Alternative rock band They Might Be Giants have spent nearly 40 years experimenting with genre-blending tactics to create a unique experience for their audience. They have pushed those boundaries yet again with BOOK, a collection of 15 songs and a 144-page art book.

The idea to make BOOK stemmed from John Flansburgh’s conversations with frequent collaborator and celebrated graphic designer Paul Sahre.

“Paul and I had talked to a publisher about a visual history of They Might Be Giants in a big coffee-table format,” Flansburgh said in a press release. “It seemed daunting, so I suggested breaking it into smaller, more doable parts. I’ve always been a fan of street photography like Helen Levitt and Robert Frank. That style can complement lyrics very well.”

Through Sahre came Brooklyn street photographer Brian Karlsson. They wanted a single photographer to tell this story, and each song truly comes to life with his input.

“Brian’s work seemed transcendent and in sync with what we were doing,” Flansburgh said. “It was important to me that the project was consistent visually. Too many visual efforts from musicians have a catch-all quality.”

The music from BOOK is bursting with the same energy, melody and inventive songcraft that They Might Be Giants is known for, but this latest effort goes even further, introducing an immersive album experience that blends photography, design and text with music.

This isn’t meant to be a ‘concept project’, but rather an accompanying piece to the album. Flansburgh compared it to an extension of album artwork in a recent interview with Forbes, giving an entirely new perspective on how artists can create different types of art within a single object.

“Nowadays, albums are often just a collection of ones and zeroes,” John Linnell said in a press release. “With BOOK we’re looking to make a more interesting object.”

Another unique piece of BOOK is how they created a story behind the words. Sahre used an IBM Selectric typewriter from the 1970s to create artistic layouts that add a striking new dimension to the reading experience. The lyrics are displayed in various shapes and forms on their respective pages, giving the reader a new way to interpret each song.

These first-hand accounts not only give the reader insight into what it was like to be on the stage or behind it, but it lets the reader feel as though they were actually there when it happened. Rock Concert brings these stories to life once again, allowing those that were there the opportunity to shed light on how they changed the music industry.

What Once Was Mine is available here.

“We really felt like we were sitting on a rail, straddling two identities that didn't mesh very well,” Zubernis said. “I identify as a fan, I identify as a fangirl. That is part of my identity, but we really felt pressured to not be fans because now we were backstage, we were in the green room, we were interviewing people. We were uncomfortable with it, we were awkward about it, we probably made it harder than it had to be because we were so awkward about it. But it was a transition that we learned to navigate little by little and a lot of pretty hilarious things happened as a result.”

While it was once again a challenge to find a publisher, they now had more people in their corner, including actors of the show.

Zubernis had been toying with the idea of making the next book about stories from fans and how the show changed their lives when she was asked about it by none other than the actor who played Sam Winchester, Jared Padalecki.

While standing in line to meet him at one of the Supernatural conventions, Padalecki asked Zubernis if she was writing another book. When she told him the idea, he went silent. Surely, Zubernis thought, he hated it. Instead, she was surprised when he finally did say, “You know, I’ve got a story like that about how the show changed my life.”

Was he asking to write a chapter in her next book? Yes, yes he was.

Family Don’t End With Blood: Cast and Fans on How Supernatural Has Changed Lives shares incredibly personal accounts on how the show has inspired fans to be the best versions of themselves. There are also essays or special messages from Padalecki, Ruth Connell, Rob Benedict, Kim Rhodes and more.

When it was announced that Supernatural would end after 15 seasons, Zubernis knew she had to write one last book. This time around, she wanted to make sure they released a book that spotlighted the diversity seen in the fandom and give all walks of life the chance to reflect on how the show impacted them. There’ll Be Peace When You Are Done: Actors and Fans Celebrate the Legacy of Supernatural does just that.

“I felt like because this show was so important to so many people, including me, [they] really needed something to hold on to to remember the show,” Zubernis said. “A lot of how I crafted the book was purposely to be something that fans could hold on to as they were grieving a really important loss and something that would validate those feelings of loss.”

As a fan of Supernatural, it might be complicated to put into words how much this show has impacted the people who stood by it for 15 years. Thanks to people like Zubernis, Larsen, the actors, directors, producers and fandom community, the impact of this show has been immortalized.

To learn more about the books or purchase them, visit their website.

The moral of the story is that Monsters are absolutely real and can haunt you, even if you can’t see them. As an adult, Braswell hopes that they realize that. “(You can call them Chowguns, you can call them vicious, cyclical thoughts that are self-destructive; in the end, it doesn’t matter to them what you call them).” As a child, she hopes that they know they are not alone and can triumph over Monsters with the help of good friends. Most importantly, it is absolutely ok to still have Stuffies.

Honestly it depends on the genre and what you want to do. Game of Thrones and Shannara-style books are very different from The Hunger Games or My Brilliant Friend. For Stuffed, there is a world (ok, worlds) that exists in my head fairly well worked out and capable of generating all kinds of different stories. There’s an arc for Foon and Clark, but there are also other tales to tell.

I’m also working on a much more traditionally set up series. In that case I find that it’s good to come up with an overarching plot, how I want my characters to change by the end - the usual stuff - and within those parameters imagine solid stories for each book, advancing the plot and the characters along the way.

Would it be too pedantic if my advice was to get the app Scrivener and keep track of all your series’ details? I have a whole Guide to Monsters complete with (really bad) illustrations (by yours truly) that I refer to constantly.

“I have always been a huge Disney fan so to have the chance to tackle putting a twist on my favorite Disney tales is a dream come true,” she said. “It's always fun to imagine your favorite characters from the films living on and tackling new stories and I love having the chance to do that… This is [Meg’s] journey to rediscover her past, to find peace with her past love and show the world - and the Gods - how strong she really is.”

Go The Distance: A Twisted Tale gives Meg a heroine story full of courage, strength and resilience that not only makes the reader want to turn the page at a rapid rate but allows them to love or hate what these characters may have become had their fates been different.

City of Villains is available here.

The Unicorn Came to Dinner shows children that worries and anxieties are feelings that they will deal with for the rest of their lives, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of. Between Lauren DeStefano’s poetic words and Gaia Cornwall’s dazzling illustrations, this book is a wonderful way to show children how to be themselves.

Jason Lethcoe’s career as an animator, storyboard artist and writer all came about in the same way - a whole lot of luck and determination.

Bob Heath’s Animation in Twelve Hard Lessons taught traditional, two dimensional animation that inspired a teenaged Lethcoe to pursue a career in it. He found an animation school near his home but when he called to inquire, he was told he was too old for their programming. However, the owner’s son-in-law worked for Warner Bros. Animation and offered to teach him on the weekends.

The first time he applied to Walt Disney Animation Studios, still a teenager, he received a rejection phone call that crushed his dreams. His dad encouraged him to not give up, and it wasn’t long after that he accidentally stumbled into his first job working for Don Bluth Productions for their 1989 film All Dogs Go To Heaven.

The second time he applied to Walt Disney Animation Studios, they called him with better news - they wanted him to take an animation test. The next day he received a phone call that said one of their lead animators was impressed with his work and that he had the job. During his first week there, he learned that his portfolio was actually meant to be placed in the do-not-call pile, and it was a complete accident that he had been called to take the animation test.

He made sure to work extra hard to prove his worth, and ended up on the Prince Eric crew for the 1989 film The Little Mermaid, which was released the same day as All Dogs Go To Heaven. He has since spent many years working for Disney, minus a brief stint animating Bugs Bunny and the 1994 film The Pagemaster, and his work as a storyboard artist helped him pursue a writing career.

“I steadily was coming back to this place of writing and thought a lot about the books I loved when I was younger,” Lethcoe said. “I was always an avid reader but I really wanted to write something of my own.”

His first series, Zoom’s Academy, started with Lethcoe receiving a call from an agent looking for his friend and instead finding interest in what he was writing. It went from a self-published book to a book backed by a publisher to a 2006 film starring Tim Allen, Courteney Cox and Chevy Chase.

He has also written two series for Disney Books. The first, Tales From Adventureland, is a trilogy based on his favorite Disney park. The second, The Mouse Watch, is a trilogy based on his favorite Disney mice.

The first installment of The Mouse Watch, released November 3, 2020, is actually written under a pseudonym, J.J. Gilbert. He took his initials and combined them with his grandmother’s last name, who he credits for his love of reading, and gave himself the opportunity to change up his writing style.

“I thought it [would be] a fun idea to use a pseudonym every once and a while,” he said. “It also put me in a different headspace. I wanted to challenge myself to do this whole world-building from a brand new perspective, and sometimes a pseudonym gives you license to play.”

The idea of The Mouse Watch stemmed from some of his favorite books as a child, The Borrowers and The Mouse and the Motorcycle. He also thought of the Disney film The Rescuers and how compelling an updated version of that storyline might be. It inspired the name of the main character, Bernadette “Bernie” Skampersky, as The Rescuers main characters were Bernard and Miss Bianca. The more he created the story, however, the more he moved away from The Rescuers and thought more about Rescue Rangers, the animated television series starring Chip and Dale.

“Gadget [Hackwrench] was such a neat character,” Lethcoe said. “I always loved inventors my whole life and she was so much fun. I thought about if she started a whole secret agent side of things and there were these little guardian angels that were everywhere... it just started getting more and more exciting.”

Lethcoe enjoys a story with a heavy theme, and this middle-grade series is no exception. He thought of a watch (a Mickey Mouse watch, of course) and all the different parts that work together to keep it ticking. Everyone can see the face of the watch, but underneath there’s so much more. Even if the smallest part doesn’t work, it’s completely useless. The same goes for everyday life - everybody has an important role to play and with that should come an excitement about discovering what that role is.

Since it is a middle-grade novel, it still has that childlike magic that not only impresses the reader but inspires them. For Lethcoe, he prefers writing stories geared towards fifth graders as he believes that is the last opportunity for a child to feel that magic and a world full of potential. He has tried to hang onto that spirit his whole life and not forget what it felt like to be that age, and that is what helps his writing the most.

Jason Lethcoe, or J.J. Gilbert, has made a career out of happy accidents. He takes his passions and refuses to give up, which is inspiring to any young artist. As for The Mouse Watch series, the adventures of secret agent mice have only just begun.

For those who have enjoyed a holiday experience at Disney or hope to do so in the future, Holiday Magic at the Disney Parks is the perfect way to reminisce or plan ahead.