Author hopes you'll say, 'Oh yes' to 'Oh No, Domino!'
BY KATHY CHANG Staff Writer

METUCHEN - Kim Adlerman's idea of circles evolved from the wallpaper border hanging in her daughter Rochelle's room when she was 3 years old, eventually turning into her newly published children's book, "Oh No, Domino!" with music by her husband, Danny.

The wallpaper had apples made out of circles and a child juggling balls.

"I guess that started opening up the concept of circles in my mind, and I thought it was cool," she said.

Rochelle is now 15 years old and is featured in the background with her friend Lisa Spiegel on the soundtrack "Oh No, Domino!" with her father.

The book follows the story of a dog, Domino, who is trying to find a ball.

Adlerman said Rochelle and her friend have coined themselves The Dominettes.

"I have [essentially] been working on the book since then," said Adlerman, who owns a publishing company with her husband, named The Kids at Our House. "There have been various dummies over the past 10 years, and I have resketched the artwork many times over the past three years."

In the end, Adlerman decided to do all the artwork for her new book in two-dimensional, which took her roughly eight to nine months to finish.

"For one page, I played around with three-dimensional, which took me way too long," she said. "I also played around with computer-animated artwork before deciding on the two-dimensional."

In the process of making the artwork, Adlerman intertwined her children's names - Rochelle, 15, Josh, 13, and Maxx, 8 - into the artwork for fun.

"There are two butterflies on every page along with Domino [the Dalmatian], and Ana [the cat]," she said.

The book includes a CD with Danny Adlerman's soundtrack of "Oh No, Domino!" and a reading of the book by Kevin Kammeraad.

"When I wrote the song, I didn't write it in rhyme [which the story is in], but the song works when one is looking at the pictures," said Danny. "I also play the music in the background when Kevin is reading the book."

Some pages of the book don't have words, which serves as interludes to the song.

Although Adlerman has spent over 10 years with the concept of the book, she said she could always make changes.

"There's always the "I wish I had done that" or "I would like that better if … ," she said.

However, Danny said once they get to the stage of "I can't make this any better," then they know they can proceed.

"There is no timeline," he said. "We set high creative standards for ourselves and have put out [children's books and CDs] on a consistent basis, but at a comfortable pace. And there is always new projects in the works."

The Adlermans said that if they had to assign an age group for the book, it would be for children ages 2 to 7 years old.

"However, older kids do appreciate the book," said Danny.

"Oh No, Domino!" is available in bookstores or on Danny and Kim Adlerman's Web site, www.dannyandkim.com.

The Adlermans will make an appearance at The Raconteur, 431 Main St., 2-3 p.m. Dec. 1, an appearance at Moss School in Metuchen on Dec. 4, and an appearance at a book fair at Barnes & Noble in the Menlo Park Mall in Edison to benefit the Mawbey Street Elementary School in Woodbridge on Dec. 6.

For more information about the events, contact Danny and Kim at (732) 548-1779.