minutes long.

(both laugh) - It's a short one.

- You can listen to a lot of them fast.

- Yeah, the sponsors are longer than the interviews.

(Brooke laughs) - That's exactly right, yes, but at that time, I believe he called me or texted me from Amsterdam.

- Yeah, we were living in Amsterdam, and we wanted to move back to America just to be a little closer to our native language and our families, and so we visited Pittsburgh and loved it.

- [Rick] Why were you in Amsterdam?

- We moved.

I got a job in Amsterdam.

We were traveling and visited Amsterdam, and it was really fun, so we went into an office where we knew some people and got a job that day because it was just like, it seemed so fun to move there.

- [Rick] Wow.

Can I ask doing what?

- Working at an advertising agency.

- [Rick] Okay, and you still do some of that?

- Yeah, so in my spare time, for my second job, I also write TV commercials.

- Oh, okay, so like a writer, and because writing is part of what you do, even though I mean, I think I heard, I saw something where you said, "I write jokes", and that's true.

I mean, there's "Sad Animal Facts", and each page has a different animal and a factoid about the animal.

- Yeah, my goal is that reading the book, everyone will find a new favorite animal, and find that no matter what they're going through, if they're having like a tough family relationship or a strange digestive issue, or they're just tired or a night of poor sleep, they'll find an animal who really relates to them, 'cause there are animals going through all the same weird things we are and much weirder.

- And as a kid, do you remember certain books that influenced you?

- I was just really into, as a kid, you can find these books that are just packed with facts, which I feel like we don't read as much as adults, but I just would get into one animal, and just check out every book on them.

Snow monkeys, I really had a snow monkey kick.

Did you have like an animal phase?

- No, I don't remember.

I had a Greek myth phase.

- Greek myth phase, that's a good one.

- You know, as a kid, I loved any book that I could find in the library about Greek myths.

- Yeah, you know, I talked to an editor about doing a sad Greek myth fact book, because there's so many little, I mean, Greek myths are full of like sad little bits.

(Brooke laughs) - Yeah, Icarus falls through the sky.

- Yeah, everyone's- - Like a giraffe when he's born.

- Yeah, it's true.

A giraffe falls six feet as soon as they're born.

- I know this because I read "Sad Animal Facts", (both laugh) but so different animals, as you grew up, - Yeah, so I was really into snow monkeys, and then that sort of, in the end I was into every animal, and especially just knowing interesting facts about them, like, worms have five hearts or zebras can't sleep alone.

Sharks are losing a tooth a week.

It just was interesting to try to work these into conversations, and as I tried more and more, I realized they don't make for very good conversations, so I stuck to drawing them and making books about them.

- [Rick] And so there's research involved.

- Yeah, there is.

- And at the back of the book, there's actually, I assume you've also written all the notes that sort of explain in a little bit more detail.

I assume that if someone who's reading the book says, "What does that really mean?

", you sort of explain it in a more adult, I don't wanna say adult, because I, as an adult, don't find these like as kids books.

- Yeah, I meant them to be adults books, and I guess, because they have pictures, they're for kids too, but they're okay for any age.

But yeah, I guess like one fact is that these snails can like regrow their eyes, and so that's a fact, but it's also a story, like why is this snail's eye coming off?

Why does it need to regrow it?

Why do we know this?

And so that was the reason I was like, we have to have an appendix at the back that explains these.

Otherwise you just say a sheep can remember 50 faces, and it's like, "Well, what does that mean?"

(Brooke laughs) So it's nice to have the appendix at the back where there's the research.

- And most of that research at first done in libraries, but then online.

- Yeah, so a lot of animal books, but then I really, like most newspapers will have at least one new fact a week where they'll look at recently published journals or studies and they'll like bring in one that's sort of pop culturey and talk to the scientist.

So a few years ago there was a study about whether or not dolphins procrastinate, and it's nice to think that maybe dolphins procrastinate like we do, so they had that in like "The New York Times" and other newspapers, and they interviewed the scientists, had some dolphin pictures.

So every week they'll be a story that's sort of like that.

- [Rick] That grab onto.

- Yeah, so I'll be like, "Ooh, that's a good one."

And then now that I've been doing this a while, I'll have people send me things, so they'll send me like an article they published, or a book they read, and so the facts sort of come to me, which is nice.

- And at what point do you say, "I could make a book?"

- So I had been drawing them for a while, and I was using Instagram, and there was something on Instagram called the 100 Day Challenge.

This was in 2015, and I thought maybe I could do a hundred of these, I could do a hundred, I could do one a day for a hundred days, and it seemed like a lot, but I was like, "Okay, I'll try it."

And by day 50 I think, it had gotten really outta hand, and there were articles about it, which is really exciting, and I had a publisher reach out and say, "Do you wanna make a book of them?"

So I hadn't even thought I could do it, but I was like, "Yes, sure, I'll try it."

- But now growing up you must have been drawing all along.

- Yeah, my dream had always really been to make a book of something.

- And you like loved art class in high school?

- Yeah, so I took art lessons, and I went to school and didn't end up studying art, but it was always something I was doing on the side, like literally with my hand while doing other things.

- And in one of the little paper pamphlets that- - Oh yeah, one of the zines.

- I think you talk about the fact that you don't really like it so much, but you always draw with a pen.

- Yeah, I think it's really nice.

- And there's not a lot of sketching beforehand.

- Yeah, so I like drawing with a pen because then you're just sort of decisive about what you're doing.

That's sort of how I've been able to find my own style is drawing with a pen and just sort of embracing what happens, and you might end up with like a pretty wobbly ferret, or a rabbit with more arms than you meant to have, but it just sort of makes the drawing a little more decisive and you don't get pencil all over your hand, so I've always liked drawing with a pen best.

- And does usually the fact come first, and I mean obviously yeah, 'cause you wanna know the animal, and then you find a picture of the animal, and you try to figure out how you're gonna draw it and what details need to be there.

- Honestly, usually the joke comes first, so everything has like a fact, and then an animal and a joke, so like jellyfish have no hearts, and the jellyfish is saying like, "Sorry, not sorry."

Usually I'll hear, maybe I'll even eavesdrop on someone, or I'll hear a kid say something.

I'll just hear a really funny sentence and I'll think, "That would be so good for an animal to say."

And then I have to do the research to find what animal would say that.

So if someone, if a kid said, "Sorry, not sorry," like you hear a teenager or something say it, and you're like, "Wow, that's really catty.

I would love to hear an animal say that."

Then you think like, "Okay, well a heartless animal would say that."

So then you do some research, or I have a lot of tabs open in like a folder of different facts.

Then you find the jellyfish and you sort of match 'em.

It's sort of a backwards way of doing it.

- Jellyfish don't have a heart.

- They don't have a heart, yeah, heartless animals, - And blobfish don't have any muscles.

- Yeah, there are a lot of animals that don't have parts that we think of as essential.

- So it's funny, in getting ready for this, I read all of "Sad Animal Facts" again and I said, to me, I mean, it's a good gimmick.

They're not so sad.

- [Brooke] They're really not.

- It's just fascinating.

- You know, I guess there's an element of sadness.

- It's nice to have a little bit of sadness, because animals are cool.

They're fast and they're interesting, and they can survive all these things, but it's nice to have an element of, I don't know what real life is like, and real life involves days dealing with people as heartless as jellyfish or dealing with little problems, and it's nice to think of adorable animals having those same issues, so I feel like that's where the fun comes in for me.

- Well, and so you did the 100 day challenge, but didn't, I don't know if you finished the 100 Day challenge?

- I did, yeah.

I kept going way past a hundred days.

- So that's 2015, and the first book is 2016, and it's "Sad Animal Facts".

- Yeah, and that was "Sad Animal Facts", and it took about a year for it to come out, so I sort of work with the publisher and make it happen, and then get it all together, and then it was on bookshelves in 2016.

- Was it a totally pleasant experience?

- Honestly, yeah, it really was.

It was really nice.

I had never published a book before, so I asked a friend for a recommendation for a book agent and my friend said, "Talk to the agent.

The agent's gonna promise you the world."

And I met my agent, and I had the meeting with her, and she was like, "Brooke, I think you could have a book that you could own, you could hold it in your hands."

And I was like, "Wow, that's promising me the world.

That's not a lot."

(Brooke laughs) But the book did so well and my agent's amazing, and it's just been, I think because of how fun that first experience was, it's made me wanna write more books.

- Excellent, well, I mean, I wrote down some notes, things that I just thought, like cows produce the most when they hear REM's "Everybody Hurts".

- These scientists are really doing the Lord's work.

It's just like so interesting to hear these facts.

- And then I worry that "Everybody Hurts", no one listens to that anymore.

- I know, yeah.

I think it's, that study, well, if you read the back, it's sort of about the pacing of the song, so it was like, maybe they're playing them some more recent ones that have a similar pacing.

Hopefully there's some Olivia Rodrigo to go with that.

- Top 40 of cows.

(Brooke laughs) And you have different sections in the books, marsupials.

And it reminded me, in the early 90s, I got to take my mom to Australia.

- [Brooke] Oh, whoa, that's so cool.

- It was because a guy here at WQED who was working with us, Doug Bolen, his wife was a flight attendant for Northwest Airlines, which doesn't exist anymore, and he came in one day and said, "Everybody, Kay wants you to know that right now you can go to Australia cheaper than you will ever be able to in our lives."

- [Brooke] Wow, that's a good fact to know.

- And my mom sort of had a standing offer.

If I would take the time, she would pay.

So I called her and I said, "Do you wanna go to Australia?"

- [Brooke] Oh whoa.

- She said, "Of course I do, anywhere."

- Yeah, did you meet a lot of animals?

- Well, no, you know, it was a little bit disappointing.

I mean, there was some interesting animal things, but you sort of wanna see a kangaroo in the wild.

- Yeah, oh in the wild.

- Yeah, and one night I thought we were going to, and we didn't.

Instead we saw, I would say, hundreds if not thousands of parrots.

- [Brooke] Oh, whoa, that's cool.

- Who sit on the road and then, when the the lights of your car hit them, they fly away.

- [Brooke] They just scatter.

- But we wanted to see a koala.

- [Brooke] Of course.

- And so we had driven from Sydney to Brisbane and we hadn't seen anything like we wanted to see yet, and so I said, "Let's see if we can find an animal sanctuary or something where we can go."

- Yeah, with your dingo list.

(Rick laughs) - Dingo, did you say?

- Bingo.

(both laugh) My tongue got tangled, your dingo card.

- And I went to, like a tourist agency.

It was like a kiosk on a street, and I said to the woman, I said, like, "We wanna see like a koala and maybe a kangaroo."

And she goes, "Oh yeah, of course you do."

She goes, she said, "I understand that."

But she goes, "But you know what I would really love to see, a squirrel."

I didn't know they didn't have, they don't have squirrels.

- [Brooke] Wow, really?

- Yeah.

- [Brooke] Wow.

- And she thought, and I thought, "We have a place called squirrel here."

- Yeah, we're in squirrel homeland.

We're just like right in the heart of squirrels.

- And actually this morning on my walk, I saw a black squirrel, which is unusual.

- It is.

- But they're around here.

We have, I don't know what you call that, a group of squirrels.

- Yeah, we had one in our backyard, a black one.

Did you see a koala then?

- Yes, we did.

- Okay, good.

- So yeah, but they're not very active.

They just sort of sit, and I remember, I think she said with their bum in a tree.

(Brooke laughs) They just sit there.

- Yeah, well, eucalyptus doesn't have that many nutrients, so they just need to nap and hold still.

- Well, but you also dealt with fish and insects and all kinds of things, so you're always just out there with your antenna on.

- Yeah, I feel like every day I'll really have my mind blown about a totally different type of animal fact.

I feel like we sort of assume, like we see animals depicted in movies and stuff, and we sort of assume that they're pretty similar to us, but they are just, the animals really prove there's like no wrong way to be a creature.

They're just sort of existing in a totally different way than I am, and fish and insects are like the ultimate proof of that.

- Yeah, and sometimes you'll introduce me to animals that I've never heard of before.

- [Brooke] Oh, good.

I'm glad to hear that.

- In fact, a couple times like Googled pronunciation just to make sure that I was bonobos.

So I didn't realize, I mean, I don't remember exactly the time space that after I was on Boaz's podcast that he called me again and said, "We're gonna move back to America, and we're looking at various cities."

I probably didn't know that you were born in Pittsburgh, which would've put it on the list.

- Oh yeah.

Yeah, I think, well, 'cause I spent such a limited, it was such a pivotal but short for time here.

- [Rick] You don't have any memories of it.

- Yeah, I couldn't see in color yet, so I don't think we really led with that, but yeah, it was nice to come back, and now I know the city better than my parents did, so I'm really, I feel like I can brag about that.

- Do we not see in color?

- I think when you're born you just see in black and white sort of, right?

- I don't know.

- Gosh, well.

- A sad America, sad human fact.

- Maybe some parents listening can weigh in but - - Oh, that's so interesting.

I'm fascinated by that.

We don't have kneecaps until we're like five years old.

- Oh really, wow.

- We develop kneecaps.

- God.

- I know this because I ruptured my quadricep tendon and I learned a lot about kneecaps.

- Yeah, you would know a lot about kneecaps.

- Yeah, and little kids when they're playing and everything, most of them do not have kneecaps.

- Wow.

- They're developing.

- Gosh, there are so many human facts out there.

- And I saw someplace that you were also for a while, a reference librarian, which must have helped your knowledge of how to do all of this.

- Yeah, I've always loved books obviously, so in college I worked at the humanities reference desk in my university.

So I was there ready to help people do library research and write essays, which I thought was really fun, and they often didn't think was fun, so it was fun to sort of show them how to use the library, but also had a lot of downtime, which was a good time to just draw animals and look up animal facts, and read the books.

- When you guys came back from Amsterdam, did you really look at other cities?

- Yeah, we did.

We really liked Pittsburgh, because we just really got into the history really quickly.

It's hard not to be excited about, just like Pittsburgh has so much, and I feel like there's just so much to explore that every block will have some really interesting story.

We looked at some other cities, but once we visited Pittsburgh, we didn't really think about them.

- Oh really, and so you decided to move here?

And Boaz is from where?

- He's from Oregon, Portland, and that's where we met.

- You met in Portland?

- And, so there wasn't a new job here?

- No, yeah, we were both sort of working on our own.

I'm doing books and he was sort of doing filmmaking and writing too, and so just thought Pittsburgh would be a good home base.

- Hey, it worked out, I hope.

- Yeah, it did, definitely.

- No, and so in all of this, you have a newish book.

I think it came out last year.

- Yeah, I do.

- Yeah, it came out last year.

- And it's called "How Do Meerkats Order Pizza?"

- Yes.

- And it's not only an extension, I think of more animal facts, but it also deals with the scientists who discover these facts.

- Yeah, as I said, this is like, had always been my favorite part is, I'll hear an animal fact, and it's interesting, but then it leads me to like such a cool story.

So like the sheep can only remember 50 faces, for example, that just, it sounds kind of interesting, but when you think about how they studied it, they built this barn that had pictures of two sheep faces on it, and the sheep, if they walked through the face of like Garrett the sheep, they would get a treat at the end, and they kept changing the faces until the sheep got confused and couldn't remember anymore.

It's just like, that is a way more, when you think of like 1,000 sheep walking through this barn with giant blown up sheep face pictures on the front of them, and they're giving out treats to the one that identified the right face, it's just like, that's a really strange story.

And I was like, "I've gotta talk to more scientists, and find out what their job is like."

- Oh, I think I didn't understand that they were looking at sheep faces.

- Sheep faces, yeah.

Sheep are recognizing sheep faces.

- Wow, okay.

Yeah, no, I thought maybe they were like trying to teach them human faces.

- Yeah, that's true.

I think that fact they were studying a lot of scientists study like how community works in animals, so they were especially interested in sheep faces.

- Which is part of the whole deal with meerkats.

- Yeah, so meerkat community is really important, and their communication is like how they survive.

They're pretty small, they're soft.

There's a lot of dangerous things out there in the Kalahari.

So this scientist, Marta Manser has been living with them, and has like learned their language, and can sort of figure out what they do.

- But it also made me wonder, how much contact do you get with the scientists, and like to explain to them what you wanna do, and all of that?

Do you ever get to meet them?

- Sometimes.

So this book was written during lockdown, so I didn't get to meet anyone in person.

It was sort of in early days of like Zoom and stuff where it was like, "Oh, I could do this, and I could actually talk to all these people remotely," which sort of made the book possible.

It was interesting.

But a lot of times I don't, I haven't met the scientists in person yet, but they've been so generous with their time and really fun to work with that hopefully I'll get to meet them in person sometime.

- And I found that totally inspirational.

- Gosh, this is great.

- I mean, I want every kid I know to read that.

(Brooke laughs) - It is.

All the scientists in the book, one thing I thought was interesting is they loved animals growing up, obviously, and adults in their lives said, "Well if you love animals you could be a veterinarian or a zookeeper," which are two good jobs, but they're obviously like a thousand things you can do if you love animals.

So it was a fun book to write to sort of show these people's stories, and show some of the things you can do if you love animals.

You could be like a politician or radio presenter.

You could be an artist.

You could be doing genealogy.

You could be doing all kinds of things.

- Yeah, some of them are doctors and some of them aren't.

- Yeah, some of them are really out in the field, and some of them don't wanna be out in the field.

Some of them are at a computer, some of them are writers.

- And so you may have met them all on Zoom.

And so you know what they look like and you say, "I'm gonna draw you too."

- Yeah, it was nice.

A lot of people sent me photos, so if they talked about their childhood pet, they'd send a photo, or they would send a picture of like what their research vehicle looked like.

There's some things that really don't make sense until you see a photo, so it's good to have photos for reference.

- Wow, and talking to them about like what they had to bring with them, I love that too, a little guide to what they have to bring for their job.

- That's one of my favorite parts, because I asked every scientist, and I thought sometimes it'd get boring, but it was always interesting, some of the things they need.

Like the Dr.

Teets in Antarctica is bringing, he's using like spoons to scoop up bugs.

They're just using things you wouldn't expect.

- [Rick] And he was told not to use certain spoons.

- He was using the spoons from the cafeteria, but when most of the spoons went missing, they were asked to bring their own spoons.

(Brooke laughs) - And then this is a different publisher.

- Yeah.

- So have things just grown?

- So this was my first book that's really for kids.

The other books, like they're appropriate for any age, but this book we really like targeted to kids, and made sure it was like at their reading level, and made sure there's proper spelling for example.

It's just like a good, it's like a great book for kids to read, so I went with a kids publisher that was really great, and they really helped me like facilitate that.

- And that's Simon & Schuster?

- Yeah, it's Simon & Schuster's imprint for kids.

- It's Slash Kids I think.

- Yeah, I think it, gosh, Books for Young Readers, I should know.

- [Rick] And like, I'm just interested, did it start as, "How Do Meerkats Order Pizza?"

Did you know that would be the title?

- I didn't know that would be the title.

So with my other books, I knew the title early on and this one I was sort of just calling Scientist book, working title.

And my editor and my art director, the editor sort of shapes the book, and sort of gives feedback and makes it better, and the art director sort of also has like art input about where things should go, or what font we should use.

They really loved the pizza title, 'cause they're meerkats pretending to, they're meerkats ordering food, and then humans order pizza to show how similar we are, and they're like, "We should bring that pizza onto the cover."

- Okay, and the whole idea is that meerkats have a way of communicating and make a group decision.

- Yeah, sort of like when humans are picking a restaurant, you'll sort of put out feelers, see if you can get enough people to agree.

They're voting on where to go to find the best scorpions.

- And here the option is, "Who likes olives?"

Now I also know from reading one of your little pamphlets that you suggest that you always write the words before you draw the bubble.

- [Brooke] Yeah, that is a pro tip.

If you're gonna write a speech bubble, write the words first, 'cause you don't know how big that bubble should be at the beginning.

No one knows that.

- And like, because you're writing in pen, how often do you have to redo the whole thing.

Ever?

- Not, well sometimes with meerkats.

There are a lot of meerkats in the book, so I don't need to redo it on meerkats anymore, but usually I'll sort of imagine in my mind how it's gonna look, and then I'm sort of drawing what I'm seeing in my head, but I will do sometimes, like here's an example of, now you can't see this on the podcast, but I'll draw sort of a bad version that looks pretty pencil-like, and then I'll just take a brand new sheet of paper, and then I can sort of draw it knowing how I want it to be.

- Excellent, and what does that bubble say?

- This was for a French subway ad.

I pulled random things out of a drawer to bring today, (Brooke laughs) but I did an ad campaign about animals for a zoo in Montreal.

So this is, I think it means like everything happens in the hips.

It's about like bears dancing, so they helped me write the speech bubbles, (Brooke laughs) - Excellent, no I put a marker in here just because sometimes I laughed out loud, and this is about whales, and every male in one pod sings the same song, but they pick up pieces of other.

- Yeah, I'm obsessed with this fact.

They'll have like pop songs.

- Right, but then this is what made me laugh.

Okay, my next song is called "Reading is fun, but the books get so wet.

Fish the ocean."

(Brooke laughs) I mean the humor of the books is great, and also, I don't know what to call it, sort of the breaking of the fourth wall of the book.

- Yeah, I like that animals can be like a bit irreverent in the book.

It seems like they'd be a bit confused by us, and they're sort of just doing their own thing.

They have very different problems than we do, so it's fun to sort of imagine them going a bit off.

- Well, and like there's a horse that sort of gets lost in the book almost, or he wants to be in the book, and he doesn't fit in exactly right.

- It's fun with the book, and I tell people this all the time, you can just sort of invent whatever you want and put it in there, and now it's part of the book.

It's a fact, so you can just sort of introduce that, and then have your own joke in there that you can keep playing with.

- Well, I mean that's one of the things I love most about them is it's totally unpredictable.

I can't say that I was aware that this book, more than others, was for kids.

- It's true.

You wouldn't know.

I feel like it's equally for adults as well, and so it's not, it doesn't feel like a kid's book.

Like I think adults would like it too, but we really wanted to get it in schools.

It was really popular with school librarians, which has been cool to see.

- It's also inspirational that so many of the scientists are women.

- Yeah, it was funny, a few people asked me when I was working on it, like, "Is this book just about female scientists?"

And I really just picked scientists I like, and I picked ones whose facts I like where they would have a really interesting fact, and then a lot of them just happened to be women.

- And sometimes brought their own jokes along like, "What kind of witches are on the beach?"

- Yeah, it was fun to get to know the scientists and hear the little things they're thinking about.

One of my favorites is this French scientist, Cecia Stefania, she works with the primates who works with poop, and she was talking about how growing up she had these animal fact cards that had a picture just of the animal's face, so she would imagine the size of the animal, and as she grew up and learnt, they were really quite off, so they'd be these animals that are like 10 pounds, and she was imagining they're the size of like polar bears.

- But you also mentioned poop, which is really funny because there's so many different ways that it's incorporated in all this in the studies, and also in the word choice.

- Yes.

- Different word, I think the word feces is used in "Sad Animal Facts".

- Yeah, this one, there's a lot of scientific words for poop, and poop I guess it's like a free research material that scientists can find, and so they're using it and studying it.

They're just like, they're not gonna pass up a perfectly good free thing to research, so it's in there a lot.

My mom's always like, "You gotta do less poop in the next one."

But I'm like, "Well when animals stop pooping, I'll stop."

- No, but I think kids love that.

- Yeah, it's true.

- I mean, I love it too.

It's just the fact that it's so there that makes it even more fun.

- Yeah, and poop's important.

You're learning a lot from it.

- For sure, for sure.

And just the stuff that I learned in the last couple of days reading this, that there are more chickens on earth than any other bird.

- I know.

I thought that was amazing.

Well, speaking of squirrels.

They haven't made it to Australia.

I guess chickens have really traveled wherever humans have traveled, so we've brought them everywhere.

- Yeah, Frank, who's running the camera here, he used to have chickens in his yard.

- Oh, my gosh, that's cool.

I'm jealous.

- A wolf?

- [Frank] Or a fox, I'm not sure.

- Oh, wow, seems like a real heart breaker to have chickens.

- Yeah, I mean, but we used to get eggs here.

(Rick laughs) - Gosh, that's cool.

- Eggs from Frank's chickens are always wonderful.

- Yeah, that sounds amazing.

- But we talked about no possibly no squirrels.

I don't know that.

It's just that that woman.

- Well, but she hadn't seen any.

- There's a woman in Australia- - There's a woman in Brisbane who has not seen a squirrel.

- That's the real fact.

- But the only insects and the largest land animal on Antarctica are midges.

- Yeah, midges are this little insect that live everywhere, but then this one species lives in Antarctica, and because so few things live in Antarctica full-time, the midges really get the award for largest land animal.

You have seals going back and forth, you have penguins, but these midges, and I knew I wanted to do a scientist who was in Antarctica because I was just so curious about how you get there, and the days are so short in the winter, and so long in the summer, and it was just so interesting to hear about working there and what it's like.

- And they discuss guano.

- Yes, guano is one of their words for poop.

(both laugh) There really should be, like at the beginning of every chapter, it should be like this chapter's word for poop.

- And the whole, every part of it, I mean it's like any book, different people react to different things.

but white-tailed deer, I'm interested because they eat so much out of my garden.

- [Brooke] It's true, yeah.

- And there's someone out there studying them and when are they active and all of that, which I hadn't expected.

- Yeah, it's interesting.

I think a lot of times people are like, "Oh, scientists are studying the endangered animals."

But there are scientists studying pretty much every animal that's out there.

There's even a group of scientists in Canada that has what they call squirrel camp where they're just studying a family of red squirrels in Canada.

This isn't in the book, but they're just, they go to squirrel camp, and they study this family of squirrels as though it's like a famous family.

They know the squirrels so well.

- [Rick] They know their names?

- I don't, I think they have names.

Yeah, they definitely know their families.

They're really into like, "This one has seven babies last year.

These are her children.

This is where they are."

And you'd think, I don't know, I think it's nice to know that if it's a squirrel, it's a rat, it's a midge, there's a scientist that like, "This animal's gonna change the world", and they're devoting their job to it.

- And one of those studies was with jaguars, and you obviously loved one part of that a lot.

- Yeah, so as soon as I read this fact I was obsessed.

A jaguar, they're very shy, and so they're hard to photograph.

They're hard to observe, and they're also endangered, so we don't know how many are left, and we don't know how to protect them because we don't really even know where they live, what their life is like.

We just know that there are fewer and fewer of them, and when we know more about an animal, it's easier to protect them.

So for a long time the scientists in the book were just sniffing for scat with dogs to monitor where the jaguars are.

They'd find a lot of poop here and they'd be like, "Oh they must like this."

And then they had this idea to set up motion activated cameras and put different smells on them.

And they found one smell, which the jaguars love, which I brought here today.

It is Calvin Klein Obsession for Men, which is like a jaguar's favorite smell.

(Brooke laughs) And people are always like, "How did they know it's this?"

I think honestly this is the cheapest perfume by volume (Brooke laughs) that you can buy.

That's why they used it, but it like has like artificial civet musk, which smells like a civet was there, and was really interesting to a jaguar.

So once they started spraying, you might just wanna smell it and not spray it, 'cause it's pretty strong.

But once they started spraying- - No, I think I used this in high school.

- Oh my gosh, I feel like so many people did.

So many people when I brought this to events, they're like, (Brooke laughs) - You can't just smell it.

- When they started spraying this, the jaguars would come to the cameras, and they'd just like hang out there.

Now the camera's a hangout spot.

They're bringing friends, and so they've gotten to know the jaguars so much better.

- Yeah, because I think in your chapter on jaguars, it's another animal that's pictured there, because it's so rare to see a jaguar.

- Yeah, before then they didn't really have pictures of the jaguar.

One of the things I loved is I've gone on this book tour, and I went to a lot of schools to talk about the book with kids, and one kid raised his hand in the assembly and was like, "The scientists should keep in mind that the photos they have of the jaguars are photos of them when they're really excited, so they shouldn't consider that as like normal jaguar behavior," which was so smart and like a good point.

I was like, "I'm sure they're considering that."

But it was fun that the book was sort of turning wheels in his head to make him think about that.

- No, yeah, and I mean any good book does that I think.

- Yeah, it was nice.

- No, and so kids they have to take to these books because they're easy and fun to look at as well as read.

- Yeah, it's fun.

My favorite reviews by kids are ones that start with like, "I hate books, but I had to read this one and I really did like the part about turtles" or something.

It seems nice if you can win someone over who starts their review with, "I hate this," but they end up liking it.

(Brooke laughs) I think I've always thought books are fun so I'm biased but kids have really been the inspiration.

- I don't know why I wrote down.

I think just because they're things that like binturongs?

- Yeah, binturongs that smell like popcorn.

Is that the one that's about them?

- [Rick] It says Southeast Asian cat.

- Yeah, binturongs are so cool if you haven't seen one.

They look a bit like a really large black cat, just very soft, long hair, really long creature, and they just sort of lie on a branch, just sort of like someone took all their bones out.

They just really sort of relax there, very cool animals.

- Wow, and you've obviously kept all of this in your head.

- I guess so, yeah.

I used to have a party trick where I was like, "Name an animal and I can tell you a fact about it."

Lately I think I'm a little rusty.

I have too many other things in my head too, but it's hard not to think about them.

And like I said, it's so tempting to bring them up in conversation.

If you smell popcorn, you wanna say there's an animal that smells like popcorn, but it's usually more confusing than interesting.

(Rick laughs) - No, no, I think that it's all interesting.

And what else have you brought here?

We have a stuffed, I don't even know what it is.

- Oh yeah, so this is a numbat.

- Numbat?

- Yeah, this is a marsupial, one you could have seen in Australia, except they're really endangered.

So yeah, I made some plush animals last year and I thought it'd be fun to do, instead of like your classic animals you're used to, to do some of my favorites, so this is a numbat.

- So you designed this stuffed animal, and you worked - Yeah, so I liked designed it with a stuffed animal company?

- and worked with a company.

Yeah, and this is the test one.

I sold all the real ones, but this is the test one they sent so I could approve it and I was like, "Wow, yeah, he looks really cute to me."

- And you did just numbats?

- I did numbats and koalas.

The koala's a little big to fit in my bag, so I just brought you the numbat.

- Well, and that just reminds me that, in preparation for this, I stopped by White Whale Books in Bloomfield.

- [Brooke] Oh yeah, I love White Whale.

- Yeah, it is a great bookstore.

- [Brooke] It is so fun.

- Yeah, and you've actually done a mural for them.

- Yeah, they let me do a mural there, which was amazing.

It felt, every time I get to sign in a book I feel like I'm sort of vandalizing and a mural really upped the game of vandalizing.

It was so fun.

- And in that case, did you actually, you were up on a ladder and did you draw them freehand?

Did you have them on paper?

- I like borrowed a friend's projector, so I drew them and then projected them, 'cause otherwise I didn't wanna, it looks different up close and far away.

I didn't wanna accidentally have a numbat with huge ears or something, so.

- And then I also then I see that you have other editions.

- Yeah, I brought some other languages, which seemed fun.

You were talking about how the book is organized by like reptiles and marsupials and fish and everything.

In the Japanese edition, they actually organized it by type of sadness, which I thought was amazing.

They just like had a much more interesting take on it, in my opinion, so I can't read Japaneses, but there's like the sadness from being alone, the sadness from time passing, the sadness from being too busy, and they organized it that way.

- Oh it says here "Sad Animal Facts" in small letters here that we can read - One little bit for us.

- The rest is just, wow interesting, that they re-ordered, and do you think they've used some of your adult factoids?

- Yeah, so here, yeah, they use the bit from the back and then they add their own.

They'll like add its weight or like how long it is and its weight, and maybe it's like classification.

So they made it like a textbook almost.

- No, it's beautiful, as they all are.

How exciting that must be.

- It's so cool to see the book in other languages.

It's been really fun.

- This is another language of Meerkat.

- Yeah, so that's Spanish, and that one I know how to say, 'cause I helped them make some videos.

(foreign language) - (foreign language) - (foreign language) is meerkats.

- It's fun.

Last week I saw the cover for the Chinese edition, which is gonna come out soon in simplified Chinese, and they had the cover and it, like you said, the meerkat is saying, "Who wants olives?"

And I asked the Chinese editor, I said, "In America, olives are like a divisive pizza topping.

Like some people like that, some people don't.

Is it the same in China?

Because if it's not, you should change it to something that makes sense.

Like the book cover should make-" And she was like, "No, we don't all like olives here either.

Some people like 'em, some people don't."

So it's nice that that's like the whole world is like unsure of olives on pizza.

- Oh, I guess that's true.

Olives, I think the most divisive is anchovies.

- Yeah, yeah, that's very, I think olives were a little more divisive for kids.

I don't like anchovies.

(Brooke laughs) I didn't want that on the book.

(both laughs) - I love anchovies because of a woman here at WQED.

One day we were ordering pizza, and I was in the whole camp of like, "I don't want anchovies fish on my pizza."

And a woman who worked here, Fran Desosio said, "No, you should try them.

They're really good."

- And you tried them just on that suggestion?

- Just on that suggestion.

- On a whole slice, or on a whole pizza?

- I guess on a slice.

I mean actually I love that about, you can always just order the anchovies on the side, 'cause most people I think don't want anchovies, but I also know from cooking that, if you include anchovies, people will probably really love this and say, "Oh this is so good," and they're not gonna know why.

- Oh wow.

- You just have to keep your mouth shut.

- Gosh, maybe I do like anchovies and no one's told me.

(Brooke laughs) - Yeah, they're salty and I don't know.

Is that umami, or the taste is just really wonderful.

I used to, if you steam mussels with some anchovies in the liquid, it, it really helps.

- Sort of just like a cheat code.

- So, and I wanna know what else is here, and I haven't looked at all of these.

- Lots of random stuff.

This is so Boaz and I do a lot of projects together and a few years ago we were making this book together.

There's like a Jewish holiday where you read a book as part of the holiday, so we're like, "Oh we should make our own."

We realized that was a massive project, so that's still in progress.

That's why that one still has notes, but I thought this was interesting to bring to talk about how I illustrate, A lot of times I'll draw everything that will be black, and then I'll scan it, and then a lot of times I do the color on my computer 'cause it's just I can get it a little more even.

So this is sort of like what my drawings look like before they're book drawings.

They'll just be black that are sort of all over a page.

I'm just trying to save as much paper as possible, and then I'll scan them and then put the color in in post.

- I'm just sort of interested, because it doesn't appear to be, do you ever get tired of drawing?

- My hand gets really tired sometimes.

If I'm like working on a deadline, then I'll sort of get a really sore wrist, but I always, I just like drawing.

It's just sort of a way I'm expressing myself I guess, so yeah, I don't really get tired of it emotionally.

- I see.

In one of the little pamphlets you had like a whole lot of pictures of dogs I think, and I mean I just went page after page, and they all had a different name.

- Yeah, I think that was a zine we did where we asked people to submit what animal they'd seen most recently, and a lot of people had seen their dog most recently, so it was a lot of dogs to draw.

- And this, I'm not sure what this is.

This is a, sorry can't talk right now.

- This is a project I did.

So before I had my book, I used to make just a zine is like a small book you make yourself, and I really like making zines, 'cause it can be as short or as long as you want and you're done.

And this is a zine I made for an art project for, Have you been to Meow Wolf, or have you heard of it?

- No.

- It's very cool.

They should have one in Pittsburgh.

It's nice, but it's sort of like an immersive art experience, and this one's about space.

So they asked me to make any type of zine I wanted, and I made one about imaginary animals, and I love making imaginary animal facts.

So they're animals that aren't real with their facts about them.

- Wow, and then this, I mean you don't print this yourself?

- No, so they printed that one and they have it for sale at the art exhibit.

- But some of these that I've gotten like as Christmas cards.

- Yeah, these ones you can print just on your home printer and staple 'em.

- I don't know, I'm just so fascinated with the output and this is all going on here in Pittsburgh.

Here's Meet the Koala and Numbat.

Oh's, here's the numbat.

- Yeah, so this is a zine I made to sort of introduce people to- - Oh, these were the stuffed animals.

- Yeah, 'cause they know the koala, but the numbat's a little more unusual, and I think it's nice because if you're, I don't know if you're making a book or a zine, I guess 'cause I've always liked doing it.

I like you can just make it however you want.

It doesn't have to be like a book you've seen at a bookstore.

It doesn't have to like follow any rules.

- Let's see what this is.

This is another drawing.

I could have held it for a few more minutes, but I wanted a snack.

This is in one of the books.

- This is, I don't know what this is.

I brought you some pretty random stuff.

I think this might be from that bus ad campaign, but these are just sort of examples of, that was the before it was in the book that's what it looked like.

- Yeah, what I'm interested in is how big you do them.

- Yeah, so it depends.

- I mean it looked like there's some that are very small.

- Yeah, so some of them I'll do pretty fine, and I try to be consistent for the project, so if it's gonna have some that are small, then I'll just make them all small.

- And what's coming next?

- I've been talking with some of the scientists who were in this book who were like, "Oh, it's fun to talk.

I love the book.

We should keep working together," which is like my dream, so I'm hoping that there'll be a new book coming out soon that'll be about scientists who try to gross out animals.

- Who try to gross out animals?

On purpose?

- Yeah, so animals you think like, Oh they're rolling in dirt, they're like sniffing poop, they're like doing whatever, it's impossible to gross 'em out, but every animal can be grossed out by something.

And much like the poop, it's not only interesting, but it's like really important to being grossed out is what keeps us alive, knowing what's dangerous, and my aversion to anchovies may be saving my life, Rick.

So it's been a fun thing to learn about.

- There's a little bit of that in, I think Meerkats about a scientist who worked with putting food near real poop and artificial poop to see how the animals reacted differently to those.

- And it seems, it sounds like an art project or something, but it's so important and it's helping us understand where we differ from primates and how we differ from other animals, and what things are universally gross, and what things are saving us.

- Wow.

I wrote this down just because I think we all think about this a lot, especially now here in Pittsburgh, but I think in New York City too and everything is, what do you think about spotted lantern flies?

- Oh my gosh, they are really pretty.

- They are really pretty.

- They're so pretty.

It's funny to have people visit and they'll be like, "Wow, look at that beautiful-" And then I'm like, (Brooke slaps hands) (both laugh) It just got weird so fast.

They'll be like, "What are you doing?

Because I think if you haven't seen them before, they're so pretty.

They look like a watercolor.

- And the red that shows up when they open their wings is just- - Yeah, it's really, I've never, I feel like we're like living in a moment in history, like I feel all the time.

It was really interesting how they came so fast.

- Yeah, and like my friends who live down south, they don't have them yet.

- I know.

They don't have them even just if you travel a little bit, they don't have them.

I feel like I've gone- - You're exactly right, 'cause I think my brother, who lives just about a hundred miles north of here, he lives at Pymatuning Lake.

He said, "We don't have them here."

- Yeah, I've traveled, you go just like two hours and they're not there.

- Wow, but I guess, and you said you read the newspaper and sometimes get stuff there, so I mean, can you remember a time when you were really surprised at where you got the information?

- Gosh, that's a good question.

I think, I think one thing, wow.

That's a really good question.

Sometimes the newspaper will have a feature, like for a holiday, so it'll be like, for Valentine's Day or Father's Day, or longest day of the year, whatever, and they'll put some animal facts in there, and I think most people are like, "Oh, Valentine's Day, I'll read this."

But me, I'm like, "Oh, a spider's chewing off."

It's like, I'm going right to the, so I feel like I'm often, I'm like always zeroed in.

If it's supposed to be for something else, and there's an animal fact, I'm just like going right to it.

- And I don't know that I'm that sensitive to that, but maybe now, with my heightened awareness, I'll see the animal facts.

- They throw them in, yeah, 'cause they'll, I feel like animal facts are just universally beloved.

Maybe I'm biased, but they'll be things around different holidays where they'll bring in an animal fact.

- Wow, and I noticed here that we also have the book you wrote with your husband, Boaz, "Let's Be Weird Together".

I remember I gave this to my sister and her partner Bill.

(Brooke laughs) but it's really more for adults.

- Yeah, this one is really about couples and how, whether it's like a romantic partner or a friend, or anyone, as you develop a relationship, you have like your own weird language and your own things that you're into.

That was a fun book to write.

- [Rick] And did it affect your relationship?

- I don't think it did.

It affected it for the time being where it's like working together.

- [Rick] Where you were studying each other?

- Yeah, no.

(Brooke laughs) Just I guess we were sharing more files back and forth instead of pictures of our dog, so that changed things slightly.

But we used to make a calendar together pre-Pittsburgh.

We made a page a day calendar for six years where every day, you know how usually a calendar's, like it's a Sudoku or it's space facts, or it's pictures of cats?

In this one, every day was a different theme.

So one day Sudoku, one day a space fact.

One day is a picture of a cat, which as you can imagine was a daunting task.

- [Rick] It's a lot of work, a lot of work.

- So we did it for six years, and then we thought, let's do something that people won't rip pages off one day at a time and throw them in the recycling.

(Brooke laughs) So it's fun to do a book.

- Wow, yeah, no, 'cause we keep books.

We still keep 'em.

- Yeah, a calendar is like very ephemeral, I feel like.

It's such a, and there's only one time to buy it.

Like, you're not gonna buy a calendar in October.

Now's the time.

- Yeah, no, and actually, in our edit room, we have a calendar from 2020 that we still move up because that was the year that sort of disappeared.

- Yeah, oh strange.

- And, but you're here in Pittsburgh now, and I always like to ask people like, are there surprises about living here that you really didn't expect?

You said you expected history.

- Yeah, I think I've been surprised.

I thought Pittsburgh would be like totally unbikeable.

When we got here, I saw all the hills and I was like, "Well, that's it."

But I've been surprised, I guess, at my own strength.

Just like now, the hills don't seem that much anymore.

Maybe I'm ready for that bike race where you go up all the hills.

- [Rick] Oh yeah, The Dirty Dozen.

- Yeah, but I feel like now, when I go to a flat place, it just seems wrong.

I feel like cities should feel like a crumpled map like this.

- Oh, that's interesting.

I know that I've had that feeling in Ohio and farther west.

Like, "I wonder, how do people know where to turn?"

- Yeah, space feels really different.

So I think I was surprised at how quickly I got used to that.

- All right, do you have a favorite place to go and eat here?

I mean, it doesn't have to be a favorite, one of many favorites or anything.

Are there places?

- Well, you have my favorite right in front of me.

I love Five Points.

- Five Points Bagel?

- Yeah, I'm obsessed with Five Points.

That was, when we found Five Points, I was like, "I really wanna-" - It must've started about the time you arrived here.

- Yeah, I think it started just before and they expanded in 2020, like right at the beginning, so yeah, we got here like a year before then.

- You've been here since?

- 2019.

- 2019, so before the pandemic, but not long before the pandemic.

- Yeah, not long before.

If you go to Five Points, you might see my dog outside waiting while I'm inside getting something.

I love Five Points.

- Yeah, like what's your favorite thing there?

- I like the croissant, pretty basic.

- Oh yeah?

I had a cheese croissant from there yesterday which I've never seen before.

- Gosh, I don't know if I have either.

- It said new.

- Yeah, they have like different things all the time.

The scones are always different.

I like that about it.

- Cool, any other places?

- Yeah, definitely, I really like Hidden Harbor, the Tiki Bar.

I just love a tiki bar.

I think it's so fun.

It seems so cool that we have one in Pittsburgh, and such a good one.

- It it is a good one, and I love the fact that they're so careful about how they make their drinks.

- Oh my gosh, yeah.

- Everything's fresh and all the juices are- - Yeah, you're getting a little bouquet, a little masterpiece on top of your drink.

- Yeah, good.

- I love Hidden Harbor.

- Yeah, and Hidden Harbor and Independent Brewery.

- And Independent Brewery, DJ.

- That's where I play records on Wednesday night.

Yeah, and sometimes we'll go over if it's too crowded after we play records, we'll have dinner.

- Oh nice, well they feel like the same place really.

- Well, they share a kitchen.

They share a kitchen and a menu.

- If you're in one- - If you're in one, you're in the other except that the Tiki Bar has true authentic tiki stuff.

I mean, it's- - It's so impressive.

- There's a whole culture of Tiki that I think I wasn't aware of.

- Yeah, I always tell people Pittsburgh punches above its weight on everything.

I feel like everything we have, we have it in like such a good version.

People are so nice here, and it feels like a neighborhood.

It feels like a small town, but we have such amazing things.

- Well, that's cool.

I know that, when I moved back to Pittsburgh, I was away for 16 years, but I do love that about Pittsburgh, that it seems to be perpetually surprising, that there's always something new or an odd angle or something.

And I think it has something to do with the fact that at the beginning of the 20th century as the 19th century became the 20th century, we were almost a world capital.

- [Brooke] Yeah, we were really fancy.

- The richest men in the world lived here and industry was booming and oil had been first pumped from the ground just north of Pittsburgh.

(Brooke laughs) That's one of those things that we forget.

Oil from Pittsburgh, but yeah.

- [Brooke] It's seen a lot.

- Yes, so, I don't know, I'm just so glad that you're here.

- Oh my gosh, I'm delighted.

Thanks for letting me explode my backpack all over your table.

- And you know, I just want to make sure that everybody knows, and I mean, White Whale Books is a great place to get these.

- Yeah, it's the best place to get them, I think.

- Yeah?

Yeah, I noticed that Meerkats was on their bestseller table.

(Brooke laughs) - Yeah, I'm so honored.

I feel like, well, every time I go in White Whale, I just come in thinking I don't need anything, and then they'll have like an amazing recommendation, so they know- - Yeah, no it's a really great independent bookstore that we should all know about.

It's in Bloomfield right on, what is that?

Liberty?

- Yeah, and you can just get a coffee there and sit or you can do whatever.

- Right, I remember when it was just half.

In fact, I think was at an event where you and Boaz were both there, and now it's doubled the size.

(cheerful music) - It's cool they expanded, 'cause now they have that Beauty in the Beast bookcase ladder situation.

That's nice to look at.

- Alright, so everybody knows that Brooke Barker is your name, and that's what you wanna ask for when you get to the bookstore or the library.

- Or the library, yeah.

They have it at the library.

- I don't know that they have all these different languages.

- Not the different languages, but they won't have those at White Whale either.

- Cool, and we'll look forward to a gross out book.

- Yeah, get ready.

- All right, everything's exciting as far as what everything I've seen, (Brooke laughs) so thank you so much.

- Thanks so much for having me.

Thanks for the cookie from my favorite place.

(Rick laughs) - Excellent.

- [Announcer] This Gumbands podcast is made possible by The Buhl Foundation, serving Southwestern Pennsylvania since 1927, and by listeners like you.

Thank you.