{"id":1800,"date":"2009-09-20T00:01:24","date_gmt":"2009-09-20T06:01:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=1800"},"modified":"2009-09-20T08:04:07","modified_gmt":"2009-09-20T14:04:07","slug":"7-imps-7-kicks-133-featuring-elizabeth-o-dulemba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/?p=1800","title":{"rendered":"7-Imp’s 7 Kicks #133: Featuring Elizabeth O. Dulemba"},"content":{"rendered":"

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“Hugo didn’t hear the rest. He wriggled free and took off running. But now he had, ‘I’m out, so you are in’ stuck in his cabeza. And he still could not remember what his mother wanted him to buy at el mercado.”
(Click to enlarge.)<\/em><\/center><\/p>\n

Jules:<\/font><\/strong> Blogger<\/strong><\/a>, illustrator, and first-time author<\/em>\/illustrator Elizabeth O. Dulemba<\/strong><\/a> is here this morning to tell us about the picture book she’s just written and illustrated, a bilingual title called Soap, Soap, Soap ~ Jab\u00f3n, Jab\u00f3n, Jab\u00f3n<\/strong><\/a><\/em>. She’s very psyched about this and has embarked on a blog tour to talk about her excitement. The book, available as all-English or bilingual, takes this<\/strong><\/a> classic Appalachian Jack tale<\/strong><\/a> and gives it a new, contemporary, Spanish twist. The story now takes place in a small town with a protagonist named Hugo. I’ve got a bilingual copy and some spreads to share from it today. If these colors don’t wake you all up this morning, I don’t know what will. <\/p>\n

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Cover art; click to enlarge.<\/em><\/center><\/p>\n

Here’s Elizabeth to tell us more about it: <\/p>\n

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When I was a little kid, I loved getting muddy. Scratch that: I still do. Of course, the bubble bath afterwards isn’t bad either. But it’s funny that somebody, at some point, had to teach me about cleaning up after getting dirty. (It’s not intuitive.) But I think it’s part of why I’m getting such a good response to my <\/em>first picture book as both author and illustrator (just took seven years), <\/em>Soap, Soap, Soap<\/strong><\/a> (and the bilingual, <\/em>Soap, Soap, Soap ~ Jab\u00f3n, Jab\u00f3n, Jab\u00f3n)! It will be officially released September 25th, 2009, but it’s already been picked up by the Alliance Theatre’s Teaching Artists program, and bookstores are selling it to teachers by the bucket-loads (per my publisher’s book rep) to tie in with hand-washing or general hygiene instruction in their classrooms. Ironic, considering I never intended that to be a main feature! I was just trying to tell a good story.<\/em><\/font><\/p>\n

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“Hugo was near the playground when he slipped in a puddle of mud. KERSPLOOSH! His slide through the charco de barro surprised Hugo so much that he forgot what his mother wanted him to buy at el mercado.”
(Click to enlarge.)<\/center><\/p>\n

Soap is my second book with Raven Tree Press; the first (I only illustrated) was <\/em>Paco and the Giant Chile Plant<\/strong><\/a> (2008). Happily, my publisher was so pleased with my work (it won a Moonbeam Children’s Book Award Bronze Medal) {that} they wanted more. And, since Paco was an adaptation of <\/em>Jack and the Beanstalk, the groundwork was already in place for another Jack tale (which I have a thing for anyhow).<\/em><\/font> <\/p>\n

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(Click to enlarge.)<\/center><\/p>\n

The original version of <\/em>Soap is inappropriate for modern audiences, and—while there are many adaptations out there—it’s still a lesser-known tale. So, it was a challenge to write, but I love the general concept of the story — the remembering and forgetting wrapped up inside a crazy adventure. That’s where I got to play. The best part was, since my publisher specializes in bilingual picture books, I had the privilege of sharing the story with a multi-cultural audience for the first time.<\/em><\/font><\/p>\n

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“Hugo was still repeating ‘lo siento’ when he passed Se\u00f1ora Soto on the sidewalk. She had dropped her grocery bag and now the eggs were broken. Huevos oozed everywhere. She overheard Hugo saying ‘lo siento’ and blamed him for the mess. ‘Joven,’ she said, ‘young man, I’m out of eggs, so you are in…'”
(Click to enlarge.)<\/center><\/p>\n

I placed the story in a rural “Anytown” setting (although I think of it as middle Georgia — I live in Atlanta). Since it was modern day, the star from Paco didn’t fit, so he became Hugo (named after my little cousin Hugh, a.k.a. “Hughlito”). The setting presented some challenges, too. Originally, I saw it in olive greens, wheats, and oranges. But since I had to include so many indoor bathroom scenes (glaring white tiles), I needed to adapt the palette for consistency. It became much more colorful with strong greens and blues, yellows, even some reds. I drew most of the elements by hand (pencil on paper)—higgeldy, piggeldy all over the pages—then scanned them into my computer to create my compositions in Photoshop. I rendered in Painter. I also pulled in some textures for the grasses, bricks, and mud. That was fun to experiment with, and I hope to do more of that in the future. In the end, it looked very different from what I expected. But that’s nothing new. I rarely know what something will look like, once my hand is done with it.<\/em><\/font><\/p>\n

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“When Hugo returned home, his mam\u00e1 was happy to see him — but not the mud.
‘\u00a1Por Dios! My goodness!’ she cried. ‘Hugo, you’re a mess! You need an un ba\u00f1o.
It’s no wonder we use so much soap!'”
(Click to enlarge.)<\/center><\/p>\n

As a creator, I never feel like my work is complete until it’s being enjoyed and interpreted by its audience, and I’ve been thrilled by the reaction to <\/em>Soap. I figured the embedded Spanish, light graphic-novel format (for reluctant readers to segue into graphic novels), and touch on bullying would be a pull (those I did on purpose), but I never considered the muddy-to-clean part. Duh! My story has grown legs! It’s out in the world now, making its own path, and it’s an exciting time. (And the rubber duckie has become quite the sidekick!)<\/p>\n

I’m having a blast marketing <\/em>Soap, since with this book I’m leaning more on technology, the Internet, and social networking. I created an e-galley for librarians, teachers and reviewers (send requests to elizabeth at dulemba dot com) and my first book trailer, which you can see here<\/strong><\/a>. Two years ago, I started making coloring pages available as free downloads from my blog for teachers, librarians, booksellers, and parents to share with their kids. Since then, the collection has grown quite large and Coloring Page Tuesdays<\/strong><\/a> has become a huge part of my online presence. People sign up to receive weekly alerts, and my subscription numbers have gone through the roof. Of course, I’ve been talking about <\/em>Soap quite a bit lately and offering give-aways, too! On the non-techie side, I’m speaking at four festivals this Fall (which I love) and doing some panels. Between those and this fantastic blog tour, I’m feeling like <\/em>Soap is off to a GREAT big ‘ole SUDSY start. Yay!<\/em><\/font> <\/p>\n

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“…where she made him scrub, scrub, scrub with jab\u00f3n, jab\u00f3n, jab\u00f3n!”
(Click to enlarge.)<\/center><\/p>\n

Thanks for having me on Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast!<\/em><\/font><\/p>\n

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Best of luck to Elizabeth with the book. Don’t miss the mud pie dessert and mud pie cookie recipes here<\/strong><\/a> at her site. Mmm. That’s my kind of educational outreach.<\/p>\n

As a reminder, 7-Imp’s 7 Kicks is our weekly meeting ground for taking some time to reflect on Seven(ish) Exceptionally Fabulous, Beautiful, Interesting, Hilarious, or Otherwise Positive Noteworthy Things from the past week, whether book-related or not, that happened to you. <\/p>\n

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Soap, Soap, Soap ~ Jab\u00f3n, Jab\u00f3n, Jab\u00f3n copyright \u00a9 2009 by Elizabeth O. Dulemba. Published by Raven Tree Press, McHenry, IL. Images reproduced by permission of the author. All rights reserved.<\/em><\/p>\n

* * * Jules’ kicks * * *<\/strong><\/font><\/center><\/p>\n

<\/a>1). I heard Mary Oliver<\/strong><\/a> read some of her poetry at Belmont University on Thursday night. She was wonderful. I even got to speak to her, though very briefly. <\/p>\n

2). Two great friends and former colleagues from Knoxville came to middle Tennessee to attend that reading with me. We had great conversations all night, including over dinner after Mary’s reading, about books and poetry and music and education and writing and so on. One of them, Rachel, crashed at our place and spent the next day with me and my three-year-old. <\/p>\n

You know how you have those rare friends who are superb conversationalists, excellent listeners, and fun-and-smart-as-all-get-out so that everything they say interests you and you feel like if you were stuck in a room for seven thousand years together with no chance of ever getting out you’d still<\/em> find stuff to talk about the entire time? That’s Rachel. I’m gonna steal Pascal Lemaitre’s<\/strong><\/a> wording and say that Rachel is a sun. (Shannon<\/strong><\/a>, too, but you know…I’m singling Rachel out, since we got to talk for much longer. If only Shannon could have stayed…)<\/p>\n

3). Speaking of great friends: My dear, dear Jill (one of our consistent kickers, too) saw Sam Phillips live last week way over on the West Coast where she lives, sent me an autographed concert poster (see left)—oh! as well as a little Alice<\/strong><\/a><\/em> music box she had picked up for me!—and gave me the super-special low-down on Sam’s plans for new music<\/strong><\/a>. Why, yes, of course I’ve already signed up. <\/p>\n

4). Elbow. Elbow. Elbow.<\/strong><\/a> (For which I also have Jill to thank.) I know, I know. I mentioned them last week (and, you know, the week<\/strong><\/a> I first found them and showed that video with the beer-stine percussion), but this CD is seriously SERIOUSLY good. I’ve been listening to it so much that my girls are now walking around singing the songs. My husband put it best when he said the songs give him goosebumps as he rides into work, listening. Yeah. That. They’re all goosebumps-inducing and will raise the hairs on your skin. <\/p>\n

This here below is my new favorite Happy Song (“Throw those curtains wide \/ One day like this a year would see me right”) — and love song. No one writes love songs quite like Guy Garvey:<\/p>\n

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I promise I won’t mention them again after today, or you may get Elbow’ed out. <\/p>\n

* * * eisha’s kicks * * *<\/strong><\/font><\/center><\/p>\n

HEY! You wanna piece of me, Abe? STEP UP.<\/a> My one big kick this week is that, after a month of feeling like the Lincoln exhibition<\/strong><\/a> I’m helping coordinate was kicking my ass… this week I finally felt like I was kicking back.<\/p>\n

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That’s it for us now. What are YOUR<\/font> kicks this week?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Hugo didn’t hear the rest. He wriggled free and took off running. But now he had, ‘I’m out, so you are in’ stuck in his cabeza. And he still could not remember what his mother wanted him to buy at el mercado.”(Click to enlarge.) Jules: Blogger, illustrator, and first-time author\/illustrator Elizabeth O. Dulemba is here […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-seven-good-things-before-monday","category-picture-books"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1800\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blaine.org\/sevenimpossiblethings\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}