Pop-Culturalist.com

Alex Boniello and April Lavalle are multifaceted storytellers who are best known for their award-winning work on the stage and screen.

This summer, they became debut novelists with their children’s book, A Case of the Zaps. A tale with equal parts humor and heart, A Case of the Zaps is a great way to begin talking about mental health and anxiety for readers of all ages.

Pi’s just like any other kid robot: They love to listen to music, play with their dog, and hang out with their friends. And when their teacher announces a field trip to Olde Silicon Valley, Pi couldn’t be more excited! They daydream of all the awesome things they want to see and do there––but also begin to worry about all the things that could go wrong . . . Then, on the way home, Pi feels a ZAP! They try to avoid the strange feeling, but the Zaps keep happening. Pi doesn’t understand. They have a firewall installed! What could be going on?

Pop Culturalist was lucky enough to speak with Alex and April about A Case of the Zaps, collaborating with illustrator James Kwan, the experience of writing their debut book, and creating conversations among parents and kids.

PC: There are so many different facets to each of your talents, and now you’re also authors. How did you come up with the initial idea behind A Case of the Zaps and what can readers expect from it?
Alex: We had the ideas years ago. It was at a souvenir shop in one of the stores in Central Park. It was very random but also very specific. We were looking at a bunch of children’s books and the idea popped into my head. I remember immediately mentioning it to April. We both were like, “That sounds fun. That sounds good.” Then it got shelved until the pandemic and the whole world shut down. Everyone was looking for things to do.

April: It got shelved because we were like, “We don’t know how to write a children’s book.”

Alex: That too. [laughs]

PC: A Case of the Zaps creates conversations about anxiety in a really digestible way. Was that a challenge to toe that line? How did this set of characters allow you to strike that balance?
April: We did have outside help, which was really, really awesome. We worked with the Child Mind Institute. I have some experience working in the mental health space. Alex has done some things for the Child Mind Institute in the past. We wrote the book to the best of our ability, but we’re not therapists and we’re not doctors. We wanted to be very, very careful about how we were talking about these things. There were tiny, little, slight changes in words that can really affect a kid. We had the Child Mind Institute consult on the book. They were able to tell us what was appropriate language and what little changes and tweaks we could make. Some words might evoke feelings of shame. We would never really think of that in our adult brains, but they were able to guide us through the whole process, which we were so, so grateful for. We couldn’t have done this without them.

PC: There are some fantastic illustrations in this book. What was the collaboration like working with James as you brought this story to life?
Alex: I absolutely love talking about this for a few reasons, the number one being that I think a lot of people, including us before we started this process, had no idea how this worked. We wrote this whole book. Then Abrams, our publisher, picked it up. Once the book was mostly locked, that’s when we started talking about illustrations. We were working with our amazing editor, Emily Daluga. Emily showed us a handful of artists.

It was this strange, silent auditioning process where we were going through all these artists’ websites. They were all awesome for totally different reasons, but we saw James’ work and April and I instantaneously agreed that something about the way that he captured characters felt very right to us. We always say that we were looking for something that was a bit off-center, something that was a little bit weird, quirky, and special. James’ illustrations were exactly that.

As far as the collaboration process went, we had no idea this is how it worked. As authors, we don’t communicate with the illustrator. I thought that once we picked the illustrator, we’d sit down and have a Zoom call. We’d chat. But that’s not how it works.

Now I understand that it’s to protect everybody that’s involved. The editor is the middle person. We would say, “This is what we’re looking for on this page.” Then the editor tells that to the illustrator. The illustrator draws it, and it goes back and forth. It was really exciting for us because we got an email one day that said, “James has drawn the whole book.” We were like, “Whoa!” It was a really exciting moment. We are used to working in spaces where collaborating is instantaneous, and that’s not what this is.

April: We love James. We couldn’t be happier with what he came up with. Even though we weren’t in constant communication with him, we felt like our brainwaves were connected. When we saw the illustrations, it felt right. It felt like what was in our head but better.

Alex: It was cool. He was a mind reader. We met him for the first time at the book launch event. The running joke between the two of us was that we hoped James thought we were cool. [laughs]

PC: That’s amazing. Something that I didn’t expect from this book was how much humor you were both able to incorporate into it, which I think makes it really fun for parents to share with their kids. Was that something that was really important to both of you as you were writing this book? Why do you think comedy lends itself to this type of storytelling?
April: It was something that we definitely wanted to incorporate from the beginning. First of all, conversations about mental health are scary and big. We wanted to show that there can be levity in these moments. Even though you do have to be brave sometimes to have these conversations, it doesn’t have to be this big, sullen, sad, hard thing to do. Additionally, Alex and I wanted our book to feel like the books we liked as kids. We really both liked The Stinky Cheese Man book, which is super funny, so we wanted to incorporate some humor into the book.

I also worked with an organization called the Story Pirates. It’s a kids writing program essentially. We always find in our work that humor is a great way into having so many different kinds of conversations. We wanted the kid to find it funny. We wanted the parent who’s reading the book to find it funny. There are some little jokes that are probably just for adults. But we wanted everyone to have a good time reading it together. The humor was always incorporated from the start.

PC: You’ve both touched upon this a bit already, but as you were writing this project, what was the most surprising part of the experience? Did you learn anything new about each other during this process?
Alex: That’s a fun one. April and I have very different ways of working and communication styles. For anyone who might not know, we’re literally getting married to each other. It’s fun and really special to work with someone who you know so well in a capacity like this. April and I have gotten to work together on things before. But this is something that we…

April: …We made it together.

Alex: From the ground up. It was really cool to see how we each work. I feel like my mind is more direct. I found myself being the one who was answering the emails really quickly and decisively. But when we were writing the book, April was the one who was like, “You have five sentences in there that don’t need to be there. Delete that.” I was like, “Oh, you’re right.” Our strengths showed themselves pretty quickly. It was fun to do that together.

Trey Parker and Matt Stone (the South Park and Book of Mormon guys) always talk about how Trey is very good at being creative. He’s always the one who seems to be writing the episodes and doing things. Matt’s always the one who’s being the business guy and putting out the fires and all of that. While I don’t feel like we are as sequestered as that, it felt a bit like that. I felt a little bit more like the structure person and April felt a little bit more like the content person. Did you feel that?

April: I also have a little bit more writing experience than Alex. When we were writing it, I would be able to look at a clump of ideas and take out what I thought would work, and put it into the story that made the most sense. It’s funny. We’ve known each other for thirteen or fourteen years. We’ve been a couple for ten years. You don’t always work well with the person you’re in a relationship with. I feel really lucky. It’s a very rare thing that we are actually great collaborators on top of being in each other’s lives as a couple.

Alex: It’s a different kind of collaboration. I quickly found that I work differently with April than with other people I work on things with. It’s cool and interesting. Outside of the content of the book and the fact that it may help families, I think I’m most proud that as a couple we made something together.

PC: This is a question for both of you, but April, I know that you’ve said in previous interviews how much it’s meant to you and your family to have a book that you’ve created on a library shelf. Can you both take us back to that moment when you received a physical copy of your book and what you felt during that time?
April: Oh my gosh. I always liked writing. I was always making up stories. I was a big library kid. My mom always said, “You’re going to be an author,” and I ended up being an actor. At the book launch event, my mom was like, “I knew you were going to be an author!” It was a special moment.

I wish we had filmed the moment when we got the physical book. It was so surreal. We worked on this book for almost two years. When we opened the package, we were both like, “It’s a book!”

Alex: Also to be clear, when April says we’ve been working on it for two years, we stopped writing it a year and a half ago. [laughs] It’s a very different experience than the other mediums that we’ve worked in. When we’re working on a musical, the writers are changing pages while you’re rehearsing, sometimes up until the show’s opening. In this case, the book is done before anything else happens. It’s like you get this book and you’re like, “Oh right, there was a purpose to all that work we did so long ago.” There’s nothing quite like holding a book with your name printed on it. It’s like, “Here it is.” It’s like, “Look at this thing, it’s a book. It’s a whole thing.” You open it and it has pages. I know that sounds silly.

April: We get that same feeling when people send pictures and videos of their kids reading the book. We’re like, “A kid’s reading our book.” It’s surreal. We had this idea in our heads in that Central Park gift shop seven years ago, and now we’re sitting here with a physical copy of the book. There’s no way to describe it other than that it’s totally surreal.

PC: Now that this book is out, do you have the urge to write another? What’s ahead for the two of you?
Alex: We’re talking about it, for sure. It’s one of those things where we had such a good time. There was never any point in this process that I would say was bad. We would love to do more. We’ve been talking about it. The people at Abrams have been incredibly kind. I enjoyed working with them as much as I hope they enjoyed working with us. It was really awesome. We’re just waiting for the perfect idea.

April: We’re definitely interested in writing another book. We have a lot of other creative projects and things going on. In order for us to want to write another book, we really want to believe in the subject matter and the characters.

Alex: We’re now objectively professional authors.

April: But we are not the type of authors who write several books a year and this is the only thing that they do. They can spit out as many as they want/need to spit out. We’re precious about it. I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing. Once we have something that we feel passionately about, that’s when we’re going to try to get the ball rolling on a second book.

Make sure to follow Alex (Twitter/Instagram) and April (Twitter/Instagram). Pick up A Case of the Zaps wherever you purchase books.

Photo Credit: Marques Walls (Alex) Alexander August (April)