[Translation Postscript] The fascinating quiet, leisurely and happy life

Amo’s Sick Day

    Look at how Amo lives his life——

   
He ris­es ear­ly every day, stretch­es his legs before get­ting out of bed, and stretch­es his back after­ward. He boils a pot of water, makes a cup of tea, and a bowl of oat­meal, even con­sult­ing with the sug­ar jar. After a full stom­ach, he grabs a small bag and leisure­ly walks out to work. When the bus arrives, he com­pli­ments the dri­ver, “6 o’clock sharp! Sharp on time.”
   
What does Amo do? He’s a zookeep­er. He has a lot to do every day, but he always finds time to spend with his clos­est friends: play­ing chess with ele­phants, rac­ing with tur­tles, sit­ting qui­et­ly with pen­guins, hand­ing hand­ker­chiefs to rhi­nos, and read­ing sto­ries to owls…

   
When I first read the pic­ture book “Amo’s Sick Day,” I was cap­ti­vat­ed by it and was very hap­py to trans­late it and share it with chil­dren of all ages. I thought it was a bed­time book suit­able for read­ers of all ages, espe­cial­ly busy peo­ple in the city—of course, I’m main­ly refer­ring to adults. Because this book first touched me, not my chil­dren.

   
At least three years ago, I was also a city dweller, con­stant­ly busy and har­ried. My sched­ule was chaot­ic, my meals were rarely on time, and the hard­er I pushed myself, the more I could­n’t fin­ish my work. It always felt like a mad dog was chas­ing me relent­less­ly… But by chance, I sud­den­ly learned to slow down. Now, like A‑Mo, I can wake up ear­ly every day and leisure­ly walk to work. Pass­ing by a park on the way, I can see the sun­ny faces of peo­ple exer­cis­ing in the morn­ing and the sub­tle changes of flow­ers and trees through­out the year. Inter­est­ing­ly, I’ve dis­cov­ered that after slow­ing down and learn­ing to enjoy a reg­u­lar rou­tine, I haven’t been able to get any less work done. Instead, I’ve found more time to read my favorite books, spend time with my fam­i­ly, and often call my par­ents far away.

   
So when I read this pic­ture book, I felt par­tic­u­lar­ly close to it. It is so qui­et, sim­ple and philo­soph­i­cal, and it res­onates with me!

   
After trans­lat­ing the first draft, I read it to my daugh­ter. She’s in sixth grade, but she also loved this qui­et and sim­ple pic­ture book. She also noticed some details I had­n’t noticed before, such as the page where Amo goes to work, where there’s a bird wear­ing a tie and hold­ing a book, a lit­tle mouse wait­ing for the bus, and bal­loons and birds in the apart­ment building—all sup­port­ing threads through­out the book. She also point­ed out that Amo’s cab­in is the only one in col­or on that page, sug­gest­ing that only Amo’s life is full of inter­est. Indeed, the artist’s lim­it­ed use of col­ors in this book makes it more like­ly to have a spe­cial nar­ra­tive mean­ing.

   
I also asked a moth­er to read the trans­la­tion to her 5‑year-old boy, who also liked the sto­ry very much and dis­cov­ered a very impor­tant detail: the watch that Amo wears is not a wrist­watch, but a pock­et watch! — Yes, an old-fash­ioned guy like Amo is indeed suit­able for wear­ing a pock­et watch that needs to be wound.

   
I have no doubt that chil­dren will love this book. While chil­dren can be bois­ter­ous, they’re like angels when qui­et. I think they appre­ci­ate sim­plic­i­ty and qui­et more than adults, who are accus­tomed to stim­u­la­tion. The joy they find is inde­scrib­able, yet very real. Read “Mo’s Sick Day” with your child, prefer­ably qui­et­ly and slow­ly, turn­ing the pages and observ­ing their reac­tions. You’ll like­ly find this book mak­ing them gig­gle. You might even won­der, “What’s so fun­ny about this page?” But when adults share a know­ing, under­stand­ing smile, that’s the ulti­mate joy.

   
While trans­lat­ing this book, I could­n’t help but laugh. The tor­toise nev­er los­es a race, the rhi­no wor­ries about its aller­gies, the owl who loves to lis­ten to sto­ries but is afraid of the dark… These are tru­ly hilar­i­ous when you think about them, and even fun­nier when you con­sid­er the images. Yet, the author and artist sim­ply brush them off. This kind of sub­tle humor is what makes it last.

   
I’m sure any first-time read­er of this pic­ture book might mis­tak­en­ly assume it’s quite old, and assume the illus­tra­tor must be an old­er, high­ly skilled artist. Ini­tial­ly, I could­n’t believe this was the 2011 Calde­cott Medal winner—was it just this year that the trend of award­ing old books has begun? After some research, I dis­cov­ered it’s indeed a new book, pub­lished in 2010, and the author and illus­tra­tor are a remark­ably young cou­ple, both born in their 1980s!

Painter Erin Steed

   
There is actu­al­ly a very inter­est­ing sto­ry behind this book.

   
The Steeds met in high school, hav­ing both grad­u­at­ed from Divine Child High School, a pri­vate Catholic school in Michi­gan.
Erin, born in 1982, grad­u­at­ed in 2001, and Philip, a senior from the class of 1999, joined them. After grad­u­at­ing, they both pur­sued careers in art and pub­lish­ing. Philip opt­ed for pic­ture books first, pub­lish­ing two self-writ­ten and illus­trat­ed books, includ­ing the acclaimed But­tered Tuna and Peas on Toast. He is a ris­ing star in the Amer­i­can pic­ture book world. Erin briefly con­sid­ered a career in fine art, describ­ing her­self as “the kind of seri­ous artist who wears a black beret, smokes a cig­a­rette all day long.” How­ev­er, she even­tu­al­ly aban­doned the idea and decid­ed to try her hand at illus­tra­tion.

   
When Philip and Erin mar­ried in 2005, they were pri­mar­i­ly work­ing in Brook­lyn, New York. They lat­er built a stu­dio togeth­er in Ann Arbor, Michi­gan, where they could cre­ate their art­work when they weren’t trav­el­ing. The idea for “Amo’s Sick Day” report­ed­ly came in 2006, when Philip decid­ed to take a break from his work to write a pic­ture book for his wife, devis­ing the per­fect image and sto­ry to show­case her tal­ents. Erin, she said, under­stood her hus­band’s strengths bet­ter than she did.

   
When Philip fin­ished the first draft of the sto­ry, Elin was com­plete­ly clue­less. Philip first con­vinced the pub­lish­er’s edi­tor, then took Elin out for din­ner. It was dur­ing this din­ner that they for­mal­ly asked Elin to illus­trate the book. They believed she would be a fan­tas­tic debut nov­el! How could they refuse such an offer?

   
Erin spent a full year draw­ing for this book! How could such a sim­ple book take a year? Indeed, on a blog, Erin shared her draw­ing process, which goes some­thing like this: first, she designs the com­po­si­tion and sketch­es; then, she makes a mold from a wood­en board; then, she paints and makes rub­bings, cre­at­ing the back­ground and out­lines of the main char­ac­ters; and after the paper dries, she uses col­ored pen­cils to add details. Of course, this is only after a clear design con­cept has been formed. Before that, she must painstak­ing­ly con­tem­plate how to tell the sto­ry through her draw­ings, the imagery and com­po­si­tion, the lines and col­ors…

   
Elin said her biggest con­cern was her own inabil­i­ty to illus­trate the sto­ry, and she was also con­cerned about being over­ly influ­enced by oth­er illus­tra­tors. She believes that cre­ativ­i­ty must be an hon­est expres­sion of her own self. There­fore, dur­ing the cre­ative process, she tried to avoid look­ing at oth­er artists’ work. Her favorite artists were Amer­i­can Mau­rice Sendak (cre­ator of “Where the Wild Things Are”) and Ger­man Sebas­t­ian Meschmoser (cre­ator of “Mr. Squir­rel and the Moon”), but this debut work clear­ly lacks their influ­ence. How­ev­er, Elin did admit that her col­or choic­es were some­what influ­enced by the tech­niques of her pre­de­ces­sor, Eve­lyn Hayes (cre­ator of “Moon­light on the Moon”).

   
How­ev­er, she was inevitably deeply influ­enced by anoth­er illus­tra­tor: her hus­band, Philip! This charm­ing cou­ple almost always worked togeth­er, con­stant­ly pass­ing sketch­es and art­work around the stu­dio, offer­ing each oth­er ideas and even adding a few strokes. For exam­ple, when Erin hit a wall design­ing a rhi­noc­er­os, Philip helped her out. Erin said she could­n’t imag­ine com­plet­ing it alone!

   
So when peo­ple asked Erin what mes­sage she hoped the book would con­vey to read­ers, she replied that Philip and she were sim­ply con­cerned with mak­ing the sto­ry per­fect and express­ing them­selves hon­est­ly in their writ­ing. As for what read­ers might take away from the book, that was up to them, and it depend­ed on each per­son. As for her­self, she had already gained some­thing of her own from the book.

   
As a read­er and trans­la­tor, I have also gained a lot, and now it’s your turn.

Argen­tine Primera División, Novem­ber 2011, Bei­jing

[Attached pho­to: A glimpse into the gen­er­al draw­ing process of this book]