A Constant Journey to Become Ourselves with Jessie Sima

Jessie Sima, author illustrator of Snow Kid (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers), joins Matthew to talk about the constant journey each of us takes to become ourselves.

Listen along:

About the book: Snow Kid by Jessie Sima. Published by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers.

From the New York Times bestselling creator of Not Quite Narwhal, Jessie Sima, comes a “gentle, reassuring” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) wintery picture book about a snow kid finding out what it means to be themself!

Meet Twig, the snow kid! Like all snow kids, Twig was made from many snowflakes, twigs, stones, a crisp orange carrot, and a very fine hat. What a wonderful thing it is to be Twig! Except…could they still be Twig if a strong breeze blows away their hat? As Twig chases after the hat, more things keep changing, and they keep growing and moving and talking. Is there still a way to go back to being Twig?

Maybe not. But maybe there’s more than one way to be a snow person, and it can be fun to walk and talk and grow and change. Twig can find snow people like them even as they’re still learning how to become Twig, and that’s a wonderful thing!

More:

Visit Jessie Sima online at www.jessiesima.com

Learn more about the Highlights Foundation and their upcoming programs by visiting www.highlightsfoundation.org 

Transcript:

NOTE: Transcript created by Descript. I've attempted to clean up any typos, grammatical errors, and formatting errors where possible.

Matthew: [00:00:00] Welcome back to the Children's Book Podcast, where we celebrate the power of storytelling to reflect our world, expand our perspectives, and foster connections between readers of all ages. Brought to you in partnership with the highlights foundation, positively impacting kids by amplifying the voices of storytellers who inform, educate, and inspire children to become their best selves.

I'm your host, Matthew Winter teacher, librarian writer. And a fan of kids Before we begin, a quick reminder that you can hear the Children's Book Podcast early and ad free by subscribing on Apple Podcasts. Click the banner on your podcast app at any time. Today on the podcast, I'm welcoming back Jessie Sima, the New York Times bestselling creator of not quite narwhal cookie time.

Love [00:01:00] Z and so many more Beloved picture books. Jessie's newest book, snow Kid introduces readers to twig a snow kid made of twigs, stones, snowflakes, and a very fine hat. When a winter breeze sends that hat tumbling away, twig begins to change, growing, moving, talking, transforming, and suddenly isn't so sure what it means to still be twig.

What Unfolds is a gentle, thoughtful, and beautifully affirming story about identity change and embracing who you're becoming. Snow Kid is filled with Jessie's signature, warmth and imagination, offering young readers and the grownups who love them. A reminder that there's more than one way to be yourself and more than one way to belong.

This conversation touches on creative evolution, the emotional heart of twigs journey, and Jessie's continued gift for crafting stories [00:02:00] that help kids feel seen. Jessie's existential examination of gender asks, what does it mean to be something that makes someone. They speak on the feelings we feel when approaching change and acknowledge the hum or vibration that can accompany such moments.

It's a book that makes me so proud to know Jessie, and to know that humans like this are pouring their whole hearts and care and tenderness into writing for children. Please welcome Jessie Sima to the podcast.

Jessie: Hi, my name is Jessie Sima. I'm an author and an illustrator of a pile of picture books. I'm probably best known for my first picture book, which is called Not Quite Narwhal, and My Most. Recent picture book Snow Kid just came out [00:03:00] in September. Yeah. 

Matthew: Welcome back, Jessie. We talked for not quite naral and now that I've gone to a bunch of different schools since that time when we were talking, I can say to you, my students best know you for cookie time.

And when I said, oh, yeah, Jessie wrote not quite normal. They say, they all said, a lot of them said. Oh yeah, I watched that on Netflix or I read that when I was a baby or something. I'm like, oh, we're all old when I was a baby. I know. They're also like six years old or something. No, I 

Jessie: know.

Isn't that wild? But it's weird. Yeah, it's wild. Yeah, it's a not quite normal is eight years old now, and so Yeah. It's like a long and a short time depending on It is, the life of a 

Matthew: child, it's their entire time. 

Jessie: Yeah. Yeah. 

Matthew: I'm glad you're back and I was so glad. I'm always glad to root you on and to hear about new things that you have coming out, but you have this beautiful book called Snow Kid, and we're gonna talk about metaphor and how.

Beautifully. I [00:04:00] think you know how to speak to a five-year-old or 6-year-old, or something year old. You do it so well. But first I'm gonna just give you a chance to share with people listening what is Snow Kid? I know there's a number of people that haven't encountered this book yet. 

Jessie: Yeah. Yeah, I'd love to.

Snow Kid is about a main character whose name is Twig, who is built out of snow and sticks and stones, and a crisp orange carrot, and a very fine hat. And then after a frigid breeze blows their hat away, twig goes on a quest to re, to retrieve that hat in an attempt to return to the way that they were, but ends up on a journey of self-discovery as changes both internal and external, continue to snowball for them.

So it's basically about change and how we all experience it. How we are always [00:05:00] continuing to become ourselves is the pitch for snow kid. 

Matthew: We are continuing to become ourselves is a perfect way to word that. Where did this story start for you, Jessie? I know sometimes we're like, we don't have a book about topic.

How could I write a book about topic? But I also know that playing in the snow can make you want to write a book. So I actually don't know where are you based? Are you on East Coast? 

Jessie: Yeah, so I am currently, I live in the Hudson Valley Okay. In New York State. And I used to live in New York City before that.

And I think the original idea for Snow Kid years ago, before it took this form, might have been before I moved up here, but it really be started as an idea. Of using snow people as a way to think about gender specifically. And it started out. More focused on say like the [00:06:00] clothing and accessories that we put on snow people.

I always find it interesting kind of any humanoid character or creature that can be like a stand in for people but is more malleable than a human body or a human, or things like that. And so I had been thinking about them as a way to talk about. Gender and I didn't really know what to do with it, so I put it away for a while.

And then when I came back to it, it became more of a an existential exploration Yeah. Of identity, where it was less focused on what are we putting on our bodies? Not that's not part of it, but more of a. What is the, what does it mean to be yourself at all? What is it that makes someone themselves, or a person or a being and really went deep into that for a while, and then when put onto snow people again, like you can change a snow person so quickly within [00:07:00] the frame of a picture book.

You're not limited to. Human changes. You can roll down a hill and suddenly your body is much bigger than it was before. Or you can slip and fall and your carrot nose falls off and now you don't have a nose anymore and you're looking to figure out what to replace it with. There are just so many ways to change quickly.

And so I think once I started thinking about it that way, where it's like internal changes, how you're feeling about change and the different ways you can change quickly it took on a different sense and. Also a benefit of snow people is that there's a quintessential, like a snowman archetype that we can culturally recognize, right?

There's like a snowman emoji even if you see it really small, there's two piles of snow with the top hat. That's a snowman. There he is. And so it made it as a way that you can quickly reference back to. The thing that you're referencing or the thing that you're thinking of as the like cultural norm, because this did become more [00:08:00] of a, not just a gender conversation, but like personhood and identity in general, but there is like a.

Here's the norm that is this snowman that we're thinking of. And so any change that you make from that, you can keep referencing back to, but keep that idea of snowman in your mind, if that makes sense. So this is how it, this is how things always develop for me, is that they start very like, nebulous.

And I'm like, I know there's something I, I wanna be thinking about and talking about. What is it that I wanna say about that? It's gonna take a while to get there, but we did. Get there Eventually, 

Matthew: the year that not Quite Narwhal came out. Another book came out called Neither by Airlie Anderson.

I'm gonna lead on this. I'm taking, I'm walking us on a journey here, the Cooperative Children's Book Center, who I think many of us use for. Helping to collect that representation [00:09:00] data. They're so good about that. But I remember when not quite NARAL came out, they were starting to also talk about books with queer representation.

And your two books, not quite narwhal and neither were both praised for not being explicitly about identity, but being. Like, we can put that on, we can project that onto this book. It's malleable. Maybe the way we would say it, there are so many different ways to read it, which is a beautiful craft that you and Airlie are able to do.

And yet it absolutely can be allegorical for representation as you're depicting it. When I turned to the page in Snow Kid of all of the different snow individuals, it made me think of Airly and then made me think, I wonder if Jessie and Airly have ever met. No, that's lip of as I was writing you questions, I [00:10:00] didn't remember to ask that.

But I will say then out of praise you both do that very well. And Jessie, you have continued to do that throughout your books of making a book. Open enough that we all can place ourselves on it. Snow Kid is very much about asking if something changes about me, am I still me? Yeah. And I think I was a kid that moved when I was in, when I was in grade school.

Am I still me if. I'm no longer existing in the context of the people that know me. Am I still me? Yeah. We lose our teeth and our smile is different. Am I still me? There's all these things that happen. I know you know this. Yeah. But at the same time it can beautifully be. It can beautifully be a story about gender exploration and identity and things like that as well.

It's quite a talent you have. I just, thank you wanna say for being able to pull it off the way you do. It's [00:11:00] incredible. 

Jessie: Thank you. Yeah, I think identity or the idea of self is such a, obviously complicated 

Matthew: Yeah. 

Jessie: Thing, there are just so many different ways to even approach it.

Like I would say. Identity is a recurring theme in a lot of my work. Great. But I do think of it as like looking at it through different lenses and in that way teasing different things out of it. Because Yeah, in this one is, it is what is it that can change about you and you still.

Feel like yourself and I did wanna leave that open, like you said, to different, to be able to put whatever is bothering you or whatever you're thinking about on top of that. And I have great respect for, and definitely, love that there are books that have very targeted, this is what this book is about.

Energy or you like, topics that they're for. And I just feel like. [00:12:00] For me, I really enjoy being able to make things that might mean something to me, but are told in a way that people can put themselves in it and on it. Yeah. Yeah.

Matthew: Snow kid [00:13:00] also keeps asking, am I twig? As they experience changes, the rolling down the hill, getting larger different animals or moving pieces of them and replacing and what have you. But never do you give that power, give that voice to the other extraneous characters. It's always twig asking about themselves, which is lovely too, just to note that.

But I wonder. It is this. Storytelling at least that we observe in snow Kid, if not all of your books. Something that you feel comes to you naturally or is this something you really have to labor over to get just right? I think I, this is coming from. I've now been teaching for about 20 years, and I think there are things that are second nature, which maybe I would say does mean it's coming naturally to me, but also that it's not unearned.

And so I'm asking you in a roundabout way how this type of storytelling and [00:14:00] approaching this audience comes to you. 

Jessie: Yeah, it's a good question and a hard one. Hard to answer, but I think that I've found picture books to be a natural storytelling place for me. In terms of, obviously I like to draw and I like doing art as well as writing stories, and I think there's so much when I'm writing.

I'm often overwriting, like I, I, write way more in certain sections than end up being there. And it's as a way of me figuring out like exactly what is important about what I'm trying to say in any particular area of the book or the story. So specifically with the I am Twig refrain, that then is always followed in the book by a.

Kind of a growing list of am I twig? Twig [00:15:00] had a very fine hat right after losing the hat or am I twig? Twig? Didn't walk or talk and twig had a very fine hat. That sort of stuff comes out of a lot of just writing and rewriting the same sorts of things to figure out what it is that is like emotionally resonant, to you? To me, yes. Yeah. Great. And I feel like when I think about writing these writing picture books, there's like, how did, the best way I can describe it is there's almost like a hum, like a vibration that I feel like I'm looking for, that I like feel when I feel like I'm like, oh, we're getting very close to what is the thing that I think will have the, yeah.

Resonance is almost like the best way that I can. That I can say it, and it's like figuring out where to end the story is sometimes the same sort of thing where you're like, where do I, 'cause especially, I'm just going on rants now, but I love it with this book, it, there was a whole extra.

[00:16:00] Part at the end that like kept going and at some point I realized no, it makes sense for it to end here. Where after all of these things where Twig is, encountering changes that they're not necessarily planning, they're reacting to, we should end on this note of Twig being able to make their own changes that they're.

Making to them to themselves, right? Yeah. And like that they're the change from Yeah. These are things that are happening to me, to, I am making my own decisions about who I want to keep becoming. And the things that kind of kept happening that was a different ending were more things that were happening to twig.

And so things like that where you just, where you just f. Being open to where a story wants to finish, where it wants to, I don't know, repeat itself or have refrains. Yeah. I don't know if this is answering the question [00:17:00] fully, but I think a lot of it, yeah, just a lot. You feel 

Matthew: a hum, you said?

Yeah. Feels hum. The vibration of, feels like the 

Jessie: vibration. Yeah. For you to, I dunno how else to describe it. 

Matthew: I don't. I don't feel like it's giving away the ending to say, broadly, this is a book that, that its resolution is the individual accepting or loving that they are a person that's changing.

Being able to not resist the change. Or question the change, but just go, I'm gonna enjoy that. I'm changing. That's where I am. Yeah. I feel like that makes it. Universal as well. That's something that I believe the adult reader would read and have to have some potential reconciling to do. I had to reconcile with, am I okay that I'm a person that's becoming, so I love that I'm a person that's becoming, it's great.

It's neat that you were able to go go further than that, but. [00:18:00] Allow yourself the restraint to trust that if you move the finish line backward or forward, in this way, that it actually can have greater resonance with the reader. 

Jessie: Yeah, and I don't wanna take, I. Don't wanna not acknowledge that.

A, a lot of this, I have a very close working relationship with my editor, who I have worked with Justin Chanda throughout all of my books. Oh, wonderful. And I feel like he and I have such a relationship of working on these books where it's I don't know, he, he knows how to ask the correct questions and we really.

Are able to dissect sometimes, what is it that you're really trying to, what are we trying to say? What do we wanna end on in a way that's really helpful? And I think has really shaped a lot of these books. And so that's definitely part of it too, is, having somebody that you're really comfortable with, just yeah.

Having conver like weird conversations with about what [00:19:00] does it mean to be made out of individual snowflakes? Do all which of these snowflakes make you who you are? If you add more, like these sorts of things that are, they're just bizarre, but they get you to, to where you are. And I think, having other people that you're bouncing things off of is really helpful too, in this line of work.

Matthew: That's great. It's great to have a person. Walking with you through that journey. I couldn't help but notice right away that the colors you use in snow kids, especially on the cover, the color blocking on the cover mirror that of the transgender flag. I also love that it just works. I know you to be an artist that likes to have a really tight color palette that works for your work. Yeah. But you have color motifs maybe we might say. And it Sure. It's lovely. I don't in any way mean to imply that you were. Trying to be subversive by only using blue, pink and white. Yeah. But just that it works and it's cool that it all works [00:20:00] out, that it's a story of a snow kid and we've got this framing of the sky and the pinks work with winter skies and it just yeah, I don't know.

I'd love to hear more about. About that, but I also just love to savor it. So yeah, savoring it. 

Jessie: Thank you. Yeah. I am a person who finds colors to be very difficult. They're a thing that I feel like really when I was, yeah, when I was like, I was always drawing as a kid, but most of my drawings as a kid I did in a pencil or just pen.

I didn't really do much with color. And so I feel like I am always very conscious, or I'm trying really hard with color and sometimes it's very, it can be very challenging. And I think that using a limited color palette has really saved me. A lot of this is, trying to be like, these are the colors we're using.

And so for this book, because of the snowy setting. Obviously it lent itself to the past, like a pastel [00:21:00] sort of thing. And then yeah, with the themes of the book and since it started out with me thinking about snow people as a way to think about gender and yeah, I just, it seemed like a natural place.

So it was purposeful is what I'm saying. Yeah. Is that It definitely was on purpose. I used. The pink and blue from the trans flag, and then use that as a place to start building a color palette. Yeah. Using then adding darker and lighter tones and all of that. But yeah it's interesting.

I, I really find color very challenging, so I'm always really happy to hear that my hard work is paying off. It's paying off. I would say 

Matthew: for a person that has a hard time with color. You could release a cran set for each of your books of just, here's the eight colors that I used. Yeah. And it'd be so lovely because they're so soft.

And often they feel like candy to me. They just feel like delightful and playful and gentle. Yeah. And if it's possible to say this, they [00:22:00] feel age appropriate to me. 

Jessie: Oh yeah. They feel,

Matthew: I used to teach fourth grade before I went into the library. I taught fourth grade for two years, and when I then went into the library for the past 18 years I realized that my favorite people are the youngest ones in the building.

And so when I say that they are my people, I also know that those are their crans, those are their colors. They like those colors. So it's great that you know that about them too. It just feels their language. 

Jessie: Aw. Thank you. I really appreciate that. It's cool. It is. It's also fun.

When you have that kind of limited palette and then you're trying to I don't know. I always wait for cer. There's always gonna be like certain kids, and I love this about them, who will be like, this text says a crisp orange carrot, and that color is pink. And I'm like there's a thing about like relative colors.

It feels orange even though it is relative color. Yeah, definitely like a fia, but yeah. Yeah it's there's like interesting challenges to be had with limited color palettes and I highly recommend them if you're someone that [00:23:00] is finding themselves struggling with color. Because if you give yourself the entirety of all colors, it's just like you'll spend forever trying to decide when anything should be, when 

Matthew: That's a great point.

Jessie: Yeah. Yeah. 

Matthew: Can we talk about. This adaptation of not quite narwhal. 

Jessie: Sure. 

Matthew: You had your debut. I'm, listen, I'm not trying to overdo this. It was your debut picture book, though, Dreamworks of all people adapted. Come on. I know. Were you able to, I know that when you sell a book that those media rights are sold or sold separately or however that works, but I'm aware of media rights as well as the audio rights as well as I understand that.

And I also know that sometimes some people might get it written in that they're going to be involved or they'll consult or they won't or whatever. I wonder first though, what it was. I would love to hear your involvement, if any, but I would really actually love to just hear what was it like that you made these characters you brought them to [00:24:00] life and then someone else, some other team.

Brought a new life or a new audience to them. I'd love to just know what that was like to see that translated. 

Jessie: Yeah. Yeah it was really interesting and like you said, there's so many different ways, so many different levels to how these things happen. And there's definitely so many different ways that they can happen.

And so when I was working with Dreamworks, I knew from the beginning that this was basically, I'm handing over. Okay. This to them. I was not a really creatively involved in the show pretty much at all. But before, we made this arrangement, I had meetings with the Dreamworks team. Felt very confident that they understood.

This sounds a little bit, not pretentious, but like they understood the vision, but it doesn't doesn pretentious you want They understood, made the, and they got 

Matthew: it. 

Jessie: Yeah. They understood the [00:25:00] core of what was important for this character. I knew that. Obviously Dreamworks, they have a certain aesthetic that is not the book aesthetic and that and that's something that I knew going in or they are going to be making many episodes.

Clearly the plot is not just going to be what happened in the book, right? That'll be episode one pretty much, and then we'll keep going. But I felt very confident from talking to them that they were very respectful and that they understood what was important about this story. And so it didn't really bother me that I wasn't going to be creatively involved because I knew that upfront they did involve me more than contractually.

Obligated. Obligated. Cool. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so I did have, I had the, they had the ability to use me as a consultant. Oh. And they did on occasion do that only a handful of times. We would have a call and they would show me. There are some art [00:26:00] direction or like this, you're our character designs and ask for feedback and I would give them feedback and they took it.

I would say I had a very, honestly just. Really positive experience of the whole thing. That's terrific. Chassis. There are so many different levels at which things can either fall apart entirely because they're every step of the way. It's we're not, it's just, we're just optioning this, and then it's then we just have, and it's are wet gonna, it wasn't sold 

Matthew: to a distributor.

Right? Absolutely. People develop stuff here. 

Jessie: Exactly. So they, develop internally and then, they pitch it to the distributor. Yeah. And it's so many ways it can fall apart. And then additionally, so many ways in which it can become something that you don't want it to be. And I really didn't have that experience, which I'm really thankful about.

Yeah. Yeah, I did. I did a little bit. Again, consulting in so far as just saying, here's a thing that I think would be a little bit different about this. Yeah. And then they would show me things as they developed. I [00:27:00] got to see a early version of the first episode before it was out, things like that.

Which was, it was really great. It was really fun. I think it also happened over a long period of time. Okay. Because they optioned it almost. Maybe before the book came out, I'm trying to remember. It was a while. Okay. If not, it was soon after the book came out and then it didn't come out until, I guess it was just last year, 2024.

And so I had at least. Six years of this happening before it ha actually came out to get used to the idea. So by the time it was really taking form and coming out, I, I didn't really have any leftover qualms, but it didn't really bother me, I don't think. Too much to, to let go of it. I was able to compartmentalize.

It was such a different thing. Yeah. For me, I ask you, it was pretty much just a fun time. 

Matthew: Can I ask that? That's awesome. Yeah. Can I ask [00:28:00] you, I don't think anyone goes into writing for children thinking that my, my thing's gonna be optioned, right? Sure. It's a sort of. Special anomaly.

Very cool that it happens. It gives your ideas, your characters a different life and a different audience. Are you were you able to continue making books without thinking about it so much? Were you able to compartmentalize and go I do books over here and sometimes some of my ideas, this is gonna happen, but other times that's not gonna be the right fit for them.

Jessie: Yeah, I think I was so uninvolved mostly Oh, that it really just didn't, it doesn't really, and I've had, experiences. I guess I, I feel like I learned how this process works and I do feel like I have a better sense of if I was interested in trying to say, pitch something myself that was either not a book or trying to get one of my books to.

Be optioned or considered I've learned more [00:29:00] about that, but I don't think that it's really influenced any of the things that I have worked on since then. Really, in terms of that. 'Cause yeah. Yeah. It's just not really, if it happens for you, but otherwise, 

Matthew: that's a great attitude.

I think a lesser person might get stuck on thinking about something much like you could, if you. Have the series and that series could potentially become the only thing you do. Yeah. So nice that you've been able to be versatile with your storytelling and tell lots of stories of lots of characters. 

Jessie: Yeah.

I really love animation for all ages. Sure. And so there, it's not that, it's not something I never think about in terms of whether I would be interested in working in animation in some way, or storytelling in that way. But yeah I don't really think of it as, as like my picture books being a stepping stone for that specifically most of the time.

Totally. That feels 

Matthew: good to know that you've, you're. [00:30:00] That you're not gonna leave the readers. I don't mean that ever be thinking in terms of like abandonment, really. I bring some baggage into this conversation, but nice to know that you're making stories with the intention of continuing to make stories.

I love that. Yeah. That's great. Jessie is lovely to catch up. I can't wait to hear about the next book and the next book after that. I'm always reading for you. Thank you. Thank you for being someone that my students know someone who makes stories that my students connect with. It's a really special thing to be a librarian and to read books that connect children to me and me to them and them to themselves.

But also. Quite a privilege that then I get the opportunity to talk to people that make the books. That's a special thing. So thank you for that. Thank you. 

Jessie: Yeah. I loved, I love talking to you. Thank you. 

Matthew: So when I ask this question, which I have asked you before I hope you know, and I think you do that while I do ask this question, just encompass all of us, I also very much think about.

My students. And so [00:31:00] I ask you that I will see a library full of children tomorrow morning. Jessie, is there a message that I can bring to them from you? 

Jessie: Yeah, so I think keeping on theme for what we've talked about today, I think what I would tell them is that they will go through a lot of changes in life, both inside and out, but that just means that you get to keep becoming yourself the whole time, and that's great.