Winter Light: An Aaron Becker Interview and Video Trailer Reveal!

The weather, it turns (don’t read too much into that). As our fall temperatures begin to plummet downward towards more winterlike conditions, our thoughts turn to the days of darkness ahead (seriously, stop reading too much into this!). In this midwinter dusk we crave a bit of light. A bit of… winter light, if you will.

Turn your eyes now to Aaron Becker.

Aaron Becker is an oddity. A picture book author/illustrator with a penchant for epic storytelling. Yet that’s not his only area of artistic expression. Remarkably, Becker is capable of wrangling that most ephemeral and juvenile of literary forms to his will: board books.

Today, we are premiering Aaron’s book trailer for his upcoming board book Winter Light. Before we do, however, I felt inclined to hear from the man himself about why exactly, precisely, minutely, he likes board books as much as he does:

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Betsy Bird: Aaron! Thanks so much for answering my wackadoodle questions today. I don’t think I ever caught you at the beginning of your board book career. I never asked you questions at the start, and now I want to make up for lost time. So let me just back this truck up a bit and ask you: What gave you the idea to make beautiful board books in the first place? Why did you begin?

Aaron Becker: This is a bit far-out, but I was on a meditation retreat that was hosted at a former Christian boarding school, and they had us doing these walking meditations between the windows. Which were stained glass. So instead of paying attention to my breathing and clearing my mind, I came up with the idea for a book with colored acetate die-cuts. And You Are Light was born.

BB: I mean, that’s just practical as far as I’m concerned. And I’d love to hear you talk a bit more about the philosophy behind the beautiful board books that you do. Personally, I feel it’s the great lost genre of books for kids. With picture books you’ve academics waxing poetic over the subtle meanings within Sendak. The board book, aimed at even a younger reader, is relatively tossed off. You’ve the most critical moment, with such potential in a human life, to engage them in literacy and yet half the parents I meet are like, “I’ll start reading to them when they’re two.” So what’s your take on it all? Why have you over and over and over again invested as much care and love and time and attention into the board books that you have?

Aaron: Having raised and read to my two girls, I can definitively say that babies are only interested in visceral experiences. They want to touch books. They want to throw books. Often, they just want to eat books. (which is another board book idea I have, but no takers as of yet – editors, please email my agent). So why not put something in front of them with a little more pizzazz than just fuzzy fabrics or reflective stickers? The serious answer has something to do with my mom, who was a physics and astronomy professor when I was a kid. She’d bring home all of these prisms and strange light-and-color apparati from her classes that I found endlessly amazing. The idea that I could capture some of that and put it in a book just seemed too good to pass up, and when Candlewick was game with my hair brained idea, I knew we were onto something.

BB: For the record, if no one takes you up on the taste thing, I put in a vote for more scratch n’ sniff board books (which I personally adored as a child). Now when you make a new board book, is it a difficult experience? A cathartic one? What’s your state of mind when you’re making them?

Aaron: These are just pure fun. Like doing a puzzle, in a way. I was a graphic designer before working in film and before working in kidlit, so it’s a nice chance to do something more design-y. Each book has presented different challenges, but I’ve gotten better (I think?) at understanding what can be done with this form, and the process has only gotten easier with each one. I’ve found them really wonderful projects to take on in between the heavy-lifting of a wordless picture book.

BB: Your latest book, WINTER LIGHT, is a lovely (and, let’s face it, clever) way of tapping into something that can both be religious and non-denominational. How do you imagine this book being used by parents and families?

Aaron: I’m half-Jewish, half-Christian, all agnostic, and definitely more of a Buy-Nothing-Day kind of guy when it comes to the commercial drive of the holidays. So the notion of a holiday book was always FAR from my drawing table. I’ve also never really loved winter, and one day in late fall as I was dreading the shortening daylight, I remembered something I’d heard about concerning how all of our festivities fulfill the same basic human need: to create light when there is none. And I wanted to capture that idea in a book. My hope is that families experience the simple celebration of light itself when they read this book; that it helps a child or adult get through the darkness just a bit. With everything going on in this mad world, I think we need it more than ever.

 BB: Gee, can’t figure out what you mean. So when you made your first board book, did you imagine at the time that you’d continue to produce them? Do you envision yourself making more of them in the future?

Aaron: It’s funny, when I made Journey, all I wanted to do was make a picture book and when it was done it didn’t dawn on me that I’d actually make more. The same happened with You Are Light. While I never intended to make more than one, I keep coming up with new things I want to do with the form! One Sky was meant to be the last, but there’s no controlling the muse!

BB: And thank goodness for that. For the record, THE LAST ZOOKEEPER (your latest picture book) is an overwhelming hit with my librarians (ending up on our latest 101 Great Books for Kids list). Can you talk at all about what else you have coming out in the future?

Aaron: Oh, thank you Betsy! Zookeeper is my favorite of the books I’ve done, so I’m glad your librarians have found it. I’m working with a producer on a film adaptation, but Peter Brown’s fantastic success with Wild Robot is probably throwing a wrench in that plan. I’m also teaching this year at RISD in Providence which has been absolutely amazing. Other than that, I’m developing another wordless book with my editor at Candlewick about venturing into the unknown. And next fall, We Go Slow, a book by Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie that I illustrated for Atheneum, is publishing. 

Always a pleasure to chat. Thank you for being such a cheerleader for my books from the get go, and especially these board books!

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As far as I’m concerned, the man needs no cheerleader. The books speak for themselves. All I can do is hope to draw your attention to them.

And now… the book trailer:

Big thanks to Aaron Becker for answering my questions today. Thanks too to Rachel Kirby and the team at Candlewick Press for helping to put all this together.

Filed under: Best Books, Best Books of 2024, Interviews, Videos