Local Author Publishes Unique Children’s Book

By Chuck Keller, Contributor

Once upon a time, a man named John Noble had the idea to create an illustrated children’s book based upon a chapter from a fanciful Italian novel. The adventure began. But he didn’t know that this adventure would take him halfway around the world and back. He has much to learn and much to do. But that’s the beauty of an adventure. 

There are always two stories to a book. One is the story in the book and the other is the story of the making of the book. One is a very solitary process while the other involves many people.  The story of Baucis, Tale of Childhood Near the River Po took over seven years to finally come to fruition and required the input from numerous people. 

Fort Thomas resident and architect, John Noble, is the author. He designs schools, mostly for elementary levels so he is familiar with early learning education. 

He had the good fortune to design a school inspired by an early education expert Reggio Emilia which got Noble thinking about learning and thinking about the role of the teacher. “I was hooked,” he said. It’s a unique approach to discovery learning. “The focal point is the notion of the child as a self-directed learner [and] as a person who learns through play,” Noble said. He is animated and passionate about this approach to learning.

Noble said architects enjoy competition that sparks creativity. Noble said, “There was a competition called fairy tales….. The challenge was to write a fairy tale in five paragraphs that was illustrated with five images.” That is when the seed for Baucis was planted. It sprung forth from a chapter in one of his favorite books, Invisible Cities.  

He said, “I had been reading, um, rereading, probably for the 30th or 40th time, Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino.” The novel is a series of conversations between Marco Polo and Kubla Khan as Polo recounts fanciful visits to incredible places in Kahn’s empire. Noble explains that the stories “could be understood as sort of metaphorical descriptions of any city.” 

Baucis is not only a city in the novel but is also a mythical character who ultimately was rewarded by Zeus for his generosity. The story haunted Noble.  He said, “I had this niggling of a thought that I could write the origin story of this city. And I thought about it, and I wasn’t sure I was going to do it.” But this is what happens when a seed is planted in an adventure, it takes root, and grows and grows until one must act. 

Then Noble ran across an artist from Peru who was illustrating the invisible cities from the novel. He said, ”She was doing these incredible etchings of each city.” So he planned to contact her about illustrating his book when he finished writing an early draft of the story and had something worthy to share. 

Well, that particular night, he couldn’t sleep “because I had this story in my head, and I just kept going over it and over and over again. And finally, I realized that if I didn’t write it down, I wasn’t going back to sleep.” So he did. And he kept returning to the story to polish it. And polish it. And polish it. 

By the time his story was ready to present, the illustrator in Peru was not. By chance, a friend introduced him to a renowned illustrator from France who turned out to have Northern Kentucky roots. That was Charlie Padgett who now lives in Bordeaux, France. He is married to an Italian and they have a daughter. Noble said that he took a chance and sent his story to Padgett to see if he was interested. He was. So now two people on opposite sides of the globe shared this journey. Noble said, “So we’ve been working on it for a little over two years now. And I think we are done!” 

“There are a couple of things about the book that are a little bit different,” Noble said. It is interactive. It invites the reader to move the book, twirl it around, look at it sideways, upside down and in a variety of ways.” There are things to engage readers that propel the story forward. For instance, the reader must turn the book to view images or to read the text. 

Padgett was attracted by the rich imagery of the story that offered lots of illustrative possibilities. In addition to his usual pieces for technical and scientific journals as well as The New York Times, he found time to illustrate a few other books. 

Padgett said, “This is the fourth one I have illustrated. Previously, I have illustrated the books; Runaway Imagination by Lori Dierig (which was awarded a bronze medal by the Independent Publishers Awards), The Corner – this one is actually a record album with a gatefold picture book inside.… Then I wrote and illustrated a self promotional book called Searching for Sasquatch that I sent around to clients and sold a few at local stores. My artistic style has certainly changed over the years and these projects are each a snapshot of my style at that time as it evolved to where I am currently.”

Padgett was attracted to the theme of transformation and the discovery of a world that has always been there but not noticed. Padgett said, “I was excited about the potential of crafting this world of Baucis and its inhabitants.”

An obvious question would be if the distance presented any difficulties. Both thought the distance didn’t matter. They exchanged electronic drafts and occasionally chatted via Zoom. But nothing beats an in-person conversation. Padgett said that, “We did have video chats occasionally and that helped but when I finally met John in person for a cup of coffee at Fort Thomas Coffee, it was still fairly early in the project. That meeting brought the end goal into focus because I understood better who he was as a person.  I got to hear his story and he heard mine. We spent most of that meeting talking about our lives more than the book but in doing so, that helped us connect on a deeper level which benefited our partnership.”

Padgett said that “The illustrations that were the hardest for me to create are the visuals of buildings and of the city. I really struggled with all of those at first, I thought I had to be exact, like an architect in how I created them and it felt like math and I hate math. Then John and I were discussing the ‘devil may care’ ingenuity that seems to be innate in Italians and we looked at how they would build these amazing villages teetering on the side of a mountain or how  buildings on narrow streets seem  to create a labyrinth welcoming you to get lost inside and to enjoy the wandering. Seeing all that helped me realize that the buildings didn’t have to be exact, that I could mess with physics and bend reality, so I tossed that worry out the window and it became fun again. In fact, on my wall in my studio I have a ton of hand written inspirational post-it quotes. On one of them I have written ‘Resist Realism!!!’ That has become my mantra. I think when things are drawn in a way that isn’t 100% accurate is way more interesting, that imperfection gives it some soul that can take you to unexpected places.”

John enjoyed working with Charlie. It was “so much fun working with him because I had a vision. I lived with this story for about seven years before I showed it to him….I had ideas about what the format was going to be….It’s been such a fruitful collaboration because I would send him ideas and thoughts and he’d bring them back better than I ever imagined.”

Noble had many read the beta versions of Baucis. He took each piece of criticism to heart. But one stood out. Noble tested his story on two young neighbors, Conrad and Hugo, through their mother. As she began to read it to them, one asked, “Mom, where are the pictures?” She replied that there weren’t any and he responded with, “It’s just a piece of paper then.” So the importance of the images became even more paramount. That feedback became paramount to create engaging visuals. He dedicated the book to those two young critics. 

In fact, our reading enjoyment is enhanced when we can see the images that bring that story to life. 

The journey is now complete. The story has been released to the world for all to share and enjoy the magic. Nothing of much interest comes from traveling a straight path, especially alone. The most interesting stories are about the twists and turns in the path. We are compelled forward. So the adventure of Baucis can now be shared with others. And shared adventures make for the best memories. 

One of the challenges to writing a children’s book is to distill valuable life lessons for new readers. So it’s important for adults to read those children’s books to stay connected to what is important or who we want to be.  

And that is how an idea became a book. The end. 

You can see more about how the story developed as well as order copies by visiting baucisbook.com.