Episode 11: Clifford the Big Red Dog 🐕🔴

This week Dave, Shawn & Jeremy take on the Scholastic mascot that's sold 134 million copies — and immediately fall into a K-hole. Highlights: Emily Elizabeth's dead eyes get diagnosed as a symptom of her dying in a hospital and hallucinating the entire book, a full "space mutant dog" theory for Clifford, and a breakdown of why he's basically running a protection racket on the neighborhood. There's a deep dive into the biology of a 25-foot, 87-ton bone-crushing dog with no visible wiener, a tangent about kneecaps being "on the outside," and a full derail into vintage computer RAM. Plus: the wildest one-star Amazon reviews we've ever read (shoutout to the reviewer who called Clifford a neo-Nazi dog whistle), a Louis C.K. bit about Clifford's death penalty, and someone's homemade Clifford song. Final scores are in, and nobody agrees.

🎧 New episode up now — Throw the Book Podcast

Episode 10: Where the Wild Things Are — Max Gets Away With Everything

A kid gets sent to bed without dinner, throws the tantrum of the century, and somehow ends up sailing across an ocean, conquering an island of monsters, and getting crowned king — all before coming home to a hot meal waiting on the table like nothing happened. No apology. No chores. No consequences. This is the book they gave a Caldecott Medal to.

We cracked this one open expecting a cozy bedtime classic and instead spent an entire episode arguing about whether Max is a misunderstood dreamer or the tiniest, most successful tyrant in children's literature. Dave brought in an AI chatbot to defend the book's morals and watched it lose the argument in real time.

Other things we can't let go of:

• A full nautical inspection of Max's boat, which he named after himself, because of course he did, and which is rigged in a direction that defies basic sailing physics
• A full year alone at sea with zero food, which raises questions nobody in this book seems interested in answering — is it a fever dream? A concussion? Did his mom just knock him out with a shoe?
• Maurice Sendak's origin story: sickly Brooklyn kid, lifelong Mickey Mouse obsession, allegedly could not draw a horse to save his life, drew monsters instead
• The theory that the Wild Things are just his ugly immigrant relatives with better hair and worse manners
• Why this "demonic" little book caused a full-blown moral panic decades before moral panics were cool
• A very serious, mostly unresolved debate over how a seven-year-old apparently understands maritime boat registration better than actual sailors

Plus a two-book Sendak giveaway for our biggest fans, and a first look at next week's read, Clifford the Big Red Dog, which we are already bracing to somehow connect back to the Holocaust.

Is Max a genius, a menace, or just really good at getting away with it? Tune in and pick a side.

Episode 9: The Story About Ping — Three Grown Men vs. One Duck, One Spanking, and the Worst Book They've Ever Read

A duck runs away from home to avoid a spanking. That's the plot. That's the whole plot. And somehow, The Story About Ping (1933) still manages to be the book that finally breaks Dave, Shawn, and Jeremy.

What you're in for:

• 🖍️ A "crayon book" so old the illustrator outlived the author — and the receipts on both of their wild backstories
• 🚤 Ping jumps ship, dodges a spanking, and nearly ends up as somebody's dinner (yes, really)
• 🧧 The guys actually dig into the book's very 1930s take on Chinese culture instead of just cringing and moving on
• 💀 A first-ever unanimous throw — all three hosts, all three books, on the floor
• 📖 One host threatens to graffiti "worst book ever" straight into the library's copy
• 🎙️ Verdict: less "children's classic," more "why does this duck have main character energy in the worst possible way"

If you've ever wanted to hear three adults dismantle a 90-year-old picture book with the seriousness of a courtroom drama, this is your episode. Ping never had a chance.