Part 2: Your Books
Miyakoshi Akiko and Sydney Smith are two children’s book illustrators, both in their thirties and who live more than an ocean apart. Akiko’s The Way Home at Night won the 2016 Bologna Ragazzi Award, and Sydney’s Town Is by the Sea won the 2018 Kate Greenaway Medal. They met at the Bologna Book Fair and became fans of each other’s works. And they’ve been friends ever since.
In part 2, we asked Akiko and Sydney to talk about their books. This interview was conducted in July 2019.
Interview by Okimoto Atsuko
Translation by Nina Raj
Town Is by the Sea
Town Is by the Sea
Text by Joanne Schwartz
Illustration by Sydney Smith
Translation by Iwajo Yoshihito
Publisher: BL Publishing
Town Is by the Sea is set in a coal-mining town by the sea. It is a quiet and gentle portrayal of a day in the life of a young boy born in the town and whose father works as a coal miner. The boy will probably grow up to become a coal miner one day. The moving story has the power to take the reader to a faraway place long after the book has ended. In creating your illustrations, what aspect required the most concentrated efforts?
Sydney: I think I was most concerned with telling a story that was both universal and specific. This is an actual place and a life that many have experienced. My attempt was to show as much through the eyes of the character and tell his story through small details that define many of us. By relating to the character, the reader can more easily feel empathy despite living somewhere far away or living a life that looks so much different than his on the surface.
On your first reading of the text, what did you want to express through your drawings?
Sydney: I knew that the sea would play an important part in the illustrations. Having lived near the sea, I knew of its role as a constant character, and as the text beautifully describes, it takes on many different shapes and moods.
The delicate changes in the sea and light and wind are expressed in so many fascinating ways, in different hues and moods. Is there a specific place that served as the model?
Sydney: The story is unofficially set in a place called Glace Bay. It is in the farthest eastern part of our home province, Nova Scotia. In that area there are many towns that have been built up around coal mines. It was a very important part of our culture.
Tell us about where you grew up.
Sydney: I grew up a little distance from the Atlantic Ocean, on a farm in the country. We had horses, goats, chickens. My father worked in a Michelin tire factory and my mother stayed at home with the three kids. We would drive by the ocean daily and visit the beaches throughout the year. When I moved away from the east coast I grew to appreciate the dichotomy of small towns, sometimes with struggling families, but rich with beautiful nature. The coast can have cliffs and jagged rocks or soft, white sandy beaches.
Are there scenes from your childhood that replay in your mind?
Sydney: That is a very interesting question. I have many memories of being near the sea and of growing up on a farm in the country. There was a moment when I was very young, maybe four years old, when I fell and scraped my knee. I was not really hurt but I decided to cry and was comforted by my friend’s grandmother. I decided right then, as she wiped the dirt off my knee that I would remember that moment for the rest of my life.
May we have a message for the readers of Town Is by the Sea?
Sydney: To those who read Town Is by the Sea. Please know that it was created with joy and sincerity. The author and I wanted to share our home with you. It may look different to yours on the surface but deep down we are all similar. Like the boy in Town Is by the Sea, we all want to do the right thing and protect the people we love.
I Dream of a Journey
I Dream of a Journey
Miyakoshi Akiko
Publisher: Bronze Publishing Inc.
You’ve long wanted to do a book about a journey, and the setting and story were changed many times before you finally completed I Dream of a Journey. The resulting story is not about the journey itself but about yearning for a distant land, about wanting to one day pick up and go some place. The main character owns a hotel but has never traveled beyond his own town.
Akiko: My first story was about a main character who travels. Somehow, it just didn’t click, and while I was drawing, I kept asking myself what it was about traveling that I liked so much. As I did countless rough sketches, I finally realized that what I wanted to express was the sheer excitement felt before a journey, the yearning to go to a place I’d never been to before. As a child, I never went far beyond home but always felt that way, and I still do, even now after I’ve traveled so widely.
I Dream of a Journey: The Making of a Picture Book with Lithographs, by Miyakoshi Akiko.
From roughs to final lithograph prints, Akiko’s whole book-making process on video
The illustrations in I Dream of a Journey were done as lithographs. Can you tell us why you chose this medium?
Akiko: I always use the medium that best expresses what I want to draw. When I want to achieve a deep contrast between light and dark, I use black charcoal to obtain the right effect, and when I want to emphasize the vibrant colors of the main character’s clothes, I use colors sparingly to bring out the white base of the paper. I’ve been doing lithographs these past few years, and had been wanting to do a book using lithographs, a medium that can create a beautiful effect when the colors overlap. Many of the ideas for the illustrations were actually inspired by the special quality of lithograph colors.
Were there any scenes or moments that inspired some of the illustrations in the book?
Akiko: The pages are filled with scenes from my journeys and the people met, and my own lingering impressions: the hotel owner, the people at the hotel where I stayed in Vienna at Christmas time, my friends who are so so eager to travel, the Europe that I yearned for in photos I saw as a child?the book is all kinds of pieces from inside me.
What was the most important thing you wanted to convey in this book?
Akiko: I wanted to express the wonderful things that a journey can be. I tried to fill it with feelings and impressions from my own journeys, to invite my readers to travel, to read and feel that they were really on a journey.
Are there scenes from your childhood that replay in your mind?
Akiko: There was a great view on the road home from day-care. And somehow I thought it was connected to the road in a photograph at home, maybe on a calendar: there was a wide sunny field with a single tree, and I’d wanted to play under the shade of that tree. Those two scenes, from both reality and memory, are mingled in my mind.
I read Sydney’s response to this question and remembered that I had a similar experience, at day-care. I was crying because I was the last one to be picked up. My teacher gently put me on her knees and wiped my tears with her finger. And then she licked her finger and said, “Oh, your tears are salty!” I remember that somehow reassured me and made me feel so happy.
You really like to travel. Tell us which places have left strong impressions on you and where you would like to travel to next.
Akiko: I love Chichijima in the Ogasawara Islands and Ladakh, in the Himalayas in northern India. I’ve been to both places twice and want to go again, next time with my daughter, who was born just this spring.
And lastly, may we have a message for readers of I Dream of a Journey?
Akiko: When people talk about their trips, they get excited and animated. I do too. I would really be delighted if after reading this book, my readers will feel like they’ve just returned from a journey and want to talk about it and share their excitement.
Miyakoshi Akiko
Born in Saitama, Japan, in 1982. Graduate of Musashino Art University. Started writing and illustrating picture books while still at university. Lived in Berlin for one year in 2007. Among her works are The Tea Party in the Woods (Kaiseisha, 2010), which was awarded the 17th Japan Picture Book Grand Prix, and The Way Home at Night (Kaiseisha, 2015), which won the Bologna Ragazzi Award and was listed as a New York Times / New York Public Library Best Illustrated Children’s Book. Her other works include The Piano Recital (Bronze Shinsha, 2012), Whose Are These? (Bronze Shinsha, 2013), I Dream of a Journey (Bronze Shinsha, 2018), Room in the Field (Poplar, 2011), and Turning on a Flashlight (Fukuinkan Shoten, 2014). Lives in Tokyo with her daughter.
http://miyakoshiakiko.com
I Dream of a Journey by Miyakoshi Akiko
“How long has it been since I started running this hotel?” The hotel owner has guests from all over the world, and he yearns to travel when he hears their stories of faraway lands. So one day, he packs a huge suitcase and . . . The soft colors of the illustrations done in lithograph lift the reader away to another world.
See a making of this book at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObZgQ0DN9rc
Sydney Smith
Born in Nova Scotia, Canada,in 1980. Graduate of Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University. Sidewalk Flowers, by JonArno Lawson and illustrated by Sydney Smith (Groundwood Books, 2015), a book with no text, won many honors, including the Canadian Governor General’s Literary Award (Children Literature category) and the New York Times / New York Public Library Best illustrated Children’s Books. Town Is by the Sea (Groundwood Books, 2017), a picture book about a boy who lives in a coal-mining town, won the 2018 Kate Greenaway Medal. Lives in Toronto with his wife and two sons.
@Sydneydraws
The Town Is by the Sea by Joanne Schwartz, illustrated by Sydney Smith
A story about the day in the life of a young boy who lives in a coal-mining town by the sea. The sea takes various hues as the day progresses, and in the evening, the boy’s father comes home from the mines and the family sits in the sea breeze and gazes out at the sea. The preciousness of a typical day is captured in this quiet and heart-warming story with stunning illustrations. A book that will stay with its reader for a long time. Kate Greenaway Medal.
可愛い限定商品、ゾクゾク♪ 
