Cover Reveal Q&A: DO YOU REMEMBER? by Sydney Smith

Sydney Smith’s upcoming Do You Remember? is as good an artistic expression as I can remember reading. Immersive. Keenly observed. As deeply felt as picture books get. When we make contact with extra terrestrials and we’re trying to teach them about our earthly ways, send the little green people this book with a sticky note slapped on the cover that says “Picture Book”.

It comes out on October 3rd, and I was eager to talk with Sydney about how it was made.

Travis: What was the initial idea or inspiration that led to Do You Remember?

Sydney Smith: All books have to start somewhere and the original spark of Do You Remember? came from the desire to depict memory as it appears in our minds. Something so personal and subjective that only we can see ourselves. Perhaps the unique memories that define us share some similarities with the memories of others.

It was an abstract beginning which makes it hard to fit a story into. I discovered a new way to make things difficult for myself. Instead of starting with a simple narrative, I started with the theme and worked backwards. This is writing 101 but I am still a toddler when it comes to words.

Travis: This is your second author/illustrator book – how’d it go this time around?

Sydney: It took two years of picking it up and putting it down. I am so grateful to Neal Porter for being such an amazing support and sounding board during the process. It turned out that the simplest question he could have asked was the hardest. What is this book about? 

It started out as a way to speak to readers about memories and creating memories but as soon as I started looking at my own past and the memories that were precious to me I became lost. It became complicated very quickly when I decided that it had to be true to my own past. And that involved memories of relocation and a fractured family.

How do you involve that and still remain hopeful without trivializing that experience? There are no easy answers and all I could finally rest on was the feeling of love. Unconditional love between a parent and a child.

Travis: I found myself drawn in by the various levels of realism in the illustrations. How do you decide how realistic to go with the art?

Sydney: I didn’t necessarily decide. I painted until something fit. It may be inconsistent at times but so are my memories. Some are faded and warped, and some look like photographs and movies. I love to work in many ways. Sometimes the minimal or playful confidence is where my head is at and others is the satisfaction of something looking true to life.

I usually try to stick to one approach or style for each book but for this one, it’s too personal of a story to try to edit and control in that way. All styles welcome.

Travis: What parts of the book came easiest? Which parts were more of a challenge?

Sydney: Every part of this book was difficult. From the second I decided on the direction I could not find the clear path through. It was all swamp, brambles and thorns. I kept waiting for everything to fall into place but it never did. I thought there was something intrinsically wrong with the story. Until I finished, I didn’t realize that what felt wrong wasn’t the book itself, but the emotions that the writing process uncovered. I was speaking about a difficult time in my family’s past. My role as a child in that turmoil was to ensure that others were ok and to not show how I was hurting or lost and confused. I guess I am still that child, concerned how my feelings can make others feel sad. 

Travis: An important final question: What snack puts you in peak creativity mode? Or, what snack powered Do You Remember?

Sydney: There are snacks that I can use to access memories. Cinnamon heart Candies bring back an early memory of listening to a Tom Sawyer record in a patch of sun in my living room.

Wild strawberries (as featured in DYR) will always inspire feelings of summer in the field behind the house. So much of DYR is linked to sense memories, in fact each memory is a different sense. Starting with taste then smell, sound, feel and sight. 

Thank you, Sydney!

And now, a first look at the cover for Do You Remember? by Sydney Smith, designed by Jennifer Browne, published by Neal Porter Books/Holiday House. In stores October 3, 2023.

From the publisher:

From the multiple award-winning creator of Small in the City and the illustrator of I Talk Like a River comes a fresh and moving look at memories, filtered through the mind of a child.

Tucked in bed at a new apartment, a boy and his mother trade favorite memories. Some are idyllic, like a picnic with Dad, but others are more surprising: a fall from a bike into soft piled hay, the smell of an old oil lamp when a rainstorm blew the power out.

Now it’s just the two of them, and the house where all those memories happened is far away. But maybe someday, this will be a favorite memory, too: happy and sad, an end and a beginning intertwined.

In a series of wistful, bucolic vignettes, as achingly fleeting as childhood memories always become, Sydney Smith takes us into the mind of a young person processing a bevy of complex emotions and experiences. Do You Remember? is a stirring meditation on holding fast to the best of the past, and choosing to believe the future holds good yet to come.

Cover – Courtesy of Holiday House Publishing, Inc.

Interiors – Text and illustrations copyright © 2023 by Sydney Smith / Published by Neal Porter Books/Holiday House.

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