Weekend Edition Sunday

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AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Audie Cornish.

Looney Tunes are back! A brand-new cartoon short called I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat debuts in theaters this weekend. It features beloved comedy duo Tweety Bird and Sylvester The Cat, but the real star of the show is the man who made them famous.

Mel Blanc was the voice of Warner Bros' most enduring cartoon characters for more than 50 years. He died in 1989, but an original recording of Blanc singing "I Tawt I Taw a Puddy Tat" has been remastered for the new short, playing in theaters alongside the film Happy Feet Two.

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My next guest taught me how to solve all kinds of puzzles of history. Lynn Harding was my history teacher in high school back in Randolph, Massachusetts; and my current events teacher and my homeroom teacher. Well, we spent a lot of time together and our conversation is part of the StoryCorps National Day of Listening Project this year.

We're hoping you might also sit down with a teacher on the day after Thanksgiving and listen. It's not something I'd really done before with Mrs. Harding because, well, she was really tough on us.

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There are many ways to describe the season between Thanksgiving and New Years, but for cooks it's cooking season. People across the country are dusting off pots, pans, and favorite cookbooks to prepare for multiple holiday dinners and all the meals in between.

NPR Kitchen Window Contributor Susan Chang started her holiday cooking early. She's been busy in her test kitchen coming up with a list of the year's best cookbooks to use and to give in the holiday season.

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Time now for your letters. Homes and home ownership were a huge topic of discussion. Many listeners wrote in response to our reports last week on the real estate market, including a conversation with NPR senior business editor Marilyn Geewax on the impact of the housing slump on Gen-Xers.

MARILYN GEEWAX, BYLINE: Say you were 30 years old in 2006. If you bought the typical house then, it was the peak of the bubble, you paid about $250,000. Now, you're in your mid-30s and your house has dropped in value by a third.