Rene Rawls Finds Inspiration in a Proverbs-Quoting Child Detective

“If there is no enemy within, the enemy outside can do no harm.”

Rene Rawls identifies with this proverb; its wisdom has helped see her through the last roughly 17 years when she first came up with idea of a resourceful, proverbs-quoting child detective name Sule. Since then, she has persevered in the face of rejections from those who resisted her creative pitches to bring her proposed storybook character to life.

But as the proverb states, when life puts up barriers, roadblocks, and obstacles, one must keep the faith within themselves to push forward. Taking it to heart, Rawls has been able to realize some of her “big dreams” for Sule (and she has many more). She was the recipient of the first Annual Mandela Day/Tribeca All Access Award, which allowed her to write and produce the animated short film Sule and the Case of the Tiny Sparks. When publishers rejected her pitch for a Sule picture book, she went the Kickstarter route, which helped her to self-publish Sule and the Case of the Tied-Up Lion.

The Case of the Tied-Up Lion is an interactive learning adventure featuring Sule, an African boy who uses the wisdom of proverbs to help someone solve their problem. In the case of a young girl named Fara, she has a massive problem:

My class is having a party this afternoon, and I promised to do everything, including the shopping. Everyone is coming, but nothing is ready. How will I get it all done in time?

Sule offers Fara a proverb that will help to solve her problem: “When spider webs unite, they can tie up a lion.” 

Delightful illustrations by Brittnie Brotzman bring to life a colorful market where Sule takes Fara’s shopping list and divides it among her friends, promoting the concept of teamwork that allows Fara to successfully complete her party preparations. Readers are directed to find items on Fara’s list as well as other items in the pictures to test their observational skills (“Look for all of Fara’s friends who have a piece of her list”). 

The Case of the Tied-Up Lion made the Kirkus Reviews Best Books of 2021 list. The Kirkus starred review praises the book as “perfect for lap readers or confident elementary readers….Brotzman’s interactive, seek-and-find cartoon illustrations make great use of the colors of the marketplace; the items (and Sule himself) are well defined and fun to locate, and silly details are sure to elicit giggles.”

Rawls grew up immersed in books. The Fort Lauderdale native’s mother was an elementary school librarian for just over four decades. “I was surrounded by books, not knowing it would later play a part in my life,” she says. Her father, an English major who became an attorney, always emphasized to her the importance of good grammar. 

Culture-based stories such as Jack Tworkov’s The Camel Who Took a Walk, Arlene Mosel’s Tikki Tikki Tembo, and Claire Huchet Bishop’s The Five Chinese Brothers caught her imagination as a young girl. While they may have been culture-specific, the stories they told were universal, she says. 

Rawls became a teacher. She taught senior English at Frederick Douglas High School in Atlanta. One of the novels she assigned was Chinua Achebe’s 1958 debut novel, Things Fall Apart. The book, she says, is filled with proverbs. “One of my studentsjoked that the class was becoming Proverbs Slayers in relation to interpreting the book. They were proud of it, and I was happy they were catching on.” 

Fast-forward to Los Angeles. Rawls had left teaching to pursue a career in entertainment. “I was walking around a track and thinking about my former students and the Proverbs Slayers. Suddenly, the image of a little boy who was a proverb detective popped into my head.” 

That was in 2005. Thus began Sule’s fraught journey into print. Rawls wrote an initial version of the picture book, but after much pitching, “it just did not land anywhere,” she says.

In 2012, she was able to bring Sule to life onscreen in an animated short thanks to funding courtesy of a collaboration between the Nelson Mandela Foundation, 46664, which produced AIDS benefit concerts in honor of Mandela, and the Tribeca Film Festival’s All Access program.

In October 2015, she launched a Kickstarter campaign to complete her original Sule manuscript. She raised roughly $11,000. She reconnected with Brotzman, the character designer for the film. “I loved her work, and so I’d told her that whenever I did the book, I wanted her to illustrate it,” she says.

Rawls embarked on her own personal cultural journey in rewriting her book. “I went to Nigeria and took a boatload of pictures,” she says. “I studied and researched. I have friends from Nigeria and picked their brains. It was very collaborative.”

When asked why it was important to her that Sule be an African boy and not, say, from Florida or Atlanta, she says, “That’s how he came to be. African culture is rich with proverbs, more so than the United States.” 

In publishing, as in comedy, indeed, as in life, timing is everything. Rawls believes that the phenomenal success of the 2018 blockbuster Black Panther, which portrayed the mythical African nation of Wakanda, may have opened doors for Sule and representations of African culture. 

With The Case of the Tied-Up Lion, Rawls is anticipating the next chapter in Sule’s story. “The goal is for him to travel the world helping kids solve their problems using proverbs that are specific to that country,” she says. “Readers will get the opportunity to explore different cultures.” 

Her “big dreams” include the thus-far elusive TV series, a podcast, and even a feature film. She keeps telling herself, “If there is no enemy within, the enemy outside can do no harm.”

“In the entertainment business,” she reflects, “you will get a lot of no’s. As long as I keep telling myself yes, it doesn’t matter what is going on with others. I will be fine.”

Donald Liebenson is a Chicago-based writer.