The story of how two Utah women wrote their first children\u2019s book is inextricably intertwined with their friendship \u2014 and how they created the company that is now publishing it.<\/p>\n
The book, \u201cPippa and Poppy\u2019s European Adventure\u201d<\/a> (Jumelle Press), will be released in stores and online this week, months after one of its authors, Elise Caffee, died after a tragic accident in Mexico.<\/p>\n \u201cI think [Elise] would love it,\u201d co-author Tiffany Rosenhan said, tearing up a bit.<\/p>\n Caffee was best known for her popular 3 Kids Travel<\/a> blog, where she chronicled adventures with her children. While on a trip with her husband in Cancun, she suffered severe burns in a 10-car crash<\/a> that involved a truck carrying hot asphalt. The 45-year-old died six days later in Salt Lake City, where she was flown for treatment. <\/p>\n Rosenhan said she and Caffee had been working on the book for about six months before they ever agreed to create a publishing company.<\/p>\n The idea was ignited after an encounter between Rosenhan and food influencer Maria Lichty, who told Rosenhan that she was looking to publish her next cookbook.<\/p>\n \u201cI was, like, \u2018I\u2019ll publish it. I\u2019ve been wanting to start a publishing company,\u2019\u201d Rosenhan told The Salt Lake Tribune over coffee in Sugar House recently. \u201cShe\u2019s, like, \u2018Are you serious?\u2019 And I was, like, \u2018Yes. I\u2019m dead serious.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Rosenhan then pitched the plan to Caffee: \u201cI said, \u2018Elise, what if, rather than publishing [our book somewhere else], we just started the publishing company together?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s how they started Jumelle Press<\/a>, a Salt Lake City-based publishing company that Rosenhan said specializes in nurturing influencers, particularly women, to become new authors outside \u201cthe New York publishing ecosystem.\u201d <\/p>\n The word \u201cjumelle\u201d means \u201ctwin\u201d in French, selected in part because both Rosenhan and Caffee each had twin sisters. It\u2019s also because the two clicked so quickly.<\/p>\n \u201cWe say we bonded so well, because as identical twins, you\u2019re used to being two halves of the whole,\u201d Rosenhan said. \u201cYou\u2019re used to a partnership, and you\u2019re used to a balance.\u201d<\/p>\n (Jumelle Press) Tiffany Rosenhan, left, and Elise Caffee, co-founders of Jumelle Press and co-authors of the children’s book “Pippa and Poppy’s European Adventure.”<\/p>\n Meet Pippa and Poppy<\/p>\n Pippa and Poppy, the sisters in their book, are also identical twins.<\/p>\n The intrepid characters are modeled after both Rosenhan and Caffee and their twins.<\/p>\n In one two-page spread, for instance, Pippa and Poppy zip around Florence, Italy, together on a Vespa. Caffee and her twin, Kristina Buskirk, used to ride their bikes around Tokyo as 10-year-olds when their family lived there for a time. (Rosenhan said her only book regret now is that the characters, intricately illustrated by Utah artist Heather Tycksen<\/a>, are blonde, not strawberry blonde, like Elise and Kristina were as girls.)<\/p>\n The rhyme at the end of the Florence page goes: \u201cWhile Pippa climbs to the top of the Duomo, Poppy waits below, licking lemon gelato!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s always one twin doing something, and one twin wanting to eat the treat,\u201d Rosenhan said. With her own twin, Rosenhan said, \u201cI\u2019m always the one eating the treat, and my sister\u2019s always the one doing something cool.\u201d<\/p>\n Rosenhan \u2014 who published her first novel, the spy thriller \u201cGirl From Nowhere,\u201d in 2020 \u2014 first met Caffee through a mutual friend. But the two quickly realized they already knew each other online.<\/p>\n Rosenhan had posted on Instagram about a trip to Denmark with her daughters, and Caffee had commented, asking for tips because she was traveling there soon.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m sure I just gave her a random Google screenshot, because I\u2019m not organized \u2014 and she would have [sent me] a spreadsheet,\u201d Rosenhan joked.<\/p>\n The two grew to participate in activities together \u2014 pottery class, boxing lessons, aerial silks \u2014 Rosenhan said, but \u201cElise and I always bonded over books. We just would talk about what books we\u2019re reading, and that was how our friendship evolved.\u201d<\/p>\n (Trent Nelson | The Salt Lake Tribune) “Pippa & Poppy’s European Adventure” by Tiffany Rosenhan and Elise Caffee.<\/p>\n The writing process for two<\/p>\n For weeks, while writing \u201cPippa and Poppy\u201d in earnest, the pair would meet nearly every Thursday at Caffee\u2019s house, figuring out which places the characters should visit.<\/p>\n \u201cI would say, like, \u2018Uzbekistan!\u2019 And she\u2019s, like, \u2018I think they should go to London,\u2019\u201d Rosenhan said, \u201cbecause she\u2019s a travel blogger, and she knows where people typically go.\u201d<\/p>\n Ultimately, they chose 12 locations \u2014 Florence and London, along with Porto, Portugal; Iceland; Bergen, Norway; Denmark; The Netherlands; Prague, Czech Republic; Athens; the Adriatic; Switzerland, and finally Paris.<\/p>\n As Caffee\u2019s twin wrote on Instagram last week<\/a>, several of those stops were places Caffee once personally recommended to Buskirk years ago, when Buskirk \u2014 nervous about traveling to Europe with her kids \u2014 asked her sister for advice.<\/p>\n \u201cMy sister\u2019s motto has always been, take the trip. Kids are kids where ever you are. They can have tantrums, bad attitudes, and go through hard stages… so you might as well be somewhere cool while you\u2019re experiencing them,\u201d Buskirk wrote, celebrating the book\u2019s release.<\/p>\n The illustrations take some innocent geographical liberties, like putting the Houses of Parliament in London next to the Abbey Road crosswalk. Each spread reflected what Caffee and Rosenhan learned while traveling with their children. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s always a park, a cafe, a museum, and something that I want to do,\u201d she said. \u201cElise was so on these, on every page \u2014 \u2018We need to have food, we need to have design, we need to have something fun\u2019 \u2014 so every single page has those elements.\u201d<\/p>\n Each spread also includes a seek-and-find element, like \u201cWhere\u2019s Waldo?\u201d, with little items from each place Pippa and Poppy visit. That\u2019s something they were working on when Caffee died. <\/p>\n \u201cI did my best, but I\u2019m always, like, \u2018Sorry they\u2019re not as good as they would have been if Elise was the one writing them,\u2019\u201d Rosenhan said.<\/p>\n The last time Rosenhan heard from Caffee, she had sent her writing partner an image of Pippa and Poppy in their Norwegian ski clothes. \u201cHer last text to me was, \u2018Good job,\u2019\u201d Rosenhan said.<\/p>\n Continuing with Jumelle Press without Caffee has been challenging, Rosenhan said. \u201cIt was like magic working together,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen you\u2019re a creative, you like to think of the big picture and you like to create stories. It\u2019s easy not to be taken seriously. \u2026 Elise always saw what I considered my deficits as irrelevant, and she valued my assets.\u201d<\/p>\n Jumelle has several books in the pipeline. Next is \u201cA Promised Vengeance,\u201d a young-adult variation on \u201cThe Count of Monte Cristo\u201d by Utah author Sara B. Larson<\/a> (who\u2019s written the \u201cDefy\u201d trilogy, the \u201cDark Breaks the Dawn\u201d books and the \u201cSisters of Shadow and Light\u201d books). <\/p>\n Late next spring, the company is releasing a children\u2019s book by Abby Cox, Utah\u2019s first lady, about Jennie Kearns, the widow of silver magnate Thomas Kearns who donated the Kearns family home to the state of Utah, eventually becoming what\u2019s now the Governor\u2019s Mansion in Salt Lake City.<\/p>\n Like twins, Rosenhan said, she and Caffee \u201cwere very well balanced. \u2026 Together, we formed an excellent, really an impeccable, partnership.\u201d<\/p>\n The book\u2019s text was about two-thirds written when Caffee died, with some initial illustrations sketched out. Rosenhan said that if Caffee saw the finished product, \u201cI think she\u2019d be very proud of it. I think she would say, \u2018Good job.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Note to readers \u2022<\/b> This story is available to Salt Lake Tribune subscribers only. Thank you for supporting local journalism.<\/p>\n