When children’s books get trippy

Inside Victoria’s Toy Station on Government Street, a local news crew collects close-up b-roll footage as an author turns page after colorful page of a brand-new book. But the take is ruined when the cameraman busts a gut laughing behind the lens.

The laugh-inducing book in question that day was Flippy Goes on a Road Trippy, written and illustrated for little children but clever enough to keep parents from nodding off to sleep before their young ones do.

The brainchild of Baton Rouge-born actor John Mese and his college instructor wife, Dawn Kelsey, Flippy began as a string of delirious ideas the couple cooked up on the grueling 29-hour road trip from Los Angeles to Baton Rouge. The smiley, shape-shifting tadpole took form when Mese sketched their first ideas for a children’s book and sent them to his friend, local graphic designer Chanler Holden [see Holden’s converted barn on page 25]. Holden agreed to illustrate the book, and together they published Flippy and Toadpole with the tagline “You can be anything!” as a classic sturdy board book in 2002.

Mese is a veteran actor, friend and colleague of Steven Soderbergh’s and a member of the great LSU acting class of 1986 that includes David Jensen, Eddie Jemison and Joe Chrest. He sent that first book to friends and friends of friends in Hollywood. Brooke Shields wound up with a copy, and she and her children got hooked on Flippy.

“The reaction was much bigger than we expected,” Mese says. “So the second book was done to fulfill the demand of the fans.”

Four popular books later, Mese and Kelsey decided to commemorate that brainstorming road trip with their latest geography-minded book, Flippy Goes on a Road Trippy. “It’s the book I’ve been wanting to write since 2002,” says Kelsey, who teaches storytelling and communications studies courses at Cal State Long Beach. “I’m still shocked when people come up to me and say they are Flippy fans, because these are parents who read these books every night to their kids for years. When the kids love the books that much, it becomes a big part of the family routine.”

Earlier this year, Holden, Kelsey and Mese’s publishing imprint, Moss Covered Gumbo Barn, signed a distribution deal with Greenleaf Book Company to put Flippy into stores nationwide, including Barnes & Noble Booksellers, Borders, and Target.

Kelsey thinks the wider exposure could lead the way to a future cartoon based on the book series. She recently talked her husband into watching SpongeBob SquarePants to get a feel for current children’s programming.

“If we did a cartoon, we’d want to maintain the integrity of it,” Kelsey says. “There would need to be a positive tone in a Flippy cartoon that would be about educating, entertaining and exciting kids while still making their parents laugh.”

They’ve launched a line of stuffed animals based on Holden’s colorful characters, and now Mese and Kelsey are looking to partner with Playmakers of Baton Rouge to bring Flippy to the stage. It’s only a seed of an idea, Mese says, but he hopes in a year’s time Playmakers will be presenting a live version of Flippy and Friends in Baton Rouge.

“Of all the movies and shows I’ve been in, this has become the most creatively fulfilling thing I’ve done, and I never would have thought I’d be writing children’s books—ever,” Mese says. “It wasn’t in my scope. But it is so nice to see the impact these books have on a family over the years.”

Chanler Holden, Dawn Kelsey and John Mese will attend the Louisiana Book Festival Saturday, Oct. 17, on the State Capitol grounds to sign books and talk about all things Flippy. flippyandfriends.com