Children as Creative Collaborators with Story Pirates

Nathan Holbert:

Welcome to Pop and Play, the podcast all about play in its many silly, serious and powerful forms. I'm Nathan Holbert.

Haeny Yoon:

And I'm Haeny Yoon. And in this season we're talking about young people's media, how to make it, why it matters, and what participation looks like, and its challenges and limitations.

Nathan Holbert:

And today we are talking stories. Stories. Bringing them from the page to the stage, as they say.

Haeny Yoon:

Ooh, nice.

Nathan Holbert:

Do they say that?

Haeny Yoon:

Always.

Nathan Holbert:

And we're going to go on this journey with two incredible guests today, Lee Overtree and Jamie Salka. These are co-founders of the award-winning hit podcast Story Pirates. So Haeny, tell us about when you realized you were a pirate.

Haeny Yoon:

What? Okay, we're just-

Nathan Holbert:

What is Story Pirates, is what I guess I should have asked you.

Haeny Yoon:

What is Story Pirates? Yes. Story Pirates is a delightful podcast that I've actually known about for years as I talked to parents and children and all of that. And it's basically exactly what you said, page to the stage. Did you say it? Yes, you did. You said page to the stage.

Nathan Holbert:

I did. Everybody says that.

Haeny Yoon:

It basically is children submitting their stories. So it could be about spaghetti on the walls, it could be about cats going to sleep or cats waking up in the middle of the night. It could be about anything.

Nathan Holbert:

Pirates?

Haeny Yoon:

It could be about pirates, for sure. And they submit their original stories and basically the cast of Story Pirates takes these original stories and narrates them using song, using music, using their own storyline. It's kind of like a collaboration between writers and actors and storytellers.

Nathan Holbert:

Crazy sound effects.

Haeny Yoon:

Awesome sound effects. Really good songs. Original songs, I think.

Nathan Holbert:

Yeah, I think so.

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah. And scripted dialogue, which is very, very nice. And the thing that I think is most intriguing that also always gets my attention is they respond to every single child's story, whether it makes it to the podcast or not.

Nathan Holbert:

That's insane. That's a lot of stories.

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah. Pretty good. Today, with our guests, we get into the making of a podcast and where these ideas and stories came from. And you'll hear a lot about their own origin stories, how they came from directing, movie-making to podcasting, to audio, and just the telling of stories. And so we thought it would be a really interesting thing for the listeners, or maybe at least interesting to our 10 listeners, shout out to Debbie, how the origin story of Pop and Play, our own podcast, came about. So what is your recollection of this?

Nathan Holbert:

My recollection? My recollection might be fuzzy, but I remember you and me and our good friend and colleague, Lalitha Vasudevan, who directs the Digital Futures Institute here at Teachers College, sitting outside at a beautiful sunny day on Columbia's campus. And I remember you and Lalitha talking about a desire to think differently about how we could communicate the work that we do. And specifically, we were really kind of tied up in this issue around play and the ways in which society did and did not value play, and how we could maybe build some sort of a public facing tool, public facing artifact that could communicate those ideas. And then I remember sitting there and going, "Hey, can I play too? Can I also be part of this?"

Haeny Yoon:

And we reluctantly brought you into the mix.

Nathan Holbert:

Yes, that's what I remember. And you're like, "Ugh. Who invited him?"

Haeny Yoon:

Or it would've just been a podcast with Haeny Yoon, yours truly. But yeah, I kind of remember that too, now that you're reminding me of it. And so 1.1, all good ideas come on bright, sunny days outside.

Nathan Holbert:

Outside.

Haeny Yoon:

But secondly, yes, I remember that idea. And I think something that we're both committed to is public outward facing scholarship. What do we need to do to translate our work to the general public? And then how do those conversations kind of yield thoughtful ideas about how we see the world, how we see play? And so I think that's what brought us together here.

Nathan Holbert:

And then a podcast is kind of an interesting way to do that, right?

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah.

Nathan Holbert:

It gives us an opportunity to invite people on to have those conversations, to share kind of a wide range of ideas and work. And so far that's been a lot of fun these past few years. But I think we are still novices. It's been a few years now that we've been doing this, but we are still novices at what it takes to build a podcast. And so I think we should bring on our guests who are true experts at this.

Haeny Yoon:

Sounds great.

Nathan Holbert:

Okay. Well, with us today we have the co-founders of the hit podcast Story Pirates. Lee Overtree and Jamie Salka started Story Pirates way back in 2004 in a basement theater in New York City, and have transformed this story to performance experience into an award-winning family brand. In addition to Story Pirates, they've also collaborated on the Looney Tunes podcast, Game On, a family sports podcast, and released three, three, middle grade books, and five, five, award-winning music albums. And if that wasn't enough, together they have also co-founded The Story Pirates Changemakers, a nonprofit bringing arts and literacy to under-resourced schools.

Haeny Yoon:

Let's get them on here. Okay, so welcome. We're so excited today. Today we have Lee Overtree, who is the co-founder and creative director of the Story Pirates.

Lee Overtree:

Hello.

Haeny Yoon:

Hello. And then we also have Jamie Salka, CEO, and co-founder of The Story Pirates as well.

Jamie Salka:

Hi, everybody. Great to be here.

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah, and I also have to say that I'm feeling very left out, because everybody here went to Northwestern except for me. I feel like the season is a long advertisement for Northwestern.

Nathan Holbert:

We're really advertising the wrong school here.

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah, exactly.

Nathan Holbert:

We like to get started with a bit of a game just to kind of loosen everybody up and introduce the kind of conversation we're going to have here. And today we thought we'd play a game about podcasts. So we are Pop and Play, a podcast all about play, pop culture and education. And you are, of course, the Story Pirates. And among your many, many, many talents, you are experts at taking great ideas and turning them into an amazing production. So here at Pop and Play, we're also coming up with ideas. So here's the game. I'm going to give you a Pop and Play spin-off idea, and we're going to invite you all to help us fill in the details. Does that sound okay?

Lee Overtree:

Sounds perfect.

Nathan Holbert:

All right, so here we go. I have a couple little slices here, we'll give it a go. We want to do a TikTok series about a toy that we reference quite a lot on this podcast, the toy Garbage Pail Kids. Are you guys familiar with Garbage Pail Kids?

Lee Overtree:

Intimately. A hundred percent.

Nathan Holbert:

I love that. Since it's TikTok, I'm told, I'm not much of a TikTok person, but I'm told we need a dance remix or a song to parody for our Garbage Pail Kids series. Any suggestions here?

Lee Overtree:

Sorry. A dance song?

Nathan Holbert:

Don't they do dance remixes or something?

Lee Overtree:

Yeah, like a remix to do a TikTok dance too about Garbage Pail Kids?

Nathan Holbert:

Yeah.

Lee Overtree:

Wow. Well, I guess if it's Garbage Pail Kids, you could do a remix of Party in the USA and call it Farty in the USA.

Haeny Yoon:

Oh my God. Where are you coming up with this?

Nathan Holbert:

Years of Garbage Pail play, that's where it comes from.

Haeny Yoon:

Oh my gosh, I am very impressed.

Lee Overtree:

You're easily impressed, I'm sorry to say.

Nathan Holbert:

You're crushing it. One more question for you, and we're needing new merch. I mean, come on. Merch is what this is really all about is cool hats and hoodies and all right.

Haeny Yoon:

I mean, I'm definitely buying a Story Pirates hoodie.

Nathan Holbert:

You guys have great merch.

Lee Overtree:

This is a free consultation.

Haeny Yoon:

Yes.

Nathan Holbert:

Here we go.

Lee Overtree:

You obviously need some kind of soda, right? Some kind of pop?

Jamie Salka:

I was going to say Pop Rocks, like branded Pop Rocks for you guys.

Haeny Yoon:

Oh my gosh. We should do something around-

Jamie Salka:

Like who doesn't want that? Well, I was going to say Rice Krispies Treats for you guys.

Haeny Yoon:

Oh, that's a good one.

Jamie Salka:

Snap, Crackle and-

Haeny Yoon:

Snap, Crackle, Pop. Yeah.

Jamie Salka:

... Pop and Play.

Nathan Holbert:

Pop and Play.

Haeny Yoon:

That's funny.

Nathan Holbert:

I love it. Well, thank you guys for playing that game. That was a delight.

Haeny Yoon:

We always like to start our podcast just by thinking about your own engagement with media and stories, and we've actually told a lot of stories over the last five seasons just about. I feel like everybody knows the things that we watch and that we played with, and maybe nobody cares what we do. So we want to know when did you want to become a storyteller? What stories do you remember moving you when you were younger?

Lee Overtree:

Jamie, you want to go?

Jamie Salka:

I can't remember a time that I wasn't a storyteller. I was super shy when I was a kid, and stories were my main access point to relate to the world around me. I did plays. The times when I was most out of my shell as a shy little kid was when I created a play in my backyard and demanded that my parents come, and I charged them admission and I tore up their sheets to make curtains and sets. And to me that was the main way that I related to the world around me was personal storytelling.

Haeny Yoon:

Were your parents into it?

Jamie Salka:

It was expensive, I think. The tickets were top tier. But yes, they were very supportive. I am now a parent myself, and I've sat through a lot of shows.

Nathan Holbert:

The fun thing about kids and their performances sometimes, my wife is a performer and she'll be like, "If you could come over here, I'll give you some advice." And they're like, "No, no, we got it. We got it, mom." She's like, "Okay, you sure you don't need any help?" Like, "No, we got it." Okay.

Haeny Yoon:

Jamie, how old are your kids?

Jamie Salka:

I have a six-year-old and a ten-year-old.

Haeny Yoon:

And what's their genre of choice as they're performing these?

Jamie Salka:

They're into musical theater. They're big into Taylor Swift.

Haeny Yoon:

Oh my God, me too.

Jamie Salka:

We play a lot of Taylor Swift around here.

Lee Overtree:

And at their school they're doing nonstop, unlicensed productions of musicals. So if you're listening major musical theater licensing organizations, Jamie's kid's schools are literally stealing money from you.

Haeny Yoon:

Oh my God. They're violating copyright laws.

Lee Overtree:

That's right.

Haeny Yoon:

Oh my God, I'm glad I asked those follow-up questions because I'm really into Taylor Swift too, and I could talk about her forever. And there's a lot of Taylor Swift being played at my house as well.

Nathan Holbert:

What about you, Lee? What were some of the stories that you engaged with or told when you were younger?

Lee Overtree:

I remember being obsessed with this book that I called The Beautiful Camel, and it's a picture book. And that's not the name of the book, it's not called The Beautiful Camel, but that's what I called it. I found out later when I bought it off of eBay that it's actually called The Camel Who Took a Walk, which is a terrible title.

Haeny Yoon:

That is a terrible title.

Lee Overtree:

Way better.

Nathan Holbert:

Sounds thrilling.

Lee Overtree:

And I was obsessed with this book, and I remember thinking about it so much because the book is about this stretch of the forest... In the middle of the desert there's sort of a little bit of forest and there's a path through it, and it gets very, very dark in there. And there's a tiger. The book starts off by saying that there's a tiger waiting in the darkness, no one can see him waiting by the path, at the very end of the path. And then it shifts, perspective shifts to this beautiful camel who's sort of innocently walking into the forest path. And it very, very slow burn builds this tension of what's going to happen when the camel reaches the tiger and the tiger jumps out and slaughters the camel before our very eyes.

Haeny Yoon:

Oh my God.

Nathan Holbert:

Wow, took a dark turn there.

Lee Overtree:

And they build the tension very, very slowly, and they introduce other animals who are starting to see what's happening as the camel's moving along the path. So there's a squirrel that sees the tiger and decides to drop a nut on the tiger's head, and then there's a toucan that sees the squirrel and decides to do something to the squirrel to disrupt it. And there's sort of this chain of the camel's just blissfully moving closer and closer to the tiger. And I think I really responded to the building of tension in that.

And I always say that that story taught me the most important things about storytelling. And I think that was just something I thought a lot about when I was a kid. I don't think I was super aware of what storytelling was or thinking of myself as a storyteller, as sort of just fascinated by stories that created a visceral internal response in myself. And I would think a lot about what was happening in order to create that response within myself. And I think that was kind of an intuitive way of teaching myself some instinctive values in storytelling that I still use today.

Haeny Yoon:

So the dramatic tension.

Lee Overtree:

Yeah.

Haeny Yoon:

Do you remember being scared by that? 'Cause I would be freaked out.

Lee Overtree:

Well, it was scary. It was definitely exhilarating in the sort of horror of it, of what's going to happen. 'Cause the tiger was like no joke, he wasn't goofy, but you also saw this plan was in motion to sort of disrupt the tiger's plan. But there was always a feeling like the worst could happen. Will the day be saved? And I would read the book over and over and over, and the tension never stopped being a big selling point.

Nathan Holbert:

Did the tiger eat the camel?

Lee Overtree:

You're going to have to look up this book yourself. I need to look up the author's name to shout them out, but The Camel Who Took a Walk is what it's called.

Haeny Yoon:

Okay. So I think one of the reasons why we love your show and just love doing this in the company of children is because we also think they are marvelous storytellers. And so any of us that have spent time with them know this and get to witness this, and it's really so interesting for us. And so, one thing we want you to do is maybe think back, what's the best story you think you made up? And then how did you know it was good? So let me give you an example. When I was in sixth grade, I had to make this forced story where we had to take instruments from our culture.

So I had to choose three random instruments from Korean culture that I knew nothing about, but I was asking my parents like, "Oh, give me three instruments," whatever. So I made this story about these three friends who were Korean instruments, and I don't even know what they did, but... I don't even remember what the story was about. But I think that was my best story, because I just remember it was laminated, it felt like a real book. My teacher took time to comment on it and I was like, yeah, this is a damn good story.

Nathan Holbert:

I did crush this.

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah. So do you have a story that you remember, that you put out into the world, that you kind of think back to fondly?

Lee Overtree:

I don't remember a ton from being a kid. I remember, this might be a little bit older than you're thinking of, but I remember my freshman year at Northwestern, we were in this class called Analysis and Performance of Literature, which was a required performance studies class that all theater majors had to take in their first year. And it was sort of introduction to any kind of avant-garde storytelling, and you would take some text and create something out of it. And I definitely peaked as an artist in this class, and I was able to take all my sort of instincts my whole life and do something, and got permission to get weird, which is something we say a lot in Story Pirates is like you have permission to be weird. And that sort of, we hope, is a way to free up kids in their writing to take risks and try new things. And for me, that happened in that class. And I remember doing a performance of the Kurt Vonnegut short story Harrison Bergeron, if you all are familiar with that.

Nathan Holbert:

Yeah, yeah.

Lee Overtree:

It's about a futuristic society where the main character, Harrison Bergeron, has... I guess he has electrodes in his brain and they're used to shock him in order to elicit the correct behavior in society or something like that. I haven't read it in a long time. But anyway, what I decided to do in my performance was I got a big bucket of water, and every time I was shocked, my character was shocked, I would dunk my head into the bucket of water in this classroom in front of all these students. And it was exhilarating to be able to do something that strange. I remember it just being like a hit. Everyone loved it. And I was like, this is amazing. I can do something that feels like on the really outer edge of acceptability.

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah.

Jamie Salka:

I had a similar experience at Northwestern. And Lee and I have talked about almost everything in our lives, but we've actually never talked about this. And storytelling really was my sort of access point as a child. And by the time I got to Northwestern, I had also, I'd built an entire personality around presentation of some kind. That was the realm that I felt the most comfortable. And by that point I was un-shy, significantly less shy than I was when I was a kid. And with almost a sort of unhinged quality to-

Lee Overtree:

Kick, smash?

Jamie Salka:

... the way that I... Yeah, I mean, I had a roommate that I was really close with and we created sort of outrageous theater pieces. Also, I remember a pretty lunatic idea for our Analysis and Performance of Literature final, but the thing that I remember the most was, and this was sort of emblematic of how I approached storytelling in college. I had a paper due for a minimalist theater course, and I wrote the paper, which I titled, I Am Not a Minimalist on the school-provided mattress from my dorm bunk bed. I wrote it in Sharpie on the mattress and I dragged it across campus and turned it into the professor.

Haeny Yoon:

Oh my gosh, that's great.

Nathan Holbert:

That's amazing.

Jamie Salka:

So ludicrous and disrespectful of the property of the university, but also my professors just loved it. I sort of think in the way that I was making fun of the class almost to the professor's face. But I also, in the way that as an adult having worked in theater and film, I've sat in on a million auditions and they're so boring and exhausting, which you don't sort of realize until that's what you do all day for a chunk of your life. And any performer that walks in and sort of shakes things up is so, you're so excited.

Nathan Holbert:

Yeah, I love that. I hope the Northwestern maintenance team is not listening though 'cause they may-

Haeny Yoon:

I mean, so if you go to Northwestern, you graduate with a degree in lunacy and chaos.

Nathan Holbert:

Sounds good. I'm into that.

Haeny Yoon:

Yes, it tracks.

Nathan Holbert:

That's what I want my honorary degree to be, Jamie, if you're still giving those out at the end.

Jamie Salka:

I mean, you're going to have to kick this up a notch.

Haeny Yoon:

I love those two examples though, because I often think about this when I see something that provokes questions or thinking in me. I'm always like, is this really good or is it really bad? I can't tell. And I feel like that, in and of itself, provokes something in you, and maybe that the job is done if you get to that thin line.

Lee Overtree:

Yeah, I love that.

Nathan Holbert:

Something to discuss, something to talk about if nothing else, right?

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah. Exactly.

Nathan Holbert:

Those are good examples. Those are really good examples. Well done. I'm wondering how you go from that though. So I mean the unhinged, gloriously weird and the massive risks and pushing the boundaries at Northwestern to Story Pirates. Where did the vision of Story Pirates come from? How did it kind of progress from those experiences to where it is now?

Lee Overtree:

This is becoming too much of an egregiously Northwestern-centric podcast.

Haeny Yoon:

It totally is.

Lee Overtree:

I have to credit a student group in Northwestern called Griffin's Tale that did a very similar thing, where they went around to, and they still do, go around to elementary schools in the North Shore of Chicago, and take stories written by kids and turn them into sketch comedy and songs. And when I saw that group my freshman year, I was blown away and pretty much felt like this is the closest thing I've ever seen to my personality on stage, my aesthetic on stage. And there were a million brilliant artists performing in it, many of whom, some of whom went on to be founding members of Story Pirates, or joint Story Pirates at some point, or participated in some point. So there was a culture of this student group at Northwestern that inspired Story Pirates directly, although we took it in some directions that I hope were new. But that group was very influential and also inspired a group in Chicago called Barrel of Monkeys, which is now called-

Jamie Salka:

PlayMaker's Lab.

Lee Overtree:

... PlayMaker's Lab. And also inspired Flying Treehouse at Stanford, and the Story Wranglers in Austin, Texas, all directly connect in some way to this student group, Griffin's Tale, at Northwestern.

Nathan Holbert:

Wow.

Jamie Salka:

Whoopensocker, Erica's group.

Lee Overtree:

Oh, yeah. I forgot the one person you guys know.

Jamie Salka:

Yeah, in Wisconsin.

Nathan Holbert:

We know them. We know them.

Jamie Salka:

It inspired a movement that Story Pirates is one part of that takes place certainly all over the country and probably all over the world. The Story Pirates audience is all over the world at this point. So it is a type of engagement with kids, arts education with kids, media with kids that started in this one spot at Northwestern decades ago and has taken on a life of its own.

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah, I feel like listening to all this, it's making me think about the potential of classrooms and education to actually move people years after, the reverberations that occur after that, and there is possibility in schools and spaces like that to actually transform people's lives and the meaning that they assign to things.

Lee Overtree:

Yeah, I mean, I think the school only gets partial credit as far as I'm concerned. It was a creative community, and so much of the work at that school was made because there weren't opportunities in the more traditional tracks. For a bunch of kids who are all smart kids and have so much insane creativity, who want to do stuff like Jamie described, who are just bursting at the seams to stretch their wings, spread their wings, and you put that many people together in a community and they're going to create something pretty special. So I think it's about in-person creative day-to-day engagement. And for that reason, I think school is important. If only for that, if not for what the school brings to it as well.

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah, the connections and the relationships that you build.

Lee Overtree:

Yeah.

Nathan Holbert:

And the culture you create to encourage that kind of work, right? Jamie, if that teacher had been like, "What the hell? You're mocking my assignment." That would've been a very different story that you'd be telling us right now about the mattress.

Lee Overtree:

Yeah. I mean even if they had, I think Jamie would've gone off and made weird stuff [inaudible 00:25:07].

Haeny Yoon:

Regardless.

Lee Overtree:

Probably even more vigorously than he did within the structure of the classroom itself.

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah, that's very true.

Jamie Salka:

I think that's true to a certain extent that any artistic disasters or failures I've had in my career are almost the primary drivers of future ambition. That's sort of always been true. But I do think at Northwestern particular, the environment there was uniquely supportive. It was not only accepted, it was really celebrated, the type of weirdness that I brought to the table and that Lee's describing. And it truly was a formative life-changing place for me. And I don't know if I would have gone into as idiosyncratic a field as I did without the base of support that was built there, and to a great degree at some of the other schools that I went to.

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah, that's nice. Okay, so for those listeners that haven't listened to Story Pirates, you should really-

Nathan Holbert:

Stop what you're doing, go listen.

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah, stop what you're doing and go listen to it. I'm just going to give a brief synopsis of the structure, 'cause this kind of leads to my next question. So basically you guys receive all these stories, submissions from kids, and I read on your website or heard on your podcast that you respond to all of them.

Nathan Holbert:

You say that every time, right? Yeah.

Haeny Yoon:

You respond to all the stories-

Lee Overtree:

We do. We call it Story Love, and it's a huge volunteer program that our nonprofit-

Haeny Yoon:

I love that.

Lee Overtree:

... runs in order to respond with thorough, positive notes to every single kid who sends us a story. And we get... What was the last year's count, like 20,000, Jamie?

Jamie Salka:

Yeah, it's 20 to 30,000 a year.

Nathan Holbert:

Oh my God.

Jamie Salka:

It's an enormous amount of stories. And we do respond personally to everyone, sometimes with multiple notes of encouragement to every kid who submitted stuff to us.

Haeny Yoon:

That is incredible, especially being two professors who always are late on grading and getting feedback. We know that that is a very hard job.

Nathan Holbert:

That is amazing.

Haeny Yoon:

That is really amazing. So we really appreciate the production that goes into the stories that get produced there, right? There's scripts, there's music, there's voiceovers, there's actors, there's sound effects, the whole nine yards. It's really incredible. And I think at most episodes you try to check back in with the kid, the author that submitted their story. So we're wondering, has there ever been a time where you didn't match the writer's vision or you talked to them and they didn't like what you did with it? And then how do you deal with that?

Lee Overtree:

That happens constantly. It's almost by design. It's unavoidable, for one thing. You have a kid who submits a story and then we hand that to a bunch of artists and ask them to create their version of it. But I think it's something that our audiences come to expect, and I really encourage it because I see this as a collaboration. I don't see this as us, sort of like white glove serving the kids what they ordered. I see it as a collaboration between their creative minds and the minds of the artists, the adult artists that we're employing to bring these stories to life.

And I think that's a really healthy way to look at creativity, like a sort of your turn, my turn type of thing. Warts and all. We're going to throw everything together and there might not be consensus on everything, but what comes out of it is going to be something new that no one expected. And so I like that effect of it, and I think that it makes for better adaptations. If you are trying to completely, faithfully interpret a child's work, A, you're going to fail, because there are so many mysteries in those-

Haeny Yoon:

That's very true.

Lee Overtree:

... stories. Right?

Haeny Yoon:

Yes.

Lee Overtree:

Mysteries of interpretation, mysteries of intent. And B, you're missing the point entirely. The mysteries are what make it interesting. And attacking those head-on and trying to find answers and suggesting answers or keeping mysteries mysterious, that's what makes those stories so compelling. Someone might look at a kid's story and be like, there's a gap in logic right here. We look at that and we see that as probably the most exciting part of the story, because it involves a shot in the dark, it involves some interpretation, and you don't know whether you're right or what is right, or is there anything right, or does it matter? So the answer is yes, kids are constantly, "I didn't think of it that way. That was wrong," blah, blah, blah. And I love it. And I love the conversations that come out of that. It teaches trust and faith in collaborators to sort of say, we're sending you this story and we don't know what's going to happen with it. And it's fun for us to be able to adapt things that have mysteries.

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah, I appreciate that framing, because I think about how, especially... So I'm in early childhood, and we often almost imagine teachers to be like this self-sacrificing human being that listens to everything kids say, and that everything they say goes, that's how you know you're a good teacher. Which I think is kind of false, right?

Nathan Holbert:

Yes.

Haeny Yoon:

Because I feel like teachers are also humans that have desires and intentions and longings, and they're in this space. And the best classroom could be a place where it's really collaborative, where kids have their ideas, but then adults also have their ideas. And sometimes those ideas converge, sometimes they diverge and sometimes they collide. And I think we should make more space for that.

Lee Overtree:

And I think it's a major theme of the show is we are treating kids as creative equals, and that means raising their status, but it also means not lowering your own.

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah. Yeah. That's respectful to kids.

Lee Overtree:

Absolutely. I think kids are looking for that.

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah.

Nathan Holbert:

That's fantastic. I was listening to one of your episodes a few weeks ago, two or three weeks ago, and it was about the chicken hat girl. And I'm just wondering if you guys think Americans are ready for a chicken hat girl president?

Lee Overtree:

I don't know the last time you saw the news, my friend.

Haeny Yoon:

Easy transition.

Nathan Holbert:

Smooth. I mean, so here's the actual question, 'cause when I was listening to that, I was cracking up and I was also just losing my mind at the same time. And having listened to a number of your episodes, I have a sense, and it very much could just be me, and it could just be this particular moment in the world, but I occasionally I'll have these little sparkles where it feels like that sort of real world and some of the complexities and messiness and scary aspects of the real world are seeping in. And I suspect that's definitely true. And I'm wondering though, to what extent you see in the children's stories that they create and that they share with you all, to what extent you see those little residues of reality becoming part of their stories and how you think about that, how you bring that out in your productions?

Lee Overtree:

I think it's always, the real world is always present in kids' writing. And having done this, read thousands of kids stories over the last 20, including college, like 25 years, I'll say that you see shifts in the zeitgeist occur when major events are going down. And I would include 9/11 in that. I remember reading a story, I was in college during 9/11, and I remember the stories all changed in this really interesting way around that time. And we've seen stories become change also based on what's been going on in our country. And so I think it's inevitable. It's also, how do you separate the reality of that shift from the human mind's natural predilection to see it in there, whether it's there or not? You know what I mean? I don't know. But themes, I think pulling themes out of storytelling is one of the most exciting things about storytelling, right? Like, oh, what are they really saying here? Or why do they say it this way? It's one of the most fun things about interpretive adaptation.

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah.

Nathan Holbert:

Yeah. I love that. I mean, I think you're definitely picking up on what I'm talking about with regard to the degree to which it's me reading it into the story, the degree to which the young person is building a story to try to make sense of their world. And I think children's media is such a rich space for doing that work, on both ends of that.

Jamie Salka:

There's something at the center of Story Pirates that is what we've been talking about for most of the show. There's a reverence for kids and working with kids as collaborators and working with them in a non-condescending way. And our initial comedy shows, stories sent into us by kids adapted by incredible comedians, was sort of this format that has found its way into different mediums organically in each different new medium we go into. So the books are really similar in some way. They are stories sent into us by kids. We select them from the same pool of stories that the kids send in for the podcast or for our stage shows.

But in the realm of books, they're adapted by New York Times bestselling children's authors into full-length middle grade novels. And we've done some work in TV. We had a show on PBS for several years that started during the pandemic as a way to reach kids who were shut out of their physical schools. And our own school workshops and assembly programs had been shut down, so we found an outlet there to still reach kids any way that we could. And I think we have albums, I think we have five, six albums at this point, Lee, is that right?

Lee Overtree:

Yep.

Jamie Salka:

And the albums mostly come from our podcast, again, stories written by kids, adapted by just incredible musicians into a sort of whole litany of different genre songs that are some of our most popular forms of media.

Haeny Yoon:

Watch out for our album. I'm just kidding. Yeah, no.

Nathan Holbert:

Going to have to cycle it through between Taylor Swift songs, right?

Haeny Yoon:

Yes. We're going to play like Tortured Poets on it.

Nathan Holbert:

Dig them back out. Well, thank you both so much, Lee and Jamie for being here with us today. We've had such a delight to talk to you. We're big fans of your show and of all your work, so thank you for taking some time. Before we say goodbye though, we do have one last thing we'd like to do with all of our guests, and that is we like to ask you what's popping? We are curious about different types of media, music, movies, TV shows, games, whatever it is, books that you're involved in, that you're excited about right now. Tell us about it so we can share those with our listeners.

Lee Overtree:

Jamie, do you want to go first?

Jamie Salka:

Sure. This is just the first thing that's in my head right now. Our third book, Quest for the Crystal Crown, we've been working on a screenplay adaptation of it for the last several years, and it's looking like it's going to move forward into production sometime in the next year with an incredible team in Australia. So that's something we're really excited about. I think this podcast generally covers kids media in general, and I think that the media business is in kind of a weird place at the moment, and getting new projects off the ground is tougher than it was several years ago. So we're really excited and pleased to be working with a producer who has international connections and just really creative ideas for how to get projects funded and brought to life. And that's one of the most exciting things that we're working on at the moment. Lee?

Nathan Holbert:

Wow, that's huge.

Lee Overtree:

We just finished season one of our show called Historical Records, which is... I just want to tell your listeners about it, 'cause we're so proud of it. It was a co-production between us and Quest Love, and it was a history show that takes sort of under celebrated, unsung figures from history and turns their stories into original hip-hop songs.

Haeny Yoon:

Oh, that's so cool.

Lee Overtree:

Yeah, so we did 12 episodes featuring historical heroes like Claudette Colvin, who was a 15-year-old girl that refused to give up her seat on the bus nine months before Rosa Parks did. And all the way to Mitsuye Endo, whose Supreme Court case helped end internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. All the way to Keith Haring, the artist, to Willi Smith, the fashion designer. Bill Russell, the basketball player. And I'm so proud of this show. I think it's amazing. It stars Nimene from the Story Pirates Podcast, so if you're a fan of Story Pirates, you'll love hearing Nimene's voice in there. Also, a lot of raccoons are on the show, so it's very funny, very silly, but also talks about these figures from history who I think if you sort of peel back one layer from the folks that we're used to learning about in history books, it's folks like the ones you'll hear on the show. And I would love for people to check it out, it's called Historical Records.

Haeny Yoon:

That sounds awesome.

Nathan Holbert:

Very cool. Yeah, thank you for sharing that with us. Historical Records. Check out that podcast and then we'll be looking forward to Quest of the Crystal Crown. Is that going to be like a show or a movie? What's the plan?

Jamie Salka:

It'll be a feature-length animated movie.

Nathan Holbert:

Very exciting.

Haeny Yoon:

Sounds great.

Nathan Holbert:

Such great stuff already made and on the horizon, so thanks for all of that. That's fantastic.

Lee Overtree:

Thanks for having us. This was fun.

Jamie Salka:

Thanks for having us.

Haeny Yoon:

Yeah, thank you for joining us. It was very fun.

Nathan Holbert:

Yeah, great time. Thanks again. Bye.

Jamie Salka:

Bye-bye.

Haeny Yoon:

Pop and Play is produced by Haeny Yoon, Nathan Holbert, Lalitha Vasudevan, Billy Collins and Joe Riina-Ferrie at Teachers College, Columbia University with the Digital Futures Institute.

Nathan Holbert:

Audio recordings for this episode by Abu Abdel Bagi.

Haeny Yoon:

This episode was edited by Billy Collins and Adrian Vitullo.

Nathan Holbert:

For a transcript and to learn more, visit TC.edu/PopAndPlay. Our music is selections from Leafeaters by Podington Bear used here under a creative commons attribution non-commercial license. Blake Danzig and Meyer Clark provided our social media and outreach support. Follow at Pop and Play Pod on Instagram. Thank you to Abu Abdel Bagi for support with our website and additional materials.

Haeny Yoon:

Do you teach about play and pop culture? Check out our topics collection, organized for the classroom. And of course, don't forget to share Pop and Play with a friend or colleague.

Nathan Holbert:

And thanks for listening.