A few highlights of how the book “Cayendo Hacia Arriba” was made.
Here is my new book on the floor of the print shop waiting to be bound. It’s the Spanish edition of the kid’s book, “Falling Uphill: The Secret of Life.” I needed to hover over the guys at the print shop because it just wasn’t getting done on schedule. Aah! And the books need to be on an airplane to Argentina the next day! But luckily, it made a fun trip for me. I got to take some photos and videos. And, I loved watching the book come together. There was a team of people working on it. One lady had the job to make sure none of the pages were upside down.
Would you believe they printed enough for 250 extra books just in case there is a mistake in binding?
At the beginning of the video below, you can see the book at the printer as it is coming off the printing press.
The back cover
The back cover uses the photograph from the original English edition of “Falling Uphill: The Secret of Life.” We wanted to recreate this image in Argentina, but since we went to 14 schools and an orphanage, we couldn’t get enough people in one spot. The above picture has over 500 people in it.
Here is the full story of how the school photograph in the shape of a bicycle was made.
And here is a step-by-step guide to how the books are made.
How the book was illustrated
Each school worked differently. Below the students worked in groups on the floor. We brought our own pencils, erasers, markers and paper because some of the schools we attended were very poor. I actually brought a whole box of supplies with me from the United States. Looking back, I wish I had brought even more.
I liked how the teachers, the “maestros”, and the students wore white coats, like scientists. I’m taking this photograph. I hardly took any photographs because I was asked to work with the students, which is, of course, why I was there.
The above photograph is one of my favorites. I selected this to be in the book. It is one of the pages that shows the cultural differences between the English and Spanish versions of the book. You can see it is an image of a football (soccer) player and a tango dancer, two icons of Argentine culture.
