The Cat in the Hat Runs for President!

The cat in the hat is back. I'm Kay McIntyre. Today on KPR presents, we meet the author of a brand new Dr. Seuss book if I had your vote. Alistair Heim is a children's book author living in Kansas City. Welcome Alistair. Thank you so much Kay for having me. I'm absolutely thrilled to get to talk to you. How did this happen? How is it that you had the opportunity to write a new Dr. Seuss book? That is a question that I'm still trying to answer myself to be honest with you. It was a kind of a weird series of events that would probably take me about a week to explain, but really what it boiled down to was about a year and some change ago. It was actually, it was July 31 at 2 p.m. I remember getting the phone call from my agent. My agent, I'm represented as a children's picture book author by an agent named Kelly Sonic with Andrea Brown-Litt. She lives out in San Diego. She called me out of the blue one afternoon,

a Wednesday afternoon in July of last year and said, I have got kind of an incredible opportunity for you. Then she explained it to me that she had been talking to an editor at Random House Books and had asked her kind of what she was working on and she said that they were wanting to potentially do a book about what would happen if the cat in the hat ran the White House and that they had a couple of other writers who were writing manuscripts. They hadn't picked anybody yet. My agent on the phone said, well, would you consider Aleister Haim? He's an absolute diehard, huge Dr. Seuss fan. The editor basically said, I think this was through email, not phone. The editor said, if he wants to take a shot at it, that would be great. The only thing is, we would need his first draft of the manuscript by Monday. That was on a Wednesday of the 31st and so she called me and said, I've got this opportunity. If you want to take a shot at it, if you want to try for it, you would have until Monday, which was four days, four or five

days later. I got home that night and I kissed my wife and kids goodbye and I came in the bedroom, locked the door and I basically wrote and wrote and wrote for about four days straight. That's kind of how it came to be. It was sort of this serendipitous kind of right place at the right time, right opportunity moment that I truly can't explain, to be honest with you. Aleister, were there other children's book authors who were also vying for the opportunity to write this new book? I believe, so yeah, I think they, I'm not sure how many other authors were trying for it at the time. All I knew is that I, there were some other writers writing and if I wanted to try, I had to basically buckle down and say goodbye to my family for four days, which they were very understanding about, but I don't know how many were, but what happened after that was I submitted the manuscript on that Monday and I heard back a couple of days later, which would have been the first week of August, that the random house and the doctors

use a state like what I did and that it was still between me and some other writers at that point in time and that they had some feedback and revisions and so they asked me to do some revisions and they gave me until a week from that following Friday, another week basically. So, kissed my wife and kids goodbye again, sat here in the bedroom for another five days and basically just wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote and K, I can't explain where it came from, but it just started pouring out of me and I couldn't stop writing it, so it was a pretty incredible experience, but that was the beginning part of the process and then it was the, I believe it was the 21st of August. I remember that day because it was my, my grandma had passed away the week before and we had to go up to a funeral in Wisconsin where I'm from and while we were at the wake with my family, I got a text from my agent telling me that I got the book, so it's kind of this strange moment at my grandma's funeral, but that's where I found out and

I got to be there with my family. I couldn't tell him about it, I couldn't tell anybody about it, my wife knew, but it was a very, I'll never forget a moment, I'll never forget for sure for a couple of different reasons, obviously. I'm visiting with Ellesterheim, he's the author of, if I had your vote, a brand new cat in the hatbook, Ellester perhaps I should rephrase that, you're the author or should I say co-author of if I had your vote? Absolutely, I tell people that I definitely co-wrote this book with the cat in the hat and I was born in Wisconsin and went to elementary school grade school in college there and I vividly remember Dr. Seuss' books on the shelves of my library growing up as a kid and his books were one of my first introductions to creativity and writing and when it's basically sort of driven the way that I write for a lot of years and I've been a huge, huge fan of his work and just the impact he's had on children's literature and so there will never ever be another Dr. Seuss, I am just so

incredibly happy that I got to play in the sandbox and when I co-wrote this book, when I say I co-wrote this book, I had his cat in the hat works, I had you know the everything the cat in the hat has meant to people over the years in the back of my mind and right next to me I should say when I was writing every single word of this so I take half the credit for the book definitely the cat in the hat was right there with me every step of the way. So how do you go about writing a book like this that captures the look and the spirit of Dr. Seuss in the cat in the hat while still making it your own? That's a really great question. One of the things that I was really hard on myself about, I'm my own worst critic and I have the curse of the writer who thinks everything he writes is not any good the minute he writes it and so I was heavily scrutinizing my own work as I was writing the book. The main goal in this is that I wanted it to

sound like it came from Dr. Seuss, sound like it was a cat in the hat book but I wanted to add my own little spins and touches to it. I'm a huge fan of humor and really tried to infuse as much humor as I could into the narrative but also in some of the art notes illustration notes that we offer up when we're authors. I call it the curse of the writer who can't draw. I can't illustrate to save my life and luckily for this book and in many other books there's a wonderfully talented illustrator named Tom Brannon who did the illustrations for this book but I really wanted this to feel like a cat in the hat book when it was all said and done. I ask people and be critical, be hard on me does it sound like Dr. Seuss wrote it and so far the feedback has been really, really positive and I take that very much to heart and I'm humbled by it but it's the humor piece of it for me is really treating each spread as its own kind of mini story within the book and so I just try to add as much charm and rhyming charm and a little bit of unexpectedness and

just a little bit of something where it's almost like a wink to the reader of when I try to write things and if I write a passage that doesn't do that I will go heavily into editing and try to make it something that sounds a little bit more whimsical charming fun that really is something I'm passionate about and every book I write is that humor narrative and one other piece of it too that I love is I love tongue twister rhyme. I recited you off the air my rhyming and meter philosophy which is meter matters when you're rhyming rhyming done with perfect timing such your stories far apart from those who don't perfect the art. I wrote that early on when I was still trying to become a children's picture book author just to keep myself really serious about writing really good rhymed and meter verse that has the meter correct and the rhyming. I'm not a fan of near rhymes so but doing that with with a little bit of humor and as much charm as I can infuse in there is always my goal in anything I write and luckily for me I had a

you know I've got a great teacher in Dr. Seuss who was a master at that so. Alistair I'm gonna jump in here and ask you to recite that rhyme again but a little slower this time. Alistair I will yes meter matters when you're rhyming rhyming done with perfect timing set your stories far apart from those who don't perfect the art. I take it very seriously because one of the reasons that I started trying to write children's picture books it was after my first child was born. We started getting books as gifts from a lot of people and the story I tell is there were some that I loved there were some that I liked and there were some that made me wonder how they ever made it to publication. I'm not going to name any names of course but it really inspired me to say you know what some of these rhyming books that were getting. I don't I don't know if I could do better but I'm going to at least try to do better because these are some of these are really hard to read the the inflections not the right point and so just wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote for a lot of years and really did some research and read a lot of Dr. Seuss books and read a lot

of books of authors that really know what they're doing in the rhyming landscape and I'm still learning I'm still growing I'm still evolving with it but it's incredibly important to me because there were books that I struggled to get through when we were reading to my my oldest child and it was it becomes a painful process to read books when they're when the craft is not there and that's that's my I'm not I'm not gonna I'm not dog in any particular book it's just we all have those that that we find huh so that's that's really kind of what inspired me I want these things I want these books and these stories to be as good as they can be from a writing standpoint in everything I write I'm Kay McIntyre today on KPR presents I'm visiting with Aleister Haim he along with the cat in the hat co-authored if I had your vote Aleister this book is well not partisan it is definitely political with that your idea or did they give you that construct to begin with now when I found out about the opportunity they had the idea random house had the idea

and they posed the question what would happen if the cat in the hat ran the White House and so when I got home that night after my agent called me I had to they didn't give me a book title they they didn't give me all that much subject matter so I started thinking about okay if I had your vote that came to me pretty quickly just because the title kind of snapped into my head and I thought if I had your vote oh the things I could do was the was the first two lines that I thought of and so I thought okay if we call this book if I had your vote and again I wanted to keep it completely nonpartisan of course this is not a political book at all it's a it's a it's a book about the craziness that would ensue if the cat in the hat were in the White House so um after the idea came from random house and I started to kind of dive into it I thought okay if he ran the White House he obviously needs to be in every popular room of the White House or in every White House situation that he can possibly be in within the 48 page context that I've got to work with so either the obvious you know there's the China room in the library

in the press room in the war room and all these other places but I did some research and just made sure that I had every every location listed that I thought would be fun to show in the book the Rose Garden places like that Lincoln's bedroom Lincoln's bedroom I that's funny you bring that up so I think I had mentioned to you that I'm my own worst critic and I I'm very hard on my writing and even as I was writing this manuscript I had that kind of searing doubt as to you know you may or you probably won't get this but at least you get to try for it kind of thing and it was the Friday night it was two days after I found out about the opportunity I was I was here locked in the bedroom on a Friday night writing away and um the idea popped into my head exactly like you just mentioned I'm like okay what would he do in the Lincoln bedroom and I thought well I had gotten kind of to the midpoint of the book and I wanted there to be a room kind of this nondescript room where he just splashes paint all over the place and that with the way the stanza goes it says if I had your vote I would paint this whole place these cases these faces

these boots and their laces there's a security guard standing there and all these tall walls with their unfunny faces and then I thought it'd be fun if he painted smiles on the faces of the portraits of past politicians that kind of thing so if I had your vote I would paint this whole place these cases these faces these boots and their laces and all these tall walls with their unfunny faces and then I thought okay what if he walks into the Lincoln bedroom and then it dawned on me their hats look exactly the same so it would be exception of the colors of course so I thought okay it's got to be something about you know Abraham Lincoln is this president that everybody respects and the cat is included in that so it it suddenly popped into my head that when he walks into the Lincoln bedroom Abraham Lincoln's portrait is on the wall and he says but as for this room I would leave it alone that hat on his head looks a lot like my own and he's got kind of this look on his face where he's staring at the portrait with a big look of admiration so that was that was the moment for a split second I gave myself a little bit of hey that's a pretty good idea maybe maybe you do have a shot at this and then I quickly thought no no no no you just just keep

right and just keep doing what you're going to do but I'm glad you brought up that particular page that was really a I think a moment of maybe for me and and it's my favorite spread in the book honestly it's my favorite page in the book well honestly their hats do look a lot alike they do they do it was serendipitous how it worked out that way for sure Elestarheim is the author of if I had your vote a brand new cat in the hat book illustrated by Tom Brannon. Elestar told me about the collaboration between you and Tom as you said you're not an illustrator how did that work between your words and his illustrations? So Tom and I have never met he and I have never communicated so I deal directly work directly with an editor at random house so for authors who have the curse of the writer who can't draw like I do I can see things very vividly in my in my head from an illustration standpoint like how

I would how I would draw it if I could actually draw so authors who have this this same curse that I have we we oftentimes will put art notes or illustration notes into our manuscripts and so we will write the stanza so for instance there's a there's a page it's very early in the book where the cat is signing bills into law in the Oval Office and it goes if I had your vote I would sign all these bills with ink and a pen made from sticky pine quills these bills would become laws and those laws with some luck would now and for always stay stickity stuck and the illustration note or the art note I had in there was the cat is sitting at the desk signing bills into law there are bills stuck all over the walls of the room with sticky ink from the sticky pine quill and the one thing that the editor there gave me a little bit of liberty with is you know Dr. Seuss was famous for making up words and characters and creating these fantastical names and things in one of my very early drafts of the book I went way too far with coming up with

names for things and they basically said okay we need you to pull back like 80% on what you're doing with all these made up names but there are a few places in there where I got to have some fun with with some naming things so as far as the illustration the art note went Tom my way to communicate with Tom was to put the illustration notes in my manuscript on the with page numbers and saying what happens in the scene in my mind knowing that they can illustrate it however they want to illustrate it so illustration art notes are really suggestions from the author because the beautiful part about working with an illustrator and if you're not the author illustrator is they take your books to places that you couldn't even imagine and I've been very lucky in my career for my first four books to have illustrators that have just added some charm and things that and nuance in the illustration that I never pictured when I was writing the book and Tom on top of just making this look exactly like Dr. Seuss drew this book he put such charming fun little things to discover in

here that just brought these pages to life in ways that again I wasn't imagining so I feel like I worked with him but everything was done through the editor who who then works with an art director at Random House to make sure those those illustration notes art notes get communicated with Tom and then he will illustrate things and then send it back through and then when I got the first draft of the art it was just incredible to see it come to life I'm visiting with Ellesterheim he's the author of if I had your vote a new cat in the hat book Ellester I was really glad to see that thing one and thing to play a big role in the new adventures of the cat in the hat I was thrilled to be able to bring thing one and thing to into the narrative and frankly this this book is a part of the beginner books which Dr. Seuss began with the cat in the hat the cat in the hat comes back and so that was one of the first questions I think I asked was can I bring thing one and thing two into it and the answer was yes where this is a beginner book part of this series so let's

treat these as as sequels to the first two books and that really freed me up to say okay what situations am I going to put thing one and thing two and so I love that in the beginning of the book it's if I had your vote I would really prefer this office to be far much oval or thing one and thing two would know just what to do to square up this room and re-oval it through and they're on this great Sucien contraption and then they're the ones who paint his White House portrait and they're there kind of every step of the way and then toward the end of the book when it's time to clean up thing one and thing two are there but that's when the little cats come in and the little cats were introduced in the cat in the hat comes back and just again to play in the sandbox to get to write for these characters is an absolute honor humbling dream come true for me that I think if you would have told me when I when I first typed the first word of my first manuscript when I was trying to become a children's picture book author I would have told you there's no way there's there's no way that's going to happen but it's it's just it's unbelievable

for me to even sit here and hold this book and and my names on the inside front cover it's it's spectacular but yes thing one and thing two are are near near near near and dear to my heart I'll start as you said this is your fifth children's book how did writing this compared to your others that is a really great question I've thought about that a little bit and in some regards it was more difficult in some regards it was a little easier and I say that because I had this great and then the reason when I wrote this book with the cat in the hat I had these stories that I could refer to in this rhyming narrative that he established with these books and when I say that that I open the word document and I stared at the at the blank page and this this writing just started flowing out of me and I couldn't stop it I'll be real candid with you the the book is only 48 pages but I had five or six additional spreads that I had written for where I had some other things happening to the cat in the hat that didn't make

the book because again I couldn't I could not stop writing it it just it kept flowing out of me and that doesn't always happen when I'm writing my own books there are instances where it will take me a couple of hours to write a first draft of a book and a couple of my books were that way they're very simple rhyming books with kind of a standard narrative throughout I've got a book called Hello Door and it's a retelling of Goldilocks in the three bearers and it's it's all done in rhyme and meter verse but it's the same structure throughout so it says hello door hello house hello Matt hello mouse and it's about a fox who breaks into a house that's not his and says hello to everything he sees and steals but what you find out is he's broken into the three bearers house and it doesn't end well for him so things like that take a little bit of time but I have other stories that have taken me weeks if not months if not I had a one manuscript that's never been published that actually took me three years to finish because I kept chip and it was a picture

book I just kept chipping away chip and away chip and away but with these books in particular and this is actually the first of two I have another one coming out next summer this in that regard just the ideas for some reason and I'm so glad they came just kept coming and coming and coming and coming to where I had to at one point just kind of turn the faucet off and submit the manuscript so again in some ways it's more difficult in the ways it's more difficult is there's a legacy there there's a beloved character there characters plural there and it's it's something I took very seriously and I don't take lightly that I got to I got to write for characters that people millions and millions of people care about that were such a formative piece of their childhood that are that's still so prevalent in children's literature so it was this there was a bit of a bit of a concern on my part that I wasn't going to do at justice and I think that really drove me to just kind of push myself and keep making sure that each each individual's spread each

individual page has that charm has that rhyme and meter built in has that little sense of discovery but yeah it's it's it's a different kind of challenge but I loved every every minute of it it was to be honest with you it's probably the most fun I've had writing something in my almost 10 year career now I'm visiting with Alistairheim he's the author of if I had your vote a new Dr. Seuss book co-written with the cat in the hat Alistair do you have a favorite Dr. Seuss book or did you have a favorite Dr. Seuss book when you were growing up I did I had two books as a child that I really really enjoyed reading the first one along with the cat in the hat of course the first was one fish two fish redfish bluefish and the other one was Fox and socks which is one of the hardest books to read just because it's such a tongue twistery book but I really loved that and I've rediscovered this as an adult now and and getting to to write a couple of these books

in the in the universe he created that he did a really wonderful job if you if you read a book like one fish two fish redfish bluefish for instance it starts down one path and then you just you jump to these different worlds and these different characters paged page and he just got to be so creative within a single book and a lot of his books are like that to where it doesn't have like the Lorax for instance has a narrative from beginning to end but with books like one fish two fish redfish bluefish he really got to just come up with interesting characters and page by page it's almost these kind of short little vignette stories within this larger narrative and I just truly fell in love with that because it was his imagination running wild and you can see it on the page so those two books in particular after the cat in the hat of course that was that's the one that that really I think probably the first one that I that a librarian had read I grew up in a

very small town of Wisconsin and you know we had only a few Dr. Seuss books on the on the shelf of a library but cat in the hat one fish two fish redfish bluefish and fox and socks was the other one there that I vividly remember from my childhood but when he's when he gets to just be creative within a single book you know and it doesn't doesn't necessarily follow a story or a flow that you would expect that's where I truly believe he's at his best I really loved that sense of discovery and just introducing such whimsical and it's his imagination on the page which is a beautiful thing now I'm going to share with you my favorite Dr. Seuss book and it's one that's not as popularly cited as some of his others my favorite is and to think that I saw it on Mulberry Street which I loved well I don't know that I knew when I was a kid but I discovered it and learned to love it when my own kids were young and I love this sense in that book that

you can see just an old horse and wagon on Mulberry Street or you can see circuses and dancing people and crazy things and it's all in your imagination and your perspective and the idea that like you know you can see nothing when you're out on a walk or you can see magic that's absolutely right it's it's in the eye of the beholder and you know there was no one like him in children's literature that that came through you know his line from one fish two fish red fish blue fish that everybody knows and remembers you know from there to here from here to there funny things are everywhere it really is it's about opening your eyes and seeing things you know in I think the other piece of it is that not everybody sees the world the same way and that he he knew that and there weren't really many people saying that back when he was writing these books in children's literature that the world is a beautiful place and everybody sees it a little bit differently and this is how

I see it and and children make sure that that when you're looking at something you see the possibility and it as well but just know that other people are seeing other kids are seeing a different kind of possibility and what they're looking at too I completely agree with you I think he was he didn't hit you over the head with that but it was very much the lessons that were kind of built in there that were so kind of cleverly camouflaged but right in front of you at the same time exactly exactly like I said I I don't know that I knew that book as a kid but when my own kids were younger and discovering Dr. Seuss I remember coming across that book and just thinking this is this is amazingly profound absolutely yeah it's you you have that moment and I would tell you it was it was a really um it impacted both my wife and I when we started getting all these children's books as gifts is baby shower gifts because you know for a long time there I didn't have any children's books you know you you you go to college and then you start your career and

then you're so focused on work and then all of a sudden you know you find out you're going to be a dad and a mom and then you start getting these books as gifts and you rediscover not only do you rediscover the books that you fell in love with when you were a kid or the books that you loved when you were a kid you discover new authors who are saying things that are that are modern day things to say but also when you look back on those older books you realize truly what was built into those that you didn't get when you were a kid necessarily or you weren't even coming at you just thought oh this cat is silly and he's fun and and he's he gets in trouble and he makes messes and I like that too and it's really about stop and have some fun once in a while and make a mess every once in a while and you know clean it up but don't take don't take life all that too seriously it's too short to take that seriously and that sense of rediscovery when you become a parent K that that is very a very profound thing when you start to read these picture books and again it's if we hadn't had you know my my first child I wouldn't have I don't

think I would have been inspired to try to write children's picture books so it was never on my radar honestly until my first child was born and that really is what sparked the idea of hey maybe can I can I do this can I try this I knew who I was inspired by and I knew who I wanted to be when I grew up and it was it was Dr. Seuss was there on the list but you know that's it's a pipe dream until you sit down and you you try to do it and I can't explain the series of events that had to happen for you and I to be having this this this awesome conversation today but it was truly that diving in and rediscovering those older books that I grew up with and then the new ones that are being published today that inspired me to try to do this so it's it's a it was a it was a and I don't I don't mean to say that just because I'm an author that was a I remember being struck by oh my gosh these these books are works of art there are lessons in here that I didn't get when I was a kid but I want my child to and maybe I did get it subconsciously right

but I want to I want to talk to my child about those same things and introduce you know my child to the works that that were important to me and I think I had heard recently that when the coronavirus hit a lot of the older a lot of the books that all of Gen X and then the Boomer generation grew up with started pop and toward the top of bestseller lists again because we had all this family time together and parents wanted to introduce their children into the books to the books that they grew up with so yeah these things are a lasting thing and it's it's a it's a it's a it's a it's a beautiful medium for sure I'm visiting with Alistairheim he's the author of if I had your vote I'm glad you mentioned the COVID-19 pandemic because Alistair clearly you're launching this book at a really unusual time how is that affected how the book has been released and and what you're doing to get the word out about

this new book yeah it has been definitely been interesting so I would have probably spent most of the summer planning in-person school visits as many as possible for the Kansas City area my parents still live back in Wisconsin so I would it would plan some for for back there as well and I'm not able to do that the in-person visits and so what I'm trying to do is set up virtual school visits with a few schools going forward and I think every author is trying to figure out what that looks like for themselves right now themselves right now and for me though it's when it comes to this book in particular the the release came out when it was supposed to I thought it might be delayed because I didn't know with with manufacturing and shipping and all of the disruption that we had but the the book came out on time and I'm talking to as many people as I can about it I'm trying to share out on social media I am working with some some schools now

on virtual school visits where I'm going to use zoom to read my books to kids which is my favorite one of my favorite things about being an author on top of writing these books is getting to read to kids in classrooms and I think it's more important than ever for for authors in general to to have that opportunity to reach out to these kids who are going through a school year that none of us have ever gone through before the parents the teachers anybody this is all new territory so having a sense of familiarity and having a kind of a break or some some whimsy thrown in is something that I'm taking very seriously this school year and really trying to reach out like I said not only to schools in Kansas and Missouri and I've got some friends down in Oklahoma one of my books I want to children's book award down in Oklahoma a couple of years ago so I've got some very good friends down there that are very supportive when it comes to helping me set up school visits and so I'm really focused on trying to do that virtually because I really I want to give kids sort of a it's a you know it's a hard world we're living in and they're

facing a lot right now and I think any sense of fun and whimsy and just a break an hour break you know just to listen to an author read read some books and tell the stories behind where the ideas came from is such a needed thing right now so that's what I'm trying to do in in this era which is very strange because I'm I'm kind of a raging extrovert I really love to meet people and I love to to present to kids and I love to meet teachers so this is cut this is a very strange time for sure but I think it is you know for a lot of authors but we have a lot of opportunity to try to make this feel a little more normal to a lot of the kids just through the the books that we write that we're lucky enough to get to write because I think that's kind of what kids need just to make it feel a little bit like yes I'm going to school yes I might be home yes I might be going in a couple of days of a week but all of us at the same time are going to get to hear an author read some books and and have some fun and laugh and hear some ridiculous stories

about you know my my favorite story to tell is is my second book is called No Tooting at T and it's about a tea party where someone keeps tuning and that that idea came about that idea came about because I was lucky enough to be at an imaginary tea party back in 2014 I could see where this is going yeah and the the tea party hostess was managing everything very properly until one of her guests guests did the unthinkable they they tuned it and the tea party hostess looked directly at the guest and said there's no tooting at tea and I looked directly at the guest and I said that is brilliant my next book I need to write a story called exactly that so it's you know back to your original question though I just think now more than ever kids need to laugh they need to laugh together be together smile together have an experience together and so that's really what I'm going to be focused on I'm just saying with Aleister Haim he's the

author of if I had your vote a brand new cat in the hat book Aleister this book sees the cat in the hat elected president are there other adventures ahead for the cat in the hat there is one more adventure coming next summer I would love to give you the scoop but that is all I'm allowed to say right now but I promise you I will reach out to you you'll be one of the first people to okay actually when I can when I can when random house will announce what the next book is going to be about I will tell you the next book I'm I love where that book landed I haven't seen any illustrations with it yet but I really I got to add in a lot more I wouldn't even call it tongue twistery kind of things but a lot more I had a lot more not a lot more fun I had even more fun with the rhyming in that book and I'm just absolutely thrilled the the editor that I work with at

random house is an absolutely incredible editor and she has such good instincts and such good insight that it becomes this very collaborative process where I if I'm getting like two a little bit too tongue twistery or I'm getting a little bit too you know making up words and don't don't do that so much she knows exactly where that that is supposed to be or where that feels right and she knows exactly where it doesn't and so my collaboration with random house has been such a fun experience and it just feels really great to work with work with a you know random house who knows Dr. Seuss and who knows these books like you know better than anybody on the planet and but the next book I am very very excited about and it will be out next summer in the meantime if I had your vote Alistair I have one last question for you I want to describe the cover of if I had your vote it's iconic picture of the cat in the hat with his trademark hat and a bow tie and he is sporting a election button a campaign button that says cat for president

so my question to you is this where can I get one of those buttons I am going to ask random house that question immediately when I get off the interview with you here today and I will definitely let you know if anything I know where to get buttons made and I think I now need to go get some of those buttons made but I'm gonna I'm gonna start with random house first and we'll we'll go from there I've been visiting with Alistairheim he's the author of if I had your vote or co-author I should say along with cat in the hat it's a brand new Dr. Seuss book Alistair this has been such a pleasure congratulations on a wonderful book and best of luck to you okay thank you so much this has been such a huge pleasure for me too and and it has been awesome to talk to you thank you so much for the opportunity