After journey blogger Elise Caffee’s dying, her legacy lives on in new e book – Deseret News

Tiffany Rosenhan says that she and Elise Caffee met over Denmark.

Caffee, who ran the Instagram account 3KidsTravel, reached out to Rosenhan in a DM to ask for journey suggestions. Rosenhan, writer of the YA novel “Girl from Nowhere,” had simply returned from a visit to Denmark together with her daughters, and Caffee was additionally a mom of younger daughters on the time.

Little did both of them know that that Instagram message finally would flip into each a friendship and partnership — a partnership that led them to co-found a publishing firm, Jumelle Press, and, in a considerably full-circle second, write and publish a kids’s e book collectively about two younger ladies who journey throughout Europe.

They additionally by no means may have foreseen the occasions of earlier this yr, when Caffee tragically died following an accident in Mexico in March, abandoning her husband and three daughters.

But now, months after Caffee’s dying, the e book that she and Rosenhan wrote collectively has been revealed. “Pippa and Poppy’s European Adventure,” a kids’s image e book that’s illustrated by Heather Tycksen, was launched Tuesday, and Rosenhan says she believes the e book displays Caffee’s legacy.

“I’m really proud of it, and I hope people like it, but mostly I hope it helps cement her legacy in what she preached,” Rosenhan advised the Deseret News. “She practiced what she preached.”

Brought collectively by journey — and twinhood

Apart from their love of journey, Rosenhan and Caffee had one other distinctive attribute in widespread — they have been each equivalent twins.

So when Rosenhan received the concept to jot down a kids’s image e book about twin ladies who journey collectively, she reached out to Caffee for assist.

By this level, they’d moved past Instagram messages and turn into buddies, typically assembly up for exercise courses or to go climbing collectively. So it wasn’t a stretch to start assembly repeatedly to work on a e book, too.

But whereas Rosenhan knew Caffee as a journey blogger, making her a pure match to co-write “Pippa and Poppy,” she didn’t understand till a lot later that Caffee additionally had expertise working within the publishing business — an business that, independently, Rosenhan had begun to develop an curiosity in.

Rosenhan’s novel “Girl from Nowhere” was revealed in 2020, however progress on the YA spy thriller’s sequel had stalled whereas her husband went by means of some well being challenges. He had suffered a stroke, leading to mind trauma and epilepsy, and Rosenhan basically grew to become a full-time caregiver.

Her husband has since recovered, however it was a protracted street to get there — he needed to relearn many fundamental capabilities, together with studying, writing and even speaking. While Rosenhan cared for her husband and put writing on pause, she discovered different methods to remain concerned within the e book business, together with talking about writing at colleges and different occasions, in addition to consulting and editorial work. This work gave her a brand new perspective, and she or he started “falling in love with the process of building a book from the ground up.”

When a buddy, Maria Lichty, a well-liked meals blogger, advised Rosenhan that she was thinking about publishing a brand new cookbook, Rosenhan advised her, “I’ll publish your book.”

After her dialog with Lichty, Rosenhan reached out to Caffee and requested, “Hey, what if instead of doing ‘Pippa and Poppy,’ we start a publishing company?”

“OK, sure,” Caffee replied, based on Rosenhan.

And Jumelle Press — named for, fittingly, the French phrase for “twin” — was born.

Bringing ‘Pippa and Poppy’ to life

As it turned out, beginning Jumelle Press wasn’t an both/or proposition with writing “Pippa and Poppy” — they did each.

“Pippa and Poppy’s European Adventure,” which was launched Tuesday, is a “Where’s Waldo?”-style journey, filled with intelligent rhymes and watercolor illustrations that seize the spirit of cities throughout Europe.

The concept for the e book originated with Rosenhan, who stated that she had a imaginative and prescient of “these two identical twins that kind of see the world,” with inspiration coming from images of her daughters once they have been younger and “would still wear hairbows.”

One of the primary traces that Rosenhan got here up with for the e book was impressed by a visit to Florence together with her daughters: “While Pippa climbs to the top of the Duomo, Poppy waits below licking lemon gelato.”

But Pippa and Poppy have been additionally impressed by Rosenhan’s relationship together with her twin sister. “Pippa’s like the hard-working one and Poppy is the one who’s like, I’m going to chill,” Rosenhan stated, joking that her sister was extra like Pippa whereas Rosenhan was extra like Poppy.

As Caffee and Rosenhan labored collectively to flesh out the e book, they determined to solely have Pippa and Poppy journey to cities or nations that they’d visited themselves, together with London, Amsterdam, Athens and Paris. And Caffee made positive to prepare the e book in order that it might make “geographic sense” as a route that the 2 ladies would journey.

While Rosenhan took cost of extra of the artistic components of the e book, together with working with the illustrator, Tycksen, on the visible type, Caffee was extra concerned with the e book’s construction, in addition to properly holding on high of deadlines and ensuring issues labored as an entire.

“She kind of allowed my creative expression to go crazy, and she’d kind of like harness it and keep everything on track,” Rosenhan stated.

They had initially deliberate for Caffee to jot down journey tricks to embrace on the finish of the e book, however that wasn’t completed earlier than Caffee’s dying. Instead, Rosenhan labored with Caffee’s twin sister to provide you with journey suggestions for households for the e book.

But even after Caffee’s dying, Rosenhan stated she nonetheless felt her affect as they readied the e book for publication.

“It feels like magic it got here,” Rosenhan stated of “Pippa and Poppy.” “I say (Elise) was like sprinkling magic from heaven, cause I have no idea how I got these books to press without her.”

‘Take the trip’

Caffee’s dying in March was sudden, coming as the results of a automotive accident whereas she and her husband, Dan, have been touring in Mexico. She suffered extreme burns and was flown again to Salt Lake City to be handled on the University of Utah Burn Center, however in the end died from her accidents.

Following her tragic dying, a hashtag started circulating on social media in her honor: “Take the trip.”

Rosenhan says that phrase displays Caffee’s philosophy, each on parenting and on life normally: “Explore, see the world, try new things” — even beginning a publishing firm. Caffee’s perspective was, “Why not try?” Rosenhan stated.

That perspective has carried on in Caffee’s household, together with her husband and three daughters. In the weeks earlier than her dying, Caffee had been planning a household journey to Egypt — and it was scheduled for simply three weeks after her dying passed off. Although it was uncommon for her, Caffee had deliberate out this specific journey in nice element, even abandoning a complete binder filled with itineraries and journey data, Rosenhan stated.

Dan Caffee’s first inclination was to cancel the journey, based on Rosenhan. But after discovering the binder and seeing the extent of care that Elise had put into the journey, the household in the end determined to go.

“It’s like a gift that she left them,” Rosenhan stated. “Seeing them take that trip was just healing for so many people. I mean, they have a life of recovery ahead of them, but I will say, in that moment, it was incredibly healing.”

In her work as a journey blogger, Caffee emphasised the significance of touring as a household — even with younger kids. But for Caffee, the journey itself was all the time secondary to the time spent collectively as a household, based on Rosenhan.

“Maybe that means going to Egypt, maybe it means going to Zion National Park,” she stated. “But getting away from your environment and being together as a family was always her emphasis.”

Though touring with younger kids was troublesome, Caffee prioritized taking these journeys and making these recollections together with her household.

“We don’t know when our time is, and Elise could’ve waited till her kids were older (to travel), maybe a lot easier, and she didn’t,” Rosenhan stated. “And if she had waited, she would not have built those memories with her children. … They built a family culture around travel. And that’s a legacy all three of her daughters want to carry forward, is this commitment to traveling and being good global citizens.”

The way forward for Jumelle Press — and ‘Pippa and Poppy’

The future continues to be a little bit hazy for Rosenhan, who says that the logistics of the work at Jumelle Press will seemingly have to vary as a result of Caffee is “irreplaceable,” including that they’d typically joke that “it took, like, four people to do (Elise’s) job.”

But for now, Jumelle Press, which has already revealed six books (together with “Pippa and Poppy” and Lichty’s cookbook, “Let’s Eat Cookies”), has two more books on the way: a romantasy novel by Utah writer Sara B. Larson, which can be launched Oct. 28, and a kids’s image e book by Utah first woman Abby Cox that’s anticipated someday within the spring.

As for Rosenhan herself, she’s ending up the sequel to “Girl From Nowhere” and getting it prepared for publication, in addition to engaged on her first grownup novel, which she says can be about her great-grandmother.

She additionally says {that a} sequel to “Pippa and Poppy” could also be attainable.

In the meantime, holding Jumelle Press working is necessary to Rosenhan, although she acknowledges there are challenges.

“None of this is easy,” she stated. “From a practical perspective to an emotional perspective, it’s not easy. But I hope I can make it work and keep (Elise’s) legacy alive.”

Rosenhan says that as she strikes ahead, she’ll nonetheless carry together with her the recollections of constructing Jumelle Press with Caffee.

“Having a partnership like that is magic, and it’s rare, and I want to just, like, wrap it up in a bow and cherish it forever.”