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Episode 5 - The First Chapter...Book with Travis Nardi
9 Plays1 year ago
This week we are joined by 15-year marine veteran and author of the classic children's novel Max Goes Surfing Sergeant Travis Nardi. In this episode, we learn "All It Takes" to be a marine, the interesting childhood of Travis, and then we discuss our favorite chapter books from our childhoods. It is an episode you don't want to miss.
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Transcript
Introduction of Guest Travis Nardi
00:00:12
Speaker
gonna find my baby gonna hold her tight gonna grab some afternoon delight my motto's always been when it's right it's right while waiting
00:00:26
Speaker
Good afternoon Delights, I am your host Matt Lattimer just trying to make you smile on this Wednesday. But I couldn't do that alone so I brought on a very special guest, 15 year marine veteran gunnery Sergeant Travis Nardi. How are you doing today Travis?
00:00:47
Speaker
I am great. It's always great to hear your voice on this podcast. Love it. And I'm very excited about today. Me too. You know, Travis, some people were complaining about the getting to know yourself portion because we all grew up together and everybody already knew each other. But I feel like a lot of our listeners don't know a lot about you. So let's hear about the man, the myth and the legend of Travis
Travis's Hawaiian Roots and Move to Ohio
00:01:08
Speaker
Nardi. Why don't you tell us a little bit about your background and how you grew up?
00:01:11
Speaker
Well, I was born in Oahu, Hawaii, which is on the island of Oahu. My dad was a sheet metal worker out there, and my mother was a stay-at-home mom for the early portion of my life. I grew up in Hawaii, learned to swim when I was like four years old, started surfing when I was six years old, and just enjoyed that island life, eating spamos to be, spamakes and rice for breakfast, rice for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, really having into that Hawaiian culture. Were either of your parents native Hawaiian? No. What caused their move to Hawaii? How'd you end up born there?
00:01:40
Speaker
So my dad, you got a sheet metal job offered to him that just happened to be in Hawaii. And it was supposed to be a couple weeks long and finished that job and they asked him to do another one. And then they asked him to do another one and called my mom up and said, how about you just move out here? And he keeps getting jobs. So my mom backed up everything they had in Arizona at the time, moved out to Hawaii and that's how it all started. So yeah, a couple of Arizona and Colorado kids, my parents were probably 21, 22 years old at the time, moved out to Hawaii. And then I was born a few years later, stayed there almost ever since.
00:02:09
Speaker
Oh, nice. I knew that you had lived in Hawaii. I didn't know that you were born there. And how long were you there for? So I was there until third grade. I started third grade in Ohio. My parents got divorced at the time, but then I moved to Ohio because that's where aunt Carrie and uncle Scott lived and Sean and Ryan. So that's how I ended up in Upper Arlington. We moved in, we lived with.
00:02:29
Speaker
Our cousins, Shawn and Ryan in Upper Arlington for the summer. My mom found a job and could finally afford her own place. So that's how I ended up in
Adapting to Life in Ohio
00:02:37
Speaker
Ohio. And then I spent every summer back in Hawaii visiting my dad and then came back to Ohio for school. So I spent the school year in Ohio until I graduated and spent the summers in Hawaii still surfing and still living that Island life with my dad.
00:02:49
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, that doesn't sound like a bad way to spend the summer at all. I've never been to Hawaii. It's definitely on the bucket list. I'd love to get there for sure. Definitely looks like a beautiful place. I've never heard a bad thing about it other than nowadays it's pretty pricey, but sometimes you get to pay that kind of tax to enjoy true beauty. Oh yeah. The part that was too bad was Ohio weather was pretty terrible year round except for during summer. And I never got to see Ohio in the summer. So Hey, the best month in Ohio is September and you got to experience September.
00:03:16
Speaker
That's true. That's, that's because of football culture though. And, uh, at least in my opinion, it's a great time of year. I'm still pretty nice and warm, but the best weather in Ohio due to being in Hawaii over summertime. That's true. So, I mean, what's, uh, what was your favorite part about growing up in Ohio coming from Hawaii?
00:03:32
Speaker
Well, I was kind of upset about moving to Ohio at first. Everybody talked weird on the radio. It was a different accent in Hawaii, very far away from what I considered home at the time. All my friends were in Hawaii, but what made it nice was being able to see family. So where I had no family in Hawaii, I got to hang out with my cousins.
00:03:50
Speaker
It became some of my best friends. I'm still hanging out with them today, as you know. So yeah, Sean Ryan and I grew pretty close, basically brothers living together for a little bit. And then I finally got introduced to a little bit of football, started football in fifth grade and played football through high school. Really loved Ohio for the sports and the passionate ball, fanatic lifestyle out there.
00:04:07
Speaker
Yeah, that's definitely the lifestyle here is all sports all the time. I think if you, if you look at like any of the viewership ratings on any important event for sports, it's a big NBA game, NFL game, college, anything in the Olympics, Columbus is always up there in the top five. Same with Cleveland and Cincinnati, although they're always top 10. This is sports day for sure.
00:04:27
Speaker
Yeah, I really enjoyed that part of Ohio a lot. Came an Ohio State fan immediately, especially living in a Burlington, being so close and really just dove into that culture. Learned to hate Michigan right away. Had that week, that spirit week, even in third grade, my first year there, I remember it where they gave us the Friday off of school for the game. And the whole week prior to the game was HEP rallies and big signs and make
00:04:49
Speaker
Buckeyes and all that kind of stuff. So I introduced that very young age and I've always enjoyed that part. Yeah. We're always, we're welcoming people. If you want to be a Buckeye, we'll always welcome you with open arms. So obviously, you know, you grew up, you went here, you graduated from Upper Arlington High School. And then did you go straight into the Marines or what was your path
Joining the Military: Influences and Decisions
00:05:06
Speaker
like there?
00:05:06
Speaker
My path was I knew I wanted to join the military probably at age 16. High school and grades and studying and reading at the time was not my thing and didn't have great grades. Didn't have really a plan for college financially and had no idea what I wanted to do. It was either military or firefighting time and I looked in my options. I was like maybe I could do Army National Guard and go to a school for firefighting or be a firefighter in the Army. Looked to the Marine Corps.
00:05:33
Speaker
Try to do force recon out of the like right when I joined and then I also looked at Navy EOD My cousin Sean Ryan's brother was doing at the time He was currently while I was looking at enlisting in Iraq actually So I talked to him while he's over there and basically asked. Hey, how's the job? Do you enjoy it? What's your day day like?
00:05:50
Speaker
And, believe it or not, he kind of talked me out of it because he was getting out. So on deployment, he knew he was getting out, which to me was kind of the final straw of maybe I'll do the Marine Corps then and try a different job. So, yeah. And both my grandfathers were Marines. My grandpa on the McCoy side and my grandpa and Artie were both Marines. So I would kind of lean that way while talking to recruiters.
00:06:10
Speaker
Well, that's a pretty interesting path. We obviously thank you for your service and all your hard work. We support the troops. How many places have you been deployed at in your service? What was the kind of your favorite one or your most interesting
Military Life and Surfing Passion
00:06:21
Speaker
deployment? So I've been stationed several places. My first duty station was in Okinawa, Japan, and then I was stationed in Virginia and then California, then Colorado. Of all of those, you'd think Japan was my favorite, but it was actually felt like I was in prison the whole time I was there.
00:06:35
Speaker
Although it was a beautiful weather, lots to do. I just worked 14 to 16 hour days as a mechanic on CH-46 helicopters. And it's usually six or seven days a week. So there was nothing for me to do other than work, which made whatever life I could have had outside of work impossible. So I spent two years out there.
00:06:52
Speaker
doing that but if I were to pick a favorite duty station it would be California just because of surfing got to live there for six years surfing almost every day that was kind of my gym and what made me happiest I got a lot better at it especially that was something I practiced which I didn't get to do a lot in Ohio so besides the couple months I was in Hawaii didn't really get to surf often so by the time I got to California surfing was the best
00:07:13
Speaker
the
00:07:32
Speaker
Asia. And if I were to pick my favorite location that I've been at, which includes places like Hong Kong, Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, all those places, I would choose Bali as my favorite location I've ever gotten to go to. And that has to do with surfing as well. So for about four days, and I went straight to the beach, rented a surfboard and surfed every single day while I was there. And although I've served places like Pipeline and Sunset and
00:07:57
Speaker
big waves in the North shore and Hawaii, Bali Indonesia was the best ways I've ever searched in my life. And I can't wait to go back there someday. It's all about catching the waves for you, huh? Oh yeah. What would you say was some of the hardest stuff they had to go through when you're a Marine, just in terms of either drills or any type of training activities. I know you were a staff leader for training, right?
00:08:16
Speaker
Yes, things I've had to do would probably be basic recon course, just becoming a reconnaissance marine physically and mentally combined there. I knew it was going to be hard. I saw the videos, I talked to recon Marines, but until I got there, I had no idea that it would actually be as hard or harder than I expected. It's like a daily grind. So every day is the hardest day of your life.
00:08:36
Speaker
But to consistently do that for five to eight months at a time is a whole other thing. Like you could do anything really hard, maybe for a week every day. But once you start racking up those days, it can really wear on you. I remember having to watch motivational videos in the every morning, take ibuprofen in the morning, ibuprofen at night, like stretches for two hours at a time just to get through the daily grind of BRC, which I was an instructor there as well. So I know what it's like to put those new reconnaissance candidates through those hard times and what it takes to get through that.
00:09:05
Speaker
But after that, I think one of the things really hard was pre-deployment training. So we'd spend a couple months over summer doing shooting ranges, house clearing, a lot of hot days in the sun with a lot of gear on, firing thousands of rounds a day, practicing martial arts, fighting in the house, practicing
00:09:22
Speaker
Reconnaissance surveillance, practicing dive missions, practicing freefall, practicing surf passages on the boats to break surf, get out there, come back, dive back in. And just doing that consistently for about a year and a half before deployment really weighs on you mentally and physically. And that was pretty tough. That was probably harder than the deployment itself. It's just preparing for it. So you got to be at your A-game. You don't want to go out and deploy and potentially have to fight the enemy. Not ready. So you get ready, get beyond ready, and then you get ready some more. And that's pretty tough.
00:09:51
Speaker
So each and every time you had to train and do that, it really wears on you. It's really tough, but in the end, it was all worth it. I look back on those times, pre-deployment with those guys and they're my brothers, my best friends. I still talk to all of them in my platoon and I remember those times fondly. Yeah, that definitely doesn't sound like an easy task to accomplish. Definitely got, you got mad respect from probably everybody on this planet for what you were able to go through and do. You're one bad dude. Thanks. What was that?
00:10:18
Speaker
I'm just another guy. I just got to train with some other bad deeds.
Love and Marriage Through Military Life
00:10:22
Speaker
You know, now along the way, even though you've been in the Marines all this time, you were still able to find yourself a lady. How did you meet your wife? I did a little pre-planning for that. I knew the Marine Corps was going to be hard. I'm just kidding. But I did meet my wife in high school. I met her midway through sophomore year. I actually did not graduate from up Arlington. So 10th grade, I moved out to Fairbanks, which is like Marysville, Plain City, Ohio, very small school. I think my graduating class was 90. They had tractor day.
00:10:49
Speaker
with a lot of farmers at that school very agriculturally based but when I moved there a couple girls came up to me I had as a new kid halfway through the year had my schedule a couple cute girls came up and were like hey you know my name is Casey my name is Abby you're new here let me see your schedule and they checked it out and they're like oh you have this class of me this class of me oh by the way you're eating lunch with us and I was like this place is awesome because I got no attention to up Arlington
00:11:14
Speaker
Um, so it was a very good first day of school, but Christine, my wife was in that friend group. So I ate lunch with about nine girls, one of them being Christine, my wife, and got, I was basically friends with a bunch of girls in high school, um, from 10th grade to senior year, besides guys on my football team, but met her sophomore year by the first two weeks of junior year. I asked her out on her birthday. Her 16th birthday is when I asked her out and she said, yes. And ever since then we've been together. So.
00:11:41
Speaker
Coming on 18 years this September with my wife since we've been dating. She said yes. We dated for two years. I joined the Marine Corps. We did the long distance thing, which was tough because while we were in high school, we actually had the same job at Kroger. We're both cashiers at the same place. A senior year since we had already been dating.
00:11:57
Speaker
took all the same classes at the same time. So we spent every waking moment together and then it went to never seeing each other at all. So we had both extremes right up front in the early parts of our relationship and we were pretty patient. We didn't get married till six years after we started dating, but we were still young. We're only 22 years old at the time. So I think that's pretty patient from 16 to 22. I wanted to marry her, you know, the first day in the Marine Corps, day I turned 18, but she held me off for a little bit.
00:12:22
Speaker
And we got married in 2012, in July, and she moved in with me after she graduated college the next year, actually. She graduated in 2013. And we met in Ohio. I was leaving Virginia on my way with orders to San Diego, California. And we drove out there, and that's where we moved in for the first time together at age 23 and started our lives. And it's been great ever since.
00:12:45
Speaker
Yeah, that sounds like a real love story to me. High school sweethearts, doing the long distance across the world, military man. Sounds like a, that sounds like it could be a book. Maybe someday. Not writing romance yet, but maybe. Exactly. Speaking of books, you have written a
Writing Inspired by Family
00:12:59
Speaker
couple. Why don't you tell the people what books you've written?
00:13:01
Speaker
All right, I started with Max Go Surfing. It's a children's book. I started writing it because my son was a year and a half, two years old at the time. And I'm just reading books to him every night and they all rhyme and they're all fun. And I got to the point where I was like memorizing them. And I'm like, I could do this, but I can make one about him. And I think that he would like that. You know, he said, I say his name, maybe you can see it and see how it's spelled, kind of teach him how to read a little bit, recognize his name in a book with letters and make it something fun.
00:13:28
Speaker
And I knew I wanted to be a day anyway. I was currently in college. I started college in 2019 with an English degree. And I'm like, well, let's see what it's like to be in the, in the publishing realm and the realm of writing. And the best way to do it is just do it. So I wrote a book at first, it was probably like 40 pages and I took pictures of Max and I did cutouts and like cut and glued images.
00:13:50
Speaker
And then thought, all right, maybe I could publish this. So I started reaching out to some publishers, talked to some people, and then finally made something happen and got Maxco Surfing published. And that was my first book published and I illustrated it myself. I found a procreate on my iPad and like finger illustrated all the images and made it, made it happen. So that was project one, very proud of it. A lot of people like have had some good reviews.
00:14:11
Speaker
And then I just want to continue from there. So I took a bunch of notes while I was an instructor from 2017 to 2019 on reconnaissance. And I kind of had the idea of maybe writing a book of the questions my students were having about hiking and swimming and doing fins, which is just kicking with fins on with a pack and it's.
00:14:30
Speaker
a lot of stuff students struggle with so i was writing down their questions and i always had answers for them and i would kind of write down my answers and i had this basically a big document of questions and answers of active students at the school asking and then thinking about okay who would read this book probably people before they show up to the school would want this kind of
00:14:48
Speaker
information. So I put it all together, did some editing on my own, asked a couple other recon marines to check it out, see if they thought it was worth putting out there to the world. Check, check it, double check it again, make sure that all the questions that might want to be answered were answered. And I finally wrote and published All It Takes Become a Recon Marine, which is my first nonfiction, like longer form book. And that's been doing great. I probably sell 20 to 25 copies a month on that. It's been out almost
00:15:14
Speaker
two years, almost three years. It came out March 21st, 2021. I picked that date because our MOS code is 0321, which should be March 21st. So I picked that date on purpose. And yeah, March 21st, this year will be three years. It's been out and I've sold over a thousand copies about two months ago. It hit over a thousand copies sold, which is pretty cool. Nice. Congratulations.
00:15:36
Speaker
Yeah, thank you. And then I have Maxtajujitsu, which is just the follow-up of a Maxto surfing. Maxto actually does jujitsu. So I wanted to do something with that. I did my own photography slash editing for that book. I didn't illustrate it on Procreate, but it's like a cartoon photography edit with that one. And I'll probably try to get another kid's book out there soon, but I'm actively working on a new book. It'll be my first fiction novel. I'm hoping to have that done this year. And all I think I can say about it is that it's called Sons of the Solar Wind.
00:16:03
Speaker
Okay, we'll be on the lookout for it. I like to stick to things at my own reading level. So I've read Maxko's Surfing and Maxda's Jujitsu, but I don't have the mental capacity to read a book like all it takes. If it's longer than about 12 pages and doesn't have pictures, it's out of my skill level. That one might not be for you. That's okay. I'll get some more out at your level. I got a couple ideas for some future Maxbooks. I'm into it. I'm opening to suggestions.
Exploring Cats' Historical Significance: How did Vikings help spread cats worldwide?
00:16:30
Speaker
All right, Travis, you ready for me to teach you something? I am. All right. It is time for afternoon delights place at the table. Got a little bit more research into this one than I did in a, in Ryan's episode. But, uh, we wanted to talk about how Vikings helped spread cats throughout the world. And it's a, it kind of turned into cats, a mutual respect with, with people, but we know a lot about the way that dogs were domesticated.
00:16:54
Speaker
When humans started domesticating dogs, how different dogs became bred, why we domesticated dogs, but we don't know a lot about the second most popular animal owned in the United States. And that's the cat. Now, while the cat is the second most popular in terms of dogs for how people would rank them, there is actually more cats owned as pets than dogs because cat owners typically have multiple pets or more cats than what dog owners have for dogs. But cats have been around for a very long time. How did they get spread though? You see, all
00:17:24
Speaker
of them.
00:17:57
Speaker
And from that time forward, cats begin living alongside humans. And you see, unlike dogs that were bred from wolves and they were kept in cages and kind of forced to become man's best friend, cats were domesticated along with humans as a sign of mutual respect.
00:18:02
Speaker
of rodents.
00:18:14
Speaker
That's why you can't just come in and you pet a cat and have it love on you or anything like that. You got to earn that cat's respect with the mutual love. Now, cats, they first started being domesticated in the Middle East as a part of the Fertile Crescent, ancient Mesopotamia, and their migration came in two waves.
00:18:30
Speaker
So about 8,000 years ago, the first migration of cats became as people started taking them along trade routes, mostly through Asia and Africa and some parts of Southern Europe help kind of protect their goods and wares from different rodents on the trade routes. It's obviously well documented in Egyptian culture.
00:18:49
Speaker
just how important and popular cats were. They drew them as signs of their gods. They were worshipped. You can go to Egypt nowadays, look at any type of Egyptian museum, and you're going to see cat stuff all over the place. They knew the importance of these amazing little fluffy creatures. Now, the second migration, it started about 1700 B.C. It really kicked off, though, between the fifth and the 13th centuries through the invention of what I like to call the boat. And who were some of the most fearsome and advanced seafaring people of the era? That's right, the Vikings.
00:19:18
Speaker
And these Scandinavian and Norwegian giant brutal axe chopping, shield wielding beasts, they love these little fluffy adorable cats. The cats, they first reached Scandinavia in about 200 BC. Evidence began to grow that at the time as the Vikings went, so did the cats.
00:19:36
Speaker
Now, unlike other parts of the world where cats were obviously brought in to protect farming, there are signs and proof that these cats were actually already adopted into towns and urban settlements to live as a part of the city. Now, the Vikings, they worship cats. They were popular in Norse folklore, the most popular being that the goddess Freya used giant cats to drive and pull her chariot.
00:19:58
Speaker
Now the Vikings, they made sure to carry all of the cats on their ships for them as rodent control. And as they began to sail and conquer parts of Europe, the popularity of cats grew. They brought them to England. They brought them into Denmark, which then spread into France and Germany, all of the places that the Vikings eventually conquered. Now there's a little bit of evidence to show that there were cats in Denmark and Germany, but far, far more spread because of the Vikings. Now the usefulness of these cats, I mean, it can't go undermined because
00:20:27
Speaker
Obviously the black plague came around the 1400s into Europe and it decimated the population, killing nearly half of all Europeans and it was spread by fleas that was carried on rats. So more and more people started adopting cats as house pets in Europe to help kill the rodents carrying the black plague. So cats helped end the black plague in Europe. They were super important. That's when people really started keeping them as pets and
00:20:52
Speaker
it didn't stop there with the Vikings because the Vikings they voyaged all the way across the Atlantic Ocean. They were some of the first to do it and of course they brought the cats with them so it is because of the Vikings that cats were introduced into both Greenland and Canada and eventually that spread to parts of the United States.
00:21:08
Speaker
Without the Vikings, who knows how long or if the popularity of cats really would have started to boom. Couple of interesting facts is that while most animals tend to decrease in size after being domesticated, for example, dogs on average are 25% smaller than their wolf counterparts.
00:21:24
Speaker
Cats, on the other hand, grew on average 16% larger than pre-domesticated cats. Cats are also the only other animal besides humans that will hunt for sport. Cats will seek prey and kill it just for a challenge, just to have fun. It helped make them even better pets and protectors for farmers to help eradicate the rodents. And then it is a well-known fact that the sweetest, most fluffiest cat in the history of the world was Albus
00:21:51
Speaker
Percival Rolfic Brian Dumbledore Latimer, aka The Sweet Prince and My Cat. How you feel about that being a marine man? You could have been carrying cats on the boat with you. That's awesome. That is a good way to get rodents off of a ship. I'm surprised they don't do that anymore. At least not that I saw. Probably ask Alex with the Navy, but the year and a half that I spent on a ship, I never saw any cats. I know that there's a lot of anti rodent techniques used, like metal walls and stuff, so that they can't crawl under the boat, but didn't know about the cats.
00:22:20
Speaker
Oh yeah. Now Travis, do you have any tidbits that you want to share or would you like to get into the meat of this episode? Let's get into the meat.
Favorite Childhood Books Draft
00:22:26
Speaker
All right. Now you being a writer, you being a big reader, you being an English major, there's only one thing that we could draft and we're going to go with the best books of our childhood. Now for this draft, we're not looking at the books that we read most as little kids. We're trying to look at books that we were reading from first to fifth grade, kind of those first chapter books that you start reading or really getting into that first series. Would you like to draft first or second today? I'll draft first.
00:22:50
Speaker
All right, kick it off, Forrest. You go first, and then I'll take two. If you take the series, you get the whole series. All right, this first one is a series. And I actually got in trouble for reading this so many times. I'd be reading it under my desk in first grade. And I remember my teacher, Mrs. Ikihara, she was a Japanese teacher, just yelled at me, took my book, and I wasn't allowed to read it anymore until I went home that day. And it was Captain Underpants. Oh, that is a great pick that is on my list. That would be number one on Chris Latimer's list. Love it.
00:23:21
Speaker
So I had to go first. Tell me, what do you love about Captain Underpants? Why'd you read it so much? I think I loved it because I identified with the boys in that book. I was kind of a class clown at the time. Definitely made everybody in my class laugh. I liked how the pictures were drawn. It was the flip-a-rama where you could hold your fingers and it shows you how to hold the fingers and flip the pages. I started drawing my own at the time, little action stick figure things on post-it notes. I just loved it. It was very fun. It was a very easy read. It was probably one of the
00:23:48
Speaker
books I was able to read as a chapter book period and just fell in love immediately and I think they came out right around the time I was in first grade so there was only one Captain Underpants at the time in first grade when I was reading it and then they started coming out the series shortly after but it was probably my first my first love of reading was finding and diving deep into Captain Underpants.
00:24:09
Speaker
With my first pick, I'm not taking a series. I am taking the book that I read more than any other book, Mr. Popper's penguins. I easily read this book more than any other book in my childhood. First published in 1938, Mr. Popper's penguins. It's a timeless classic. It's about a family who unexpectedly receives a penguin named Captain Cook shortly after they received the female penguin from the zoo and they start having some babies. Hijinks begins to ensue and there's just a ton of crazy activities, a lot of fun. This is just a great family story from start to
00:24:39
Speaker
finished. I don't think that I could have read Mr. Popper's Penguins any more than I did. Still read it today. Looking forward to one day having kids and being able to share that book with them. Now my second favorite book that I got on here, this one is a series. It is Ghostville Elementary. I read all of these. When I was a kid, there's about
00:24:56
Speaker
four or five of them that I really read a lot. It looks like now that the series is up to 18 different books. This is the Tales of an Elementary School that has a haunted basement of ghost children. In the first book, there's an alive student that accidentally gets assigned to the classroom and they have to go down and try and study with the ghost kids.
00:25:15
Speaker
I mean, just havoc. These kids just cause a ton of pranks and a lot of problems for everybody in the story, a lot of funny ways, good tales, and as a little kid, it's just spooky enough, so I'm taking Ghostville Elementary with number two. Give me your second pick, Travis. All right, second pick, The Magic Treehouse. Ooh, that's a good pick. So that's about, I think Jack and Annie. It'd be amazing if I got those names right, because I haven't flipped open those books in a long time. I'll look it up.
00:25:42
Speaker
But I'm pretty sure it's a brother and a sister. There's a tree house that they discover. And if they read a book in the tree house, they actually dive into that world. I think one of the ones that I remember the most is Night of the Ninjas, where it sucked it into the magic tree house into Japan and become ninjas. And then they come back and then each series, or each book in the series is a new world or time period where they become cowboys or pirates or something and have an adventure for returning home and no time passes.
00:26:10
Speaker
uh, adventuring in the tree house. You were right on the name. It is Jack and Henny. Wow. So kudos to you. It's amazing. You really read the book a lot. All right. Give me pick number three. Pick number three would be Harry Potter. No, that was you piece of poop. Oh, that was, I didn't think you'd take it.
00:26:31
Speaker
Harry Potter fifth grade. I think those books just came out around that time too. I'm a little older than you but grade for me and the first Harry Potter book came out and that's all anyone talked about and I my friend was reading at the time and I picked it up fell in love and had to wait for each and every book to come out as I grew older and through middle school in high school. So yeah, Harry Potter by far.
00:26:52
Speaker
Harry Potter needs no explanation. It's a clear top choice. The first movie came out when I was seven, and then that was when I was in first grade. And then in second grade, they were still a little bit out of my reading, I think, but I got the audio books for the first two. And then in third grade, I definitely remember sitting down and starting to actually read the books. I don't know if I tried to read them before that or not, but I definitely remember third grade.
00:27:13
Speaker
Alright, well, you took that one for me, so I gotta go to my fourth option here. My third pick in this draft is a tale that if you are from the state of Ohio, if you are an Ohio State alumni, if you love Halloween and you love all things spooky, there's only one choice. And I'm going with Goosebumps.
00:27:31
Speaker
That is right. Written by R.L. Stein, an Ohio native and Ohio State alumni. If you want the spookiest, scariest, creepiest, crawliest books of all time, Goosebumps is the option. The original series, it had 62 books. Currently it's up to 235. It's had multiple runs on television, multiple movies. Every single kid that I knew growing up read Goosebumps and they read every single one.
00:27:56
Speaker
You go to a shelf in any classroom from second grade through fifth grade, and every room had every Goosebumps book. There's no way that I read all of them because there was just too many, but I definitely had to read at least 30 or 40 of these things.
00:28:09
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. I actually completely forgot about Goosebumps somehow, which is a sin because I read about 30 of those as well. And those were probably one of my favorites. See, you're missing out, man. People forget about these things. Goosebumps is great. I did. I even watched a masterclass. I got it as a, as a birthday present for all the experts teaching you stuff and like how to write stories. And one of them's like how to write children's stories or like young adults. And it's a masterclass taught by Arnold Stein.
00:28:33
Speaker
And he talks about his writing process and how he came up with all of the stories and everything like that. And people always ask him how he comes up with the ideas for the books and everything. And he's like, well, sometimes I would just be having a conversation or hear something or somebody would say something. And I would be like, that's a great title for a spooky book. And then he would figure out a story based off of just the title. That's great. That's a good way to do it.
00:28:56
Speaker
truly a master of what he does. All right, now my next pick, pick number four, you know, as a child, I had a massive sweet tooth and it came out in this book, which was also a movie. I'm taking Charlie in The Chocolate Factory. Now, obviously, Willy Wonka in The Chocolate Factory was a dream movie for me when you grow up having a sweet tooth. This book is just a dream come to life. I read through it multiple times.
00:29:18
Speaker
little bit different than the movie but it still has all like the kind of funny actions and everything that you want to see as a kid and you can picture chocolate river and you know mike tv is this little short dude who gets shrunk down to size and then they have to flatten them back out and roll them so he could when he comes out of the chocolate factory he's like six foot eight and super skinny and all that different kind of stuff so it is fun it has the little couple it's not like an illustrated book because it is a chapter book but you know like the kids books every 20 pages they have a little drawing so
00:29:46
Speaker
has that kind of stuff. It's a great feel to it. A big fan of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Classic. Love it. Give me your last two choices. All right. This one blew my mind in fifth grade when I read it. And I remember running up to my teacher at the time and being like, this is so amazing. I can't believe that all these things connect, but I love this book and it is holes.
00:30:05
Speaker
great choice love that book that might be one of my early inspirations for wanting to be a writer looking back just how everything lines up with a great great grandfather and zero being a zaroni and the Stanley Yelnats name taking up the treasure and how it all plays out I just love that book
00:30:21
Speaker
And that was probably the first book I ever read that blew my mind with a twist, so to speak. I don't know if it would have blown my mind now, but in fifth grade, I remember that moment. So yeah, Holes. Holes was an amazing book. It was, in my opinion, even a better movie. I probably watched that movie 500 times as a kid, read the book a few times. It's up there with, I don't even have this one on the list, but I'll throw it out as an early honorable mention. Hoot, Hoot and Holes are two really great books. What's your last pick? Last pick to be tough.
00:30:47
Speaker
I'm going to go with something that's probably unknown, but it's also a book that I read alongside Captain Underpants series in first and second grade that got me in trouble. It's a Super Mario Tuesday Night Adventure series. So back in the 90s, I think it was 97. That was when I was in
00:31:03
Speaker
first and second grade came out with the Super Mario 2 zone adventure books and there was mazes and puzzles and crosswords and all kinds of things and activities you could do right in the book to help figure out the mystery and you collect coins just like the video game can make decisions there was if you made the wrong decisions it would give you a game over just like the game you could like die in the book
00:31:24
Speaker
And you could get farther and depending on what your choice is where you could really finish that book really quick or actually get through most of it. I'm choosing the right path and finish strong and win, win the book, so to speak. So I really enjoyed those. I don't think I ever have heard of or seen the super Mario adventure book might have to go out and find one of these bad boys.
00:31:43
Speaker
Oh yeah, it's early days of Mario and the Super Mario craze. They basically created the lore of Mario with those books. I don't know, that's pretty interesting. With my last pick, I'm torn if I take the next one on my list that I feel like people will be really mad at if neither of us pick it. And picking one that isn't necessarily a book, but I loved it all the same. I'll go with the classic because it's technically more of a book.
00:32:07
Speaker
but i'm gonna take with my last pick charlotte's web oh yeah great i don't think there's a single kid alive in the united states really a single person since this book was written that has not read charlotte's web in elementary school it's the definition of an all-time classic it lasts up over time it is a great novel for elementary school kids and i think it is gonna be forever the
00:32:28
Speaker
You know, the story of Wilbur coming in, being a little piggy on the farm, becoming friends with the spider, Charlotte guiding his way, um, helping him win a blue ribbon when he was smaller than everybody else by doing all of the images and everything. You know, it's kept a good heartwarming story with when you really think about it, I always tell my wife because she always wants happy endings and all the good things. And I'm like.
00:32:46
Speaker
Well, when a certain character dies in a book or something bad happens or the winners don't always win like the bad guys get to win like in more in real life and like those kind of books. I'm like, those are the books that it upsets you at the time or it makes you sad at the time, but that's the impression that it gets. And it's always the better book. And, uh, I mean, that's, that's kinda how Charlotte's web is to a tee for like little kids. It has a very bittersweet ending, but I think that's what makes it the long lasting pick. Yeah, it makes it memorable. You don't forget that, that kind of ending. Great pick. Love it.
00:33:15
Speaker
All right, Travis. I mean, that's our list. Do you have any honorable mentions? I have, uh, two. I'm going to honorably mention the giving tree, um, by lower end, lower end of the first grade, but I feel like you're still reading that, that kind of book in a first grade. Yeah. I had that on my list originally and I took it off because it was like, is this too early for the age range that we're drafting? That's kind of what I was thinking, but it does have almost a paragraph on it per page sometimes. True. Yeah. It's a tough one. And then a series of unfortunate events. Oh, forgot about that.
00:33:44
Speaker
That was another one in like fourth or fifth grade that I started, started reading and those were coming out kind of like Harry Potter around the same time. Siri was, was growing with me. I definitely think people are going to be mad. I actually have never read the book, but people will be mad if I don't throw out an honorable mention to the giver. I think every other kid maybe besides me read the giver.
00:34:01
Speaker
I didn't. Okay. Besides me and you, that's probably why it wasn't on the list. I didn't read it. For me, obviously, like I said, I had a sweet tooth. That's why I'm a little bit chubby now, but the chocolate touch, which is kind of a story about a kid who liked King Midas where he wishes everything could turn to gold. He wishes everything that he can eat turns the chocolate. So it like starts off as this amazing thing of always getting chocolate and then eventually he gets tired of chocolate, but he can't get rid of it.
00:34:27
Speaker
learn your lesson type book. But as a kid, I never learned my lesson because I love chocolate so much. I couldn't understand his plight. But I read that book a lot. Big Friendly Giant is on there for sure. And then the two books that maybe read just as much as anything else on this list or more than I was divided between is why I said they're not really books is it's a book of poems, which is Falling Up and Where the Sidewalk Hands by Shel Silverstein. Beautiful books.
00:34:50
Speaker
two of my all-time favorites, read those all the time. It didn't put it on because it's a book, but it's a book of poems, so I kind of left it out feeling like it didn't fit the category. Great choices though, like the honorable mentions. Alright Travis, it is time for Afternoon Delights Book Club.
Book Club Recommendation: 'The Alchemist'
00:35:05
Speaker
You're a big reader. You're always posting stuff on your Instagram for the different books that you've read. Why don't you give me one that you would recommend for the book club?
00:35:13
Speaker
Alright for the book club if you haven't read it yet and this is tough because there's so many books floating around in my mind all the time but I've probably gifted this book more than any other one besides the Red Rising series but it is The Alchemist and that is an adventure book
00:35:27
Speaker
a journey of Santiago, a young shepherd boy looking for treasure. He makes the great trek across the Sahara Desert to go visit the pyramids, and he learns a lot of lessons on the way. Very spiritual book, very enlightening, empowering, and just a fun, short adventure. It's not long either. It's only maybe 150 pages, and definitely worth a read for anyone who hasn't read that yet.
00:35:46
Speaker
All right. We'll have to give it a look. Hopefully out there, everybody's listening. Now, if you want more recommendations, oh, he's got it with them right there. All right. Now, if you're looking for more recommendations, Travis, what's your Instagram for people to follow you? Cause you're recommending about three books a day on there. Yeah. And every book that is recommended on my Instagram is a book that I have read and completed. So it's nothing that I'm not just putting random books up there, but it is Travis underscore Nardi N A R D I. And that is my name.
00:36:13
Speaker
All right. It sounds good. Everybody go out there, give Travis a follow, read some of those books, you know, keep sharing them with everybody else with Keep the Afternoon Delights Book Club going. Travis, thank you for your service and thank you for coming on. You were a great guest today. Thank you so much for having me. I'm glad you're doing this. Very excited for all the future guests out there. Love listening to this podcast. All right. We appreciate it. I'm your host, Matt Latimer. Thank you for listening to Afternoon Delights today. And I'm just reminding you to keep on smiling. Love it.
00:36:42
Speaker
I'll be your St. Goodnight. I hate to go and live this pretty side. So long, farewell, I'll be your St. Andrew. I do, I do, to your Andrew Andrew.