Today we are excited to share a special guest post from husband & wife duo Matthew Swanson and Robbi Behr, (Ben Yokoyama and the Cookie War)!
Read on for more about them and their book!
Meet Matthew Swanson & Robbi Behr
MATTHEW SWANSON and ROBBI BEHR are husband/wife, author/illustrator creators of illustrated children’s novels and picture books. Their national literacy access and awareness project Busload of Books brings free books, creative programming, and hugs to underserved elementary schools across the country.
Robbi and Matthew (and their four kids and two dogs) spent the 2022-2023 school year traveling 34,000 miles in a colorful tiny home school bus, bringing free books and assemblies to students and teachers in all 50 states, and facilitating a landmark research study on the impact of author/illustrator visits.
They spend their summers running a commercial salmon fishing operation on the Alaskan tundra and the rest of the year making books in the hayloft of an old barn on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.
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About the Book: Ben Yokoyama and the Cookie War
Two best friends are pushed to the breaking point when a class election gets out of hand! Rivalry and ridiculousness abound in this delicious, zanily-illustrated adventure for readers who love Wimpy Kid and Dog Man.
It’s the start of a new school year at Honeycutt Elementary and that means one thing: student council elections! Best friends, Ben and Janet are determined not to let mean girl Amy Lou Bonnerman win for the fourth year in a row, but when they both decide to run against her, they become rivals!
At first, it’s all funny posters, free candy, and pie-in-the-sky ideas for how to make the school a better place. But before long, the campaign turns sour—with mean rumors, dirty tricks, hurt feelings, and even sabotage! Ben and Janet’s legendary friendship is put to the test. To make things right, they must expose a conspiracy, swallow hard truths, and remember what’s most important—their friendship.
From the husband-and-wife, author-and-illustrator duo that brought you Ben Yokoyama and the Cookie of Doom comes a tale about keeping your friends close—even when they start to look like enemies.
~ Guest Post ~
Author/illustrator, husband/wife duo Matthew Swanson and Robbi Behr work together to make picture books and illustrated middle grade novels—including the award-winning Cookie Chronicles series. The latest installment Ben Yokoyama and the Cookie War comes out August 6.
There’s an election right around the corner, and your new book is about a student council election. We assume that was intentional?
Robbi: You’re giving us way too much credit. We’re not savvy enough to think that far ahead.
Matthew: It’s true. When I started writing this book, the 2024 election seemed like a distant dream. But yes, The Cookie War is about what happens when Ben Yokoyama and his best friend Janet wind up on opposite sides of a student council election.
R: Everything is great for about five minutes, and then things quickly go off the rails.
How does The Cookie War help introduce kids to the idea of politics?
M: It shows kids how elections and campaigning are supposed to work—while warning about all the things that can go wrong. Propaganda. Misinformation. The perils of the democratic process!
R: Hold on! That’s not what this book is about. It’s about two friends who run for office because they want to make their school better.
M: True, true. Ben and Janet’s big ideas include: making recess longer, getting chocolate milk in the cafeteria, and thwarting the ghost of the haunted mop closet. This book is actually about ghosts and chocolate milk.
R: No! It’s about seeing things that can be fixed and trying to fix them.
M: Robbi is right, as she usually is. I sometimes think she should be the one to write our books.
R: And you would illustrate?
M: No way. I’d make cheesecake to celebrate your publishing success.
R: This plan is not the worst. But let’s get back to the book.
M: Ben and Janet start out by focusing on promoting their big ideas for improving their school.
R: But their attempts to wage a friendly campaign get interrupted by two older kids who offer to “help” by telling them how politics is “supposed” to work.
M: The older kids have cynical and unproductive ways of conducting an election. Pretty soon, Ben and Janet forget about their big ideas and get caught up in mudslinging.
What do you hope kids will take away from the book?
M: Every Cookie Chronicles book starts with Ben getting a new fortune cookie fortune to wrestle with. In The Cookie War, it’s “Actions speak louder than words.” We want kids to see the dangers of merely complaining about the world instead of trying to make things better.
R: If you’re bothered enough to complain about something, do something about it!
M: We want kids to realize how exciting it is that they get to play a role in shaping their world, either by running for office or by voting for ideas they believe in. Even if the ideas are about ghosts and chocolate milk.
R: And don’t forget there’s more than one fortune in this book. There’s also: “You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.” We want kids to see you can get more people on your side by making compelling arguments and showing them the positives of what you’re trying to do rather than being negative about everything.
M: See? Robbi clearly wrote this book and drew the pictures. I don’t know why I was invited to this interview.
You have four kids. How do you talk to them about politics?
R: Whenever we’re voicing our political opinions, we remind the kids that there are people with different opinions that they have for their own reasons. We try to avoid falling into an “us vs them” mentality.
M: It’s also what we’re trying to show in the book: that politics should be about presenting and defending your ideas instead of insulting your opponent— which is what actual politics seems to be about these days.
R: That’s not entirely true. Most of politics is actually focused on running the country and trying to improve how we do things. We hear a lot more about the snipey and mean side of politics, because it’s more entertaining.
Have either of you been involved in politics?
M: I was on the student executive board when I was in middle school.
R: What did you execute?
M: Absolutely nothing! I was reviled by my peers by being placed into a leadership role over which they had no democratic input. I was appointed by the teachers.
R: You were part of a puppet regime!
M: How about you?
R: I ran for student government in middle school and was elected class secretary, for which I did not fulfill any of my campaign promises and was also reviled by my peers. These days, I’m involved in local politics to the extent that I show up to meetings and I speak on behalf of the things I believe in. I try to make things better for our community, but it’s a long, difficult road.
M: Robbi Behr, author, illustrator, and advocate.
The Cookie War is the sixth Cookie Chronicles book. Do kids need to read the rest of the series before reading it?
M: Nope. Robbi wrote each book to be a self-contained narrative.
R: Stop it! Matthew writes the books. I just understand them much better than he does, apparently.
Is it true you spend your summers in Alaska?
R: That is true. In fact, we’re here right now, looking out at the tundra and wearing woolly hats and sweatshirts to stay warm.
M: While our friends back home in Maryland swelter in 100-degree heat.
R: My family runs a small commercial salmon fishing operation, which has been my summer job since I was a kid. We fish for sockeye salmon with 100-yard nets and catch between 50,000 and 75,000 pounds of fish in any given year.
M: Robbi Behr, author, illustrator, advocate, and fisherperson.
R: No wonder I’m so tired all the time.
Did you really spend a year living in a school bus?
R: Not only did we live in that school bus, we drove it…how far was it?
M: 34,000 miles. Robbi Behr, not a mathematician.
R: Thank goodness.
M: We and our four kids and two dogs spent the 2022-2023 school year traveling the country in a 23-foot tiny home school bus visiting one Title I (under-resourced) elementary school in every state, and giving away free books and assemblies to 25,000 students and teachers. We called it the Busload of Books Tour. You can learn more about it at www.busloadofbooks.com.
What’s next for you two?
M: There’s another Cookie Chronicles Book coming out next year—The Cookie of Destiny, about a misbegotten family road trip—and after that a standalone novel called Life on the Moon.
R: But what’s literally next for us is going fishing at 4am, which means we’d better go to bed before Matthew accidentally writes more books I’ll have to illustrate and understand.
M: Robbi Behr, author, illustrator, fisherperson, and taskmaster.
R: It’s a lot to fit on a business card, but I’ll take it.
Title: Ben Yokoyama and the Cookie War (Cookie Chronicles #6)
Author: Matthew Swanson
Illustrator: Robbi Behr
Release Date: August 6, 2024
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
Genre: Illustrated Middle Grade Humor/Contemporary
Age Range: 8-12 years
