Terry Gross

Director Brad Bird and actor Patton Oswalt talk about their film Ratatouille.

The new picture, from digital-animation powerhouse Pixar, opens nationwide tomorrow; it's a comedy about a foodie rat who becomes a chef in a top Paris kitchen.

Bird previously directed and wrote The Incredibles and The Iron Giant.

Oswalt, who provides the voice of the leading rat, Remy, is a writer and stand-up comedian. He's also something of a serious foodie himself — which is in part why Bird wanted him to play his furry hero.

Journalist Jeff Gammage and his wife Christine have adopted two daughters from China; now Gammage, a staff writer at The Philadelphia Inquirer, has written a book about the experience. It's called China Ghosts: My Daughter's Journey to America, My Passage to Fatherhood.

Muslim feminist Asra Nomani, a former Wall Street Journal reporter and co-founder of Muslims for Peace, recently spent a reporting fellowship covering a Muslim woman who was building a women's mosque in India.

Nomani was born in Mumbai, India's largest city, moved to the U.S. as a child, and grew up in Morgantown, W. Va.

Her new book is called Standing Alone in Mecca: An American Woman's Struggle for the Soul of Islam.

Frank Burd and Ed Klein are Philadelphia public school teachers who were attacked on the job. Both Burd, a math teacher, and Klein, a music teacher, talk about the difficulties of teaching in inner city schools.

British musician Jarvis Cocker founded the band Pulp at age 15; he made international headlines in 1996, when he stormed the stage in protest at a Michael Jackson concert at the BRIT awards in London. Lately he's been reunited with his father, who left the family when he was a child, denounced American Idol-style TV talent shows, and released a solo album, called simply Jarvis.

Emmy Award winner Brian Cox's latest show is the HBO series Deadwood (whose third season is now out on DVD), but he's been featured in more than a hundred films and TV shows over the past 40 years.

His films include Match Point, Rushmore, and both The Bourne Identity and its sequel The Bourne Supremacy. He won his Emmy as Reichsmarschall Hermann Wilhelm Goering in TNT original movie Nuremberg.

This interview first aired on June 26, 2006.

Guitarist and vocalist Jack White and drummer Meg White, of the White Stripes, have just released their sixth LP, called Icky Thump.

The two have tried to keep their relationship a mystery, claiming at various times to be brother and sister or husband and wife. (The truth, confirmed by numerous sources, is that they're a divorced couple. )

Jeff Goodell's book Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America's Energy Future, now out in paperback, argues that the U.S. is more dependent than ever on coal. Goodell is a contributing editor at Rolling Stone magazine; he's also the author of Our Story: 77 Hours That Tested Our Friendship and Our Faith, based on the account of nine miners trapped underground.

Food and wine columnist Russ Parsons wrote How to Pick a Peach. He searches for top-quality fruits and vegetables and lists the reasons why supermarket produce is not always the best.

Journalist Laura Rozen discusses the philosophical split within the Bush administration on how to curb nuclear proliferation in Iran. Rozen reports on national security and foreign policy as a senior correspondent for The American Prospect and as a contributor to The Washington Monthly, the National Journal and other publications. She also writes a political blog, War and Piece.