Noteworthy
MARCH 2021
N E W S , T I M E LY F A C T S , A N D O T H E R
CURIOSITIES
K I D ’ S KO R N E R !
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Gone to Goudchaux’s
JULIE STERNBERG’S NEW YA BOOK DRAWS ON MEMORIES GROWING UP IN THE ICONIC BATON ROUGE DEPARTMENT STORE
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t’s true that bestselling author Julie Sternberg writes for children, but nostalgic Baton Rouge Boomers, Gen X-ers, and Millenials might consider picking up a copy of her latest book, Summer of Stolen Secrets for themselves. Reading the story of Kat, a thirteen-year-old
Brooklynite visiting her family in Baton Rouge for the first time, readers familiar with the downtown area of days past will recognize a certain landmark Main Street department store. “I’ve wanted to write this book for a really long time,” said Sternberg, whose grandparents Erich and Leah Sternberg opened Goudchaux’s in the late 1930s after fleeing Nazi Germany. This year marks the thirtieth anniversary of its closing. “I knew every nook and cranny of that store,” Sternberg said. Representing a half-century’s worth of shared memories for Baton Rouge residents, “The Store” (as it was called by members of the Sternberg family) conjures fond evocations of old Coke machines, being greeted by name at the door, Mr. Bingle at Christmastime, interest-free charge accounts, and Mr. Erich paying local students a nickel for every “A” received on their report cards. Under the Sternbergs’ wing, the single store quickly grew into a
Les Aventures de Boudini et ses Amis TÉLÉ-LOUISIANE PRESENTS THE FIRST ANIMATED SERIES PRODUCED IN LOUISIANA FRENCH
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hat could a magician, a skater Creole girl, and a talking alligator possibly have in common? In the case of Les Aventures de Boudini et ses Amis, the first cartoon ever produced in Louisiana French, the three are united by teaching children Cajun and Creole French, as well as “beaucoup d’adventures” in the swamp. Created by Philippe Billeaudeaux and Marshall Woodworth and launched at the end of January by Louisiana’s French language production company Télé-Louisiane, the intention of the show is not only to provide an educational and entertaining vehicle to teach children French, but to impart lessons about Louisiana culture as
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well as teamwork and positive character development. “We also aim to expose the audience to folktales, history, and all things unique to Louisiana that are sometimes overlooked,” Billeaudeaux said. The inspiration for the cartoon came from “real life Boudini” Ken Meaux, a Cajun ventriloquist and television personality who, along with his alligator ventriloquist puppet, hosted afterschool cartoons and horror movies on television programs that aired in Acadiana in the eighties and nineties, and was the artist behind the first comic strip in Louisiana French, Bec Doux. In addition to contributing to TéléLouisiane, Co-Creator Billeaudeaux is
M A R 2 1 // C O U N T R Y R O A D S M A G . C O M
national chain and in 1989 was even the largest family-owned department store in America. Besides Goudchaux’s—which serves as the backdrop for the book—the biggest influence of Sternberg’s in writing Summer of Stolen Secrets was Leah, her no nonsense Jewish grandmother, who some readers might recognize. Sternberg described her as a small, tough woman, who they weren’t allowed to call “Grandma” and who always said exactly what she thought. In her Author’s Note, she writes, “I can still hear her voice, with its German accent: ‘That shirt is not flattering.’ ‘You’ve gained weight.’ ‘My cooking is better than your mother’s cooking.’” Kat’s own formidable grandmother, who initiates much of the tension in the story, is also presented as Summer’s biggest mystery. “Working in the store,” said Sternberg, “Kat finds secrets of her grandmother’s that help her understand why she is the way she is, and they help Kat to heal her family.” They also help
Kat to better understand her Jewish heritage, which Sternberg explains, is also drawn from her own family history and experiences coming to understand it. In writing a story more personal and tied to her memories than any other book she’s written, Sternberg said that getting enough distance to tell it the way she wanted has taken years. “I had to find a way to make this Kat’s story,” she said. “But once I figured it out, the book took no time to write. Kat’s doing things that I’ve done and her story plays out in the same places, with many of the same elements, but it is still, ultimately, her story.” —Jordan LaHaye Fontenot
a musician with Cajun band Feufollet, who collaborated with the Acadian children’s host of decades past on a series of ads for their single “Baby’s on Fire”. “Around our meeting, I was starting to learn animation and [Meaux] and his life’s work inspired me to create a cartoon catered to French immersion students in Louisiana,” Billeaudeaux said. Billeaudeaux and Woodworth met through a mutual friend and TéléLouisiane contributor, and the pair developed the character of Boudini, his friends, and the universe they inhabit using Meaux’s television personality as a jumping-off point. After initial episode brainstorming, Marguerite Justus writes the script (Billeaudeaux credits her as being the most fluent in French of the team), before Woodworth sketches out the storyboard and Billeaudeaux records the actors in his home studio. Then, Woodworth does
the painstaking work of animating the characters, often having to draw them frame-by-frame. “Since we are using the classic twenty four frames a second, that means I have to draw twenty four individual pictures for one second of cartoon,” Woodworth explained, though fortunately the animation software he uses simplifies the work by allowing him to plug in one of around thirty mouths he’s pre-drawn for Boudini to talk, for example. Woodworth sends the animated scenes back to Billeaudeaux, who then adds effects such as the reflection in the water and the campfire in the final shot, and also composes and
Summer of Stolen Secrets, published by Viking Books for Young Readers, will be available for purchase on May 11, 2021. Pre-order now at penguinrandomhouse.com. See more of Julie Sternberg’s work at juliesternberg.com.
“Boudini (Kirby Jambon) and Coco (Cedric Watson)”. Courtesy of Phillipe Billeaudeaux.
