The Story Behind the Book

The story of Tastebudless Bud began about 30 years ago. It originated as a bedtime story I'd tell my younger brother, Craig, when he'd sleep in a sleeping bag on the floor in my room. I'm four years older than Craig, whose nickname is Bagel, which although it has nothing to do with this book, is still apropos.

Bagel loved to sleep in my room because I would make up bedtime stories to tell him (we're four years apart). After several sleepovers, his favorite story quickly became my Bagels versus Doughnuts series, which involved our favorite breakfast foods battling it out in a galactic food fight.

In these early versions of the story, the bagels and doughnuts were at war, battling for supremacy of Crouton Island. I was only eight years old at the time, so there wasn't much to the story besides bagels catapulting cream cheese at doughnuts and doughnuts fighting back by spraying their sprinkles and flinging frosting at them. 

I always gave the bagels and doughnuts names that were the kinds of puns that a third grader would think of... Like George Frostington and Ulysesames S. Grant.

Over the years, I would jot down notes for a more complete version of the story in my notebook until one day in my early twenties, I decided to finally write a proper kids book.

I finished that first draft and showed it to people I trust and while most liked it, it felt like it was really just a first pass. So I did what we writers do and I rewrote it and rewrote and tore it up and rewrote it again until the story finally matched the creativity, humor, power and scope of the original idea.

Then I rewrote it again.

And now here we are. I flat out loved writing this book. I cannot wait for my kids to read it.

I can't wait for your kids to read it.

I can't wait for you to read it.

- Jon