Hi, this is Zibi Owens, and you're listening to Totally Booked with Zibby. Formerly, moms don't have time to read books. In my daily show, I interview today's latest, best-selling, buzziest, or underrated authors and story creators, whose work I think is worth your time. As a bookstore owner, publisher, author, and obviously podcaster, I get a comprehensive

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Chastin Buttig is the author of Papa's Coming Home.

Chastin grew up in northern Michigan.

He is a teacher, advocate, and husband of former presidential candidate Pete Buttigig.

Chastin currently lives with Pete, their two children, Gus and Penelope, and their rescue dog

buddy in Traverse City, Michigan. His memoir, I have something to tell you, was a New York Times

bestseller in both the adult and young adult editions, and I had him on the podcast to discuss

the young adult edition. You can visit chastin at chastonrides.com. Welcome, Chastin. Thank you so much for coming back on Totally Booked with Zibby. Now to talk about Papa's coming home. Congratulations. Thank you. Thanks for having me. That's my pleasure. I am going to feel inferior literally every time I get to the airport from now on, because this is what I could be getting. And instead, maybe a car service or something, probably not. I mean, I think the hug at the end of the day is the best thing. I know. That's true. Yeah. But I'll take the cake. The cake would be nice. I wouldn't turn it down. Yeah. Okay, give a little rundown of what the book is about.

Well, I actually wrote the book on an airplane. I was thinking for a long time about the kind of story I wanted to tell.

I really just set out to find books that looked like our family. I had been searching for a book that I could read to my kids.

You know, this was about two years ago. It's wild to think my kids are about to turn four.

And when they were about two, I was looking for a book like this. And I just wanted it to be a

fun day in the life story of a family that looked like ours. And while I was on the airplane,

I thought about how excited I was to get home

to them and how excited the characters in this book might be to welcome their dad home. And that's

where it came from. And my kids sort of helped me write it along the way as I went through draft

after draft of the book. And here's where we wound up. Wow. So what you don't find out in the book,

I have some questions about, where was the dad? How long was he gone? I need to know.

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