[ Music ] >> Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo. Beep, beep, beep, beep. >> Oh, hi. >> Well, hello. >> Well. >> Welcome to the National Book Festival and welcome to the inside of our rocket ship. >> We are currently in outer space, rotating around the Earth, with our brand-new book, AstroNuts, Mission Two, The Water Planet. AstroNuts >> So if there's any technical difficulties don't worry about, it's us in space. >> It's a solar flare, we're space trash? >> Yeah, Bilkov [assumed spelling], don't call names, that's not nice. >> What? >> Okay, well, I'm Jon Scieszka. >> I'm Steven Weinberg. >> I'm the National Investor of Young People's Literature, the first one from a few years back. >> And I'm Steven Weinberg. >> No more stuff? >> Yeah, well, no. >> Well, he's the copilot, he's the illustrator, he's got a lot of the stuff going. Oh, and we are here today to tell you about Book Two of the AstroNuts. >> Yeah, which is, oh -- >> And, as you know, I'm sure you have Book One and you've read the whole thing, but just to remind you it's a secret NNASA program, that's NNASA with the extra N. >> An important distinction. >> Standing for Not NASA, which is four superpowered animals that were built by NASA to look for a Goldilocks planet if things got too bad on Earth. >> Yeah, it's a good -- oh, boy. We have something else, it must be a space dog. >> I think that's our space dog barking, if you happened to hear that. >> Yeah, their mission is to find a new planet if we need to move somewhere else because there's a climate crisis going on and that's a really big part of these books. >> As you know, like things are getting hot, icebergs are melting, seas are rising, animals are dying. So the scientists at NASA thought maybe if we look for another planet that's not too cold, not too hot, but just right, that's the Goldilocks planet. >> Yeah, and that's what they're doing. And the AstroNuts are a couple of mutants ready to travel into space. >> Oh, and the best part is these guys had superpowers. Well, actually I should probably tell you the best part of these books is that they look crazy and they're insane. >> That's a nice, nice version of insane, yeah. >> A nice version of insane. >> So all the art in this book -- I'm the illustrator, Jon wrote all the words. I collage from art all over the world. Everything you see here are engravings that I've recolored. They are made in the sunsets for other planets. I even take paintings -- this is in Book Two -- from very famous painters, like Clambrandt [assumed spelling]. >> You might recognize it, all you Rembrandt fans. But I think my other favorite part of the book, since every book -- there's going to be three all together -- and the AstroNuts go to different planets to look for just the right planet. So Book One was they went to the plant planet, Book Two is the water planet, and Book Three is going to be the perfect planet. >> Which we can't talk about too much. >> No, that's very top secret. But my other favorite part of the book is the beginning of very book you can actually read in like five seconds. >> Should we do it? >> I think we should do it. >> Okay, it's -- >> We have a great -- and it's some great writing. >> Very good -- >> And it goes like this. >> Five, four, three, two, one, blast off. >> And the AstroNuts' secret lab is behind the heads of Mount Rushmore. >> Yeah. >> So their rocket is the Thomas Jefferson nose rocket. >> It gets you into outer space quite quickly. >> It's as plain as the nose on someone's face. >> So let's talk a bit more about Book Two, which is coming out very soon. >> Yeah, yeah, and in fact this gets very exciting because in Book One the AstroNuts found a pretty good looking planet, but it turns out plants were in charge of everything and they had kind of gotten a little carried away, just like humans have gotten carried away here, and they kind of messed everything up. >> Yeah. >> They killed the fish, they killed the birds, they killed everything. >> Each book has a big foldout. >> What? At no extra cost -- >> At no extra cost. Things didn't go too well at the plant planet, so in Book Two they go to the water planet. >> Yeah, because they've got to find another planet, that one didn't work out. So they've got one more shot, they figured let's go look at this planet, it sounds good. >> It's a lot of water, which we need for life. >> And the other sneaky feature of these AstroNuts is they each have a secret power, or I guess it's not so secret, but it's super. >> It's very super and no longer a secret. There's AlphaWolf, who is the mission leader, his -- besides having super strong claws he also is super bossy. >> Super hearing, super silky fur, and he's super bossy. SmartHawk. >> Super dark energy, tornadoes come out of her wings. >> And she is the best planner ever, which you really need on a mission. >> Yeah, then there's LaserShark, who is kind of the nurse, cook big protector, she's tough. >> Yeah, and security officer. >> Security officer. >> She can levitate with her electromagnetism, shoot bolts out of her tail, which is handy later but also dangerous. And then StinkBug probably has one of the most -- >> Noticeable. >> -- noticeable powers. >> Yeah. >> I was looking for the right word. >> Besides being able to jump really high StinkBug does something that is quite stinky. >> He leaks gas. >> Methane. >> Especially when he gets nervous he does. >> Yeah, it smells quite bad and it's quite flammable. >> But each AstroNut has a specific job when they go to a planet. >> Yes. >> So AlphaWolf is looking for intelligent life, SmartHawk is looking at the environment, LaserShark wants to make sure that there's water, as we said like you've got to have water. >> Yeah, and you mentioned StinkBug wants to find building materials. >> He's looking for shelter. >> Yeah. >> So Book One the planet doesn't work out too good. Thank goodness now we're going to the water planet. >> We have another planet and it looks great. >> Looks great. >> They are welcomed by the inhabitants of the water planet, the Clams. >> Turns out Clams have dominated this planet and taken over everything too. >> They seem really friendly, they're led by a Clam named P.T. Clam. >> P.T. Clam Barnum, he's great. >> You might not want to trust everything he says. >> Oh, I don't know, he said look at this great planet, you guys might want this. >> You might want it. >> We have so much to offer. He shows up with a bunch of his friends from the Clam Senate. >> The Clam Senators also have -- don't trust everything I say -- yeah. >> What, are you talking about Clam McConnell, why would you not trust Clam McConnell? >> Clam McConnell and the Clam Brothers -- >> Oh, Clam Rockefeller? >> David H. Clam and Charles G. Clam, yeah. >> Cornelius Clamderbilt. >> And there's some common thing with all of them. >> Well, they've taken over the planet and they're trying to sell it hard, they're saying like, yup, this is a great planet, you guys take this one, we'll take Earth. >> Yeah, but things get a little interesting. >> Yeah. >> As they look under the hood of the planet, so to speak, as they meet the Clam resistance led by Susan B. Clampton. >> Who tells them, you know what, things are not so great on the water planet. >> There are things like the land they promised are actually giant islands of plastic bags. >> Turns out it's kind of polluted and there doesn't appear to be a lot of land and it kind of appears like maybe this is not such a great deal, but AlphaWolf is sold, he still wants it. >> He loves it, he's getting buttered up. >> He's getting offers. So the guys, once again, there's massive fights. That's the special thing that we love about AstroNuts, every planet they go to they get into a lot of battles. >> This is large aquatic panel. >> Yeah, with -- >> A foldout as well, we can't show you -- >> Oh. >> -- in this version, but it also folds out all the way. >> With all of the sea monsters. >> Yeah, which we have to show off sea monster by sea monster because there are so many. You want to read some of them, Jon? >> Yeah, this is kind of one of -- another one of our favorite kind of things we get to do is just go into every sea monster, like collect them all. How about Operation Scary Sea Monsters, right here with the Hell Cootie. >> Ooh, rains fire and brimstone, has a weakness of angel food cake. >> What? Who wrote that? >> This is the Hydra that has seven times bad breath and seven times the headaches. >> Here's Jonah's Worst Nightmare, swallows anything whole, and its only mutant weakness is Sunday School. So another one of our favorite parts of AstroNuts is the narrator, I mean there can only be one narrator. >> I mean I promise you're going to love this narrator. >> Yeah. >> I love the narrator. >> Yeah, she's kind of the smartest, she's been around for, oh, billions of years. >> She's everywhere you look. >> Earth. >> Dah, dah, dah. >> I mean, of course, she would tell the story, right? She's not too happy because things have not been going well. >> Very concerned about the state of the environment. >> Yeah, and in fact so she's the one who always kicks off the book and said, oh, great, blast off, here we go. It's supposed to be exciting, but it's not, it's because I'm falling apart, you humans are killing me. So throughout the book she gets to kind of make fun of everybody and say, oh, come on, like, yeah, go find another planet please, you guys are bugging me. >> Just give me a break. >> But, man, how great is that? Earth, our narrator. >> You got it. There's not much of a segway for this, but I realize we need to talk about it because we're talking digitally through DC. We've gotten to work with the Smithsonian through these books. >> Well, yeah, that's part of the artwork that Steven does, maybe that's our segway. All of Steven's artwork he has assembled from other places, like the Dutch National Museum. >> Yeah, and using the Smithsonian's artwork for the third book -- >> Yeah. >> -- which is wild to get to use, and we've done a whole project with the Smithsonian to use all of their public domain art that they've put out. >> And it's something you can do too. >> Yeah, so if you go to our website, astronuts.space, you can download this booklet as an eBook and learn about how to make your own Collageasaurus [assumed spelling]. >> So the AstroNuts go to the Smithsonian and they meet the ghost of James Smithson, the man who started all the Smithsonian, the restaurants, the guy who started all this. >> All of the snacks and like the restaurant, the Sonian [assumed spelling]. >> It's true. >> They're quite nice. >> Every one of those museums started with this guy. >> Yeah. >> Who gave his money. And so we've used stuff from all the different museums and the AstroNuts have created a Collageasaurus. >> Yeah, one of the big things we tried to stress with this whole series is there's a gigantic climate crisis happening and we need every tool in the toolbox to fix it. >> Yeah. >> So we're making the art, I wanted to use every bit of art I could, because I mean I can draw things pretty well. >> Very well, are you kidding. Look at Steven's artwork. >> But I'd rather use a shark someone else did and use some -- >> It's kind of fun, though, yeah. >> -- shells that were drawn by a scientist in the 1800s and put it all together because it's going to take all of our help. >> Or get Charlie Parker's saxophone and put that in there. >> That's in there. >> That's always useable. And that honestly is the message of AstroNuts, it's like you know what, this is a huge problem, but we can take care of it, there's something we can do. We've got to start working now on this. >> Or we can find another planet, that should be pretty easy. >> Yeah, and when you think about it -- >> And everyone there -- >> -- get like a couple billion people off the Earth and put them in a rocket ship and -- no. >> It's not to give too much away, but the perfect planet for Book Three -- can I tell them? >> Yeah, give them a sneak preview. >> The perfect planet is Earth. >> When you think about it, I mean kind of, of course, right? >> I mean I like Earth a lot. >> Who doesn't? >> The water planet sounds kind of soggy. >> Well, the way we do the AstroNuts books is kind of fun. I do the writing and Steven does the illustrating. >> And we do it all in this spaceship where, as you can see behind us, these are important pieces of paper. >> Yeah. >> Where every single page we draw and we write the first version of it and then I put it up on the wall, and then we just keep going around this room. >> So this is Book Three that's kind of in this shape right now and then Steven does the final paintings. And it's kind of fun and it's a little unusual in the book world. More often like the writer writes the stuff, sends it out, and then the illustrator will do it on their own, whatever they come up with. >> Which honestly just seems like a horrible way to do it for a graphic novel. >> Yeah. >> Because I want to start drawing and be like, oh, that's a funny thing to do with Owltool [assumed spelling], Jon, can you make Owltool funny? >> So that's what we do kind of chapter by chapter, we say what's happening here and then what can we put in, dialogue, what can we just show in the picture? Some stuff has no words, which are some of my favorite. But I actually like the foldout battle. You don't need to say anything for a foldout battle, right? >> Yeah. >> The thing just goes wild and just goes like let's fight you, and it's just a bunch of mad action. >> Yeah, it's unusual to collaborate that way, it's also unusual to collaborate because Jon lives across the street from me. >> Yeah. >> He's also my father-in-law, which is -- >> So it works very smoothly. >> -- it's just great all the time, totally wonderful. >> So Steven has to do whatever I say because it's age before beauty, I think is the saying. Is that the thing? >> Is that how we got the 200 fully illustrated colored pages? >> Yeah, so there's 200, there's a lot of words in here, Steven. But that really is the fun part because Steven and I love books like the Treehouse books. >> Yeah, that was what we looked at first, we loved the Treehouse books, we loved Dog Man. >> Yeah. >> We wanted to get that format where they kind of go from graphic novel in Dog Man to Treehouse, which is its own form, and go somewhere new with that. >> Yeah. >> And then bring a lot of science and talk about something that's really important to both of us. >> And that's the thing you can do with a friend of yours, like if you're not so crazy about drawing find a friend who draws, or if you're not so crazy about writing, or if you're both crazy about both of those things it still works. Because Steven and I get to throw ideas back and forth and then we just kind of think up goofier and goofier stuff, where we think like how good would it be if we had like four monsters. >> Or 10 monsters. We can do that. And even if you don't think your drawings are good enough, which is not true, you're really good at drawing, I was listening -- I collage, there's some things I realized that an artist like Albert Derr is one of the best draftsman ever. He drew this tree really well. I'm going to collage with that. >> Use his tree. >> And it's a fun way to like, you know, connect history, go back in time and you take different art from different places and then you can draw over it, it's a fun conversation to have. >> And all kinds of places love to have you using their stuff now, more and more museums are putting their stuff out, and you can find it online. >> Yeah. >> Or at our website, astronuts.space, we have links to the different places you can go. >> Yeah, the Rijksmuseum in The Netherlands, the Smithsonian had a huge archive now, the Met in New York has a lot. >> Yeah. >> It's just growing, growing and growing, and these are all artworks that have been designated open access with no copyright restrictions. So someone like me can do whatever I want with them, and you can too, I'm not that special is what I'm trying to say. >> Yeah, exactly, get it out there. Boy, you are pretty special with that nice jacket. >> Well, but you also have the exact same jacket. >> Oh, yeah. All right, it's kind of special. >> Wait, I'm getting a transmission from Command Escape. >> Yeah? >> The elevator is going to start going down in -- >> Oh, we've got to go. >> Yup, it's going. >> It's been great. >> Yup, really nice. >> Nice to see you guys. See you later. AstroNuts out. >> It's starting. >> Doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo. [ Music ]