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I Said No Gifts! A comedy interview podcast with Bridger Winegar · Exactly Right and iHeartPodcasts

Allison Tolman Disobeys Bridger

·1 hr 11 min·2 clips
Her mother rehabilitated orphaned raccoons—including at her brother's wedding.
The hosts spend the episode on children's books. A book with a mother character starts things off. That detail quickly turns into a joke about the story itself and why certain books stick. They settle into a dry, affectionate debate about what makes a children's book feel timeless. *The Kissing Hand* gets singled out as a strong example. The raccoons help, and so does the fact that it feels like a book you could hand to new parents. They are not impressed by newer children's books that seem eager to be funny. The complaint is not fierce. It sounds more like two people defending the quiet, strange standards that make a book stay with you. One host brings up *Where the Wild Things Are* from childhood. They also remember reading *Going on a Bear Hunt* with a sister. The conversation stays nostalgic without slowing down. It keeps circling back to the odd fact that adults can have very definite feelings about books for kids. At one point they talk about a friend who treated a children's book like a normal thing to make and publish. The punch line is how few copies are left. That story sharpens the episode's running joke about how reachable children's-book publishing can seem. The whole conversation stays loose, quick, and lightly judgmental in the show's usual way. It ends up feeling like a comic hangout built from memories, taste calls, and small acts of literary reverence.

As heard by us

A dry, affectionate argument about which children's books actually earn their place.

The episode treats children's books like a neat little taste test: what feels timeless, what feels forced, and what still works because it just does.

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Why you'd press play

You want a breezy, opinionated chat about children's books and why some of them still stick.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →
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