Behind the Covers Series: A New Favorite Catholic Picture Book!

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First, I cannot tell you how excited I am to introduce to you an amazing couple! Randy and Adalee Hude are an author and an illustrator couple who have not only written and illustrated picture books together but they have also started their own publishing house! How amazing is that?!? So without further delay, grab a cuppa and come meet Randy and Adalee!

Hello Randy and Adalee, could you please introduce yourselves and your brand new publishing house, Ave Lamb Books?

Hello Mattie! My name is Randy Hude and being married to Adalee I have long considered myself as a “patron of the arts” half-jokingly. Our publishing house (quite literal in our case), Ave Lamb Books, was started because we’ve always wanted to share our love of a certain style of book and to be able to produce it on our own limited schedule and maintain creative control over the projects. 

And I’m Adalee; the beneficiary of Randy’s patronage (amongst things!). I’m blessed to be a published Catholic illustrator for 9 years now, and I have authored/edited a couple of Catholic children’s books. Randy and I have been married for 15 years now- we have two beautiful children whom we adopted, and several wee intercessors. Ave Lamb Books is the fruition of our spiritual creativeness together!

Could you introduce us to your first release: The Oil and The Asking?

Adalee: Thanks for asking about it, Mattie! The Oil and The Asking tells about devotion to the Holy Face of Jesus, introduced in story and rhyme. The story centers around a fictional young man, Rene, whose grand plans for his life abruptly change one day. After a chance encounter with the real, historical character, blessed Leo Dupont, he discovers that his popular notions of what life is all about might be flawed. This book was created to be like a vintage picture book in style and in length. We were aiming for something whimsical, and while the book takes a few serious turns, there are small delights to be found on many of the pages, especially in the original illustrations. It makes a great family read-aloud.

Is this your first literary project together?

Adalee: Yes, but we have plans for more!
Randy: Actually, no, we worked on a couple of slight, entertaining books about our pets many, many years ago! How could you forget?! 🙂
Adalee: Easily, these days!

How did working together on this beautiful picture book go?

Randy: It went very well all things considered. We have a long list of book topics and narrowing it down to this topic was probably the toughest part. But Our Lord pointed the way ultimately in His own unexpected manner and convinced us this first book should be about the devotion to the Holy Face first popularized in the mid-19th century. Working together was relatively easy. We now share a home office and Adalee has been accustomed to waking around 4 each morning in order to get a little work done each day before the kids wake up. For the 6 weeks or so of initial writing, I began following her schedule and slowly worked up the story told in rhyming couplets as she drew her illustrations making this little world come alive. 

Adalee: And for a time there, after discussing how the day went for the children, we were constantly discussing books before bed! But I always enjoyed navigating the waters of this endeavor, together.

Randy, why did you choose to write in rhyme (I love it!)?

I have always delighted the most in reading books to our kids that rhyme. Part of it is the cadence, part of it the artfulness of having to play within a set form. In the case of The Oil and the Asking, I originally wanted the more Seussian anapestic tetrameter rhyming couplets but we found that those lines were trickier for test readers to read properly and the somewhat breezy style didn’t fit the subject as well.  So ultimately we went with simple rhyming couplets along the lines of iambic pentameter that’s more typical for English verse (though it’s not doggedly followed). The most important thing to me was that it sounded good read aloud, and for the most part I’d say it does.

Can you tell us a little more about your process with that?

The funny thing about trying to work within a poetic form is the limits you have also free up spontaneous creativity. I remember distinctly one of the early mornings last year writing the line “As the sun began its normal route one fine dawn” and then struggling to think up a good rhyme for “dawn.” The action for that page was originally intended to show the young men tearing down some poor person’s house and then an accident with the machinery hurts the protagonist Rene. Well when I got to this page in need of a good rhyme for dawn, the inspiration to suggest the young men dismantling buildings in the name of progress would come to Lisette’s “lawn” occurred and gave additional weight to the story that wasn’t originally plotted. There’s something exciting about moments like that, and it could only have happened by having this structure, these limits.

Adalee, I found your illustrations different, maybe softer (?) than in some of your previous work? Did you change something? A different media maybe? Can you talk about your process a little?

But of course! With this book (and actually, we’d like to do a series in this style) I knew I wanted to come up with something a little different, a little quicker than most of my previous work. I had dabbled with a mid-century picture book style for a few years now, but looked back a little earlier to books like “Curious George” and “Madeline” and vintage ads of the 40’s. For several months I practiced this new style, with quick line movements and softer, but bright colors in my Substack newsletter, “A Brightly Hude Life.” I draw digitally in Procreate (which makes it easy to start and stop, being a busy mom!), so once I got my version of this vintage style down, it made it fairly easy to illustrate The Oil and the Asking – at least easier than with some other books. Deo gratias!

But wait! There is more! Part 2 of this delightful interview with Randy and Adalee Hude, author and illustrator of The Oil and The Asking and founders of Ave Lamb Books Coming next week! Youa re not going to want to miss it!
Love,
Mattie