A Way of Being with Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie and Aaron Becker

Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie and Aaron Becker, author and illustrator of We Go Slow (Atheneum Books for Young Readers), join Matthew to talk about the wise ones who know to take time.

Listen along:

About the book: We Go Slow by Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie; illustrated by Aaron Becker. Published by Atheneum Books for Young Readers.

A walk through their bustling city neighborhood brings a girl and her grandfather closer together in this gentle, contemplative picture book that’s “a reminder of the importance of being in the world with unhurried attention and open hearts” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).

A child and her grandfather step out of their brownstone and take a walk around their lively city. Together, they practice looking closely. They delight in the world that they see, taste, touch, feel, and hear. Whether learning a yellow bird’s song, tasting a street vendor’s mango slices, or listening to the thumping music from passing cars, they find small wonders in every moment they share—and together, always, they go slow.

Simple yet poetic, We Go Slow is a breathtaking invitation to everyday wonder from acclaimed picture book creators Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie and Aaron Becker.

More:

Visit Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie online at ekeretallie.com

Visit Aaron Becker online at storybreathing.com

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, we are slowing down with poet and author Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie, and illustrator [00:01:00] Aaron Becker, the award-winning creator of Journey and Return.

Their new picture book We Go Slow, is a quiet contemplative walk through a bustling city neighborhood where a girl and her grandfather take time to notice the world around them. They listen to bird song, taste mango slices from a street vendor, and feel the rhythm of passing cars, finding small wonders in every moment they share Mariahadessa’s lyrical text.

Aaron's breathtaking illustrations remind us that the world opens itself most fully when we pause, breathe, and look closely. It's a story about presence, connection, and love. The kind that grows stronger with every step we take together. I have learned so much watching and speaking with Aaron Becker throughout his career as a children's book author and [00:02:00] illustrator, but it is something entirely different to hear him engage in the dance between author and illustrator with such a poetic manuscript as was provided by Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie, her text provides a chance for us all to slow down.

As does her presence on this episode. It was an absolute delight to meet her through her work, and I'm so grateful that this book brought us all together. Please welcome Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie and Aaron Becker to the podcast.

Mariahadessa: Hi everybody. My name is Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie I am the. Author of the Children's books, Layla's Happiness and most recently we go Slow with Aaron Becker. 

Aaron: And I guess that'd be me. My name is [00:03:00] Aaron Becker and I had the opportunity of illustrating this amazing book. We Go Slow. So that's what we're here to talk about today with Matthew.

Matthew: I will say first that I know I've known Aaron since his debut, but I've known you since I haven't known you, but I've known you since Layla's Happiness. I have done a credit Scott Amuck credit Scott King Award with my students for a long time, and that was when it came out. That was one of our, one of our set that we would read 'em and we'd March Madness style pair books and narrow them down.

But it also meant that our entire. School was reading books and understanding what credit Scott King qualifications there were, but also the work of Credit Scott King and just loving a whole lot of books. So I've been a fan. I'm glad that, aaron help bring us together for this conversation.

Mariahadessa: Thank you. That means so much. That's beautiful to hear. Thank you so much. 

Matthew: Oh yeah. Oh, I know that book. Mariahadessa, do you mind sharing a [00:04:00] brief book talk of We go slow for all of the readers that maybe have not yet encountered it. 

Mariahadessa: Yeah, so we go slow is a book about a child and a grandparent who take a very leisurely walk across their borough, right?

That's what it's about. It's about all the things they see and taste, and hear and touch and smell as they take their journey. 

Matthew: This book is gorgeous. I love a poem. I love a picture book poem. But Aaron, I also wanna bring you in because you did something different in this book. Each of your books has a voice, but this felt apart for me.

This almost felt is this Aaron Becker? And a really wonderful way. There was something about your voice as an artist that really spoke to me in this. I would love to hear how you found that voice. Whether I guess by that maybe, the color palette, but also your style, [00:05:00] the line where the line ends in the color blends over.

It's just something that really moved me, affected me. So I'd love to know, thank you. How you found that voice. 

Aaron: The thing is, I think if you think about your favorite musician and they come out with an album, a couple albums earlier in their career, and they have a sound to them, and then a few years later they come out with another album and you're like, this isn't, this is not the band I want to, but for the musician, it's like a very organic.

May sometimes unintentional thing, like they, this is just what feels right for them in the moment. And I didn't, it's not like I decided to have a departure artistically with this book. It's just what was called for and it's what came out organically and naturally. That, so it started out just like any other project where it's just like sketches and coming up with how to tell the story visually.

And those sketches became, the paintings they became, and I don't know, like it's this [00:06:00] magical thing when you. The art just decides to become what it needs to become. And you as the creator, as the illustrator, your job is to tend to that and help it find its way. But it's a very different story than anything I would've written myself.

Like I didn't grow up in Queens and I didn't have this experience but the poem. Maria Odessa's poem spoke to me in a real way, and I wanted to do something with that. So yeah the visuals just came out of my response to her poetry and to the words and trying to bring those to life somehow. And this is what we get and this is what, how it turned out.

Matthew: I don't think that every illustrator follows the practice that you're communicating though. I do have to give you a little more credit than that, Aaron. I think that. What you're sharing is a commitment to listening to the voice of the manuscript of the poem [00:07:00] and allowing yourself to be loose enough to go where it needs to go.

I have no doubt that it's you, that it's your artistic voice expressing itself in the story. But I, there, there are. Any number of illustrators of children's books who maybe don't know to listen to that voice, or maybe it's scary. Maybe I'll, I'll give people that credit. Maybe it's a little scary to, to go away from what you're familiar with you.

Yeah. I'll just, no, I love that. I'll leave it there. You are. I, when I think of Journey, I do think of the Cranson journey. And in the trilogy, but I also think of Blue and I think of green. And I see those blues and those greens in almost all of the other books that you made. That's so interesting.

And I don't at all in this book. Not that they're not there. Wow. And they're not composited there. I don't see them in this book. 

Aaron: The book I'm working on right now, it ha it exists [00:08:00] in two realities, in our reality or in the child's reality. And then they go into the unknown. The child goes into the journey, into the unknown, and the reality is blue and green.

It's so weird that you're saying that. And the fantasy world that the child goes into is purple and yellow, which is the palette for we go slow. 

That's incredible. That maybe that's my subconscious taking over in the purple and yellow realm. I have no idea. It's 

Matthew: great that you listen to it though.

Again, you to listen to it is something. 

Aaron: Oh, there you go. 

Matthew: Yeah. Maria's purple and yellow. Maria is showing us the purple and yellow of the dream in journey. 

Aaron: Oh my god.[00:09:00] 

Matthew: I wanted to ask you friend, about this poem that you wrote, this walk that we take. In this manuscript because I think there's something here that you're either gonna tell me it just came out this way or that it really took some work to get it to be what it is. But this walk that we take in this story, first I wanna ask you about that.

Is this a walk that you're familiar with? One from your memory, one that. You've done before because it [00:10:00] felt I imagine just reading the words and closing my eyes and hearing it. Not that I would ever suggest my readers ignore the work that Erin did, but your manuscript also works for me to close my eyes and hear someone read just these words to me and let me walk your walk in my mind.

So I guess what I'm asking is how did this poem present itself to you? 

Mariahadessa: What a beautiful question and such a beautiful way of posing it. I have to say Matthew. So my daughter, I'll say this, my eight, she's now 18. When she saw this manuscript a few years ago, she said, oh, this is our childhood.

So I think going slow is a way of being for me, and it drives some people crazy. But walking, observing really taking time to be. With what's in the environment. That's a way of being for me. And so [00:11:00] this poem was a way to get that on a page, right? It's really an exercise in being present, right?

Like in the day to day, we're always, I am often moving around really quickly and I cherish the time when I'm able to just take in what's surrounding me, I was talking to my mom today about how the leaves on the tree across the street are changing. There's just this one patch of red, right?

And she was really interested in that. And so I think that in this book, it's really about noticing. It's really about taking time. It's about mindfulness and it's also about togetherness. 'cause this girl is with her grandpa. And there's traditions where people say that the elders and the babies are the wise ones, right?

The rest of us are just bumbling fools in between running to and fro. And so I think that comes across in this book as well. Like the, [00:12:00] these are the wise ones who know to take time. And yeah. Also I did, when I had my children, I remember feeling like I was seeing things again for the first time.

Like we would walk and I'm like, wow, there's that a dandelion, oh. Look. Look at that. A flower growing through the cracks, right? Things like that, that you just took for granted that you saw every day. Oh yeah. Look at the shoes on the wire. That's a conversation I had with my oldest daughter.

Look at the shoes on the wire, and we would pass and she would say, shoes on wire. So this is, yeah, this is real life. This is the way that I experience life when I'm living the way I want to live. 

Matthew: It's 

Aaron: so great.

Matthew: I love that you've given the pear too. Aaron, you have kids, as do I notice through noticing.

We help others notice my kids. Similarly, maybe yours as well, Aaron. As I point out things we have we're [00:13:00] also East coast have the leaves changing and my daughter, who's now 10, and my son who's 15. I've already noticed the leaves on our drive down to the condo changing. And the next day my daughter will say, look at those leaves.

See how they're still changing and it's almost like we're, I've invited her to notice and she's inviting me to notice back. So having a pear be navigating this book, this walk makes a lot of sense to me. And then obviously invites the reader to notice as well the unspoken passenger through the book.

Yeah, 

Aaron: I know. In listening to you too Matthew, like talking about wanting to close your eyes for this experience, it makes me think that I hadn't thought of this before, one thing that distinguishes the drawings in this book is that they're really loose compared to my normal work. 

Matthew: Oh, 

Aaron: yeah.

I think there's a purposefulness to that [00:14:00] looseness because it's almost like giving so much more space for the reader to contextualize what they're hearing and seeing. It's almost like as close as you can get to closing your eyes is when things get a little blurry. 

Matthew: I love that. 

Aaron: And I just made me think when you were setting that question up, that Yeah.

And also speaking of going slow, that's always my purpose in any book I do is to give a child a chance to slow down with a wordless picture book. Like they get to take their own pace. So to get a manuscript on my desk that's like literally about the thing that's important to me. And it's, and I love Maria Des I love hearing you talk about how that's the way.

You move through life or have to make a conscious choice to do that amidst the bustle. Because it is, I think it is God, it's just every day I feel like this is the moment in history where it's really important for us to slow down and then a year will go by and it's oh no.

Actually it's now, [00:15:00] 

Mariahadessa: right now. 

Matthew: Yeah. Aaron that loose arc that you make. I love the loose line. I love the lines coming out beyond the lines. It's just not it's exactly what you're saying. It's not a clean distinction of character, of movement, of anything. It's all very loose.

Even the blending of colors is very loose, but my word does that make me look at light. I was obsessed, Erin, obsessed with light through the trees, which is the must be the thing that slows me down. I know you enough to know that you have a thing about light as well. That beautiful board book, series of board books you've made with the gels that we can play with the light 

Aaron: Yeah.

Matthew: Is what comes to mind. But I wonder for you how much it was. You intentionally drawing this way in [00:16:00] order to slow us down. And how much was it a subconscious expression of your artistic voice causing that? 

Aaron: I think it comes from the words a little bit too, because there's a page there's a line of text that hints at dappled light, like the notion of dappled light through trees.

I don't know if it explicitly says it. It's like palms. Palms of light. And I was like, what palms of light? What is that? And I just imagined these shadows on the on the sidewalk. I think dappled light is just amazing. And and so there was that, and then there was just a sense of the light.

What's the light gonna be like in this apartment? And like how does that slow us down that morning light in an apartment when the lights aren't, you don't need to have the lights on to see, but it's like this soft light and the light coming in through windows. And also watercolor is a medium of light because you start out with white paper.

And anything you add [00:17:00] to it is just going to be taking away that light. And the whole point is to allow the light to come through. So you wanna make sure when you lay down your washes that you're not too heavy with it. And I think there's something with the fact that these illustrations came about really organically and I didn't have all of the, I was doing these illustrations when we were living in Canada and I wasn't in my own studio, so I didn't have all of my.

Tricks, like all of the things that I might nor normally rely on as crutches for making like the artwork that you're used to seeing. So I didn't have my computer to lay things out and figure out geometry and figure out. Lighting and so I kinda had to go from intuition and therefore there was a looseness, but also it forced me to really rely on the whiteness of the paper to come through through those washes.

And I think that's where the glow comes from and. Yeah, who knows? 

Matthew: That's cool. The opening it, you're referring to the stanza that opens the book, which [00:18:00] Mariahadessa, do you mind if I read to you? Is that okay if I read your book to you? 

Aaron: No. Have her read it. Have her read it. She's, oh, have her read it.

Go for it. Yeah. Yeah. 

Mariahadessa: Oh my gosh. You wait. No 

Matthew: pressure. You have it. I see it. 

Mariahadessa: No, I do. I'm loving your questions. I have to tell, I'm just loving them and I'm loving the answers. Aaron, like I I'm so in awe of all of this. I have to say, just in awe of the work that Aaron did and the way that he did it.

And I'll read it and then I'll say 

Matthew: that. I love that. 

Mariahadessa: Okay. So do you want me to start with mornings? Yeah. Why 

Matthew: don't we start, yeah. Start at the beginning and go where feels right to stop. 

Mariahadessa: Okay.

Okay. Mornings are soft laughter, fresh bread, nutmeg, and coffee smells. Mornings are stories. Cool. Crackling records and trying to remember last night's Dream [00:19:00] mornings are open windows. Look at that sky. Palms of light that wave us outside. Outside we go slow. 

Matthew: Your story reads so smooth and just like those moments.

Just like Aaron, I'm picturing swinging in a hammock. With my eyes closed and opening the eyes and glimpsing something and closing them and glimping another. When I open again, Maria Thata was your draft always like this? Sometimes we hear about picture books that just come, just arrive.

I. 

Mariahadessa: Yeah, this, and Aaron can talk about this too. A lot of it was there actually when we, when the manuscript went to Feather Flores is my amazing editor, so she deserves a shout out. I think editors are like. These hidden treasures. Completely hidden. But she loved this when it came [00:20:00] across her desk and it did, it flowed out when I wrote it.

I remember writing it right. It was during the pandemic. Yeah, it was during the pandemic. And everything at that point was locked down, if I remember right. We might've been in the lockdown period. So I was in the room, that's blue, and I wrote. This draft of this and it eventually made its way to feather and she loved it, but she had edits.

This has evolved over time. Like it got longer. The section about the mango wasn't there initially. That's something that came in and in the end there was, there used to be a rhyme. We lost that, right? We let that go. And so the bones of this were here. Most definitely Aaron, you remember, right?

The bones of it were, was here, but things started changing. It just, it got, 

Aaron: you know what I think changed was the pacing because like the [00:21:00] poem worked on its own as is, and then all of a sudden it's like you were talking about being a playwright in a lot of your. Your early manuscripts, your editor's this is a play.

This is not a picture book. Interesting. And and as much as that's true, like this was a poem, it wasn't a picture book. It didn't need to be a picture book. It worked on its own as a poem, but to work as a picture book. Then all of a sudden you've got page turns. 

Mariahadessa: Yeah. 

Aaron: And that is my language because when I make a wordless picture book, that's the only tool I have to tell a reader what's any sense of timing and pacing.

Mariahadessa: Yeah. 

Aaron: And as we started to as I as I was trying to find a way of getting your poem into this form where it's about the page turns as well as the flow of the text. Things were gonna have to move somehow. And I, no one knew what that was gonna be, but 

Matthew: no, 

Aaron: I think that's just the way it goes.

And it amazes me that some manuscripts [00:22:00] just don't have, don't do that. Like that, that editors don't take the time to do that with the illustrator. And there's not that open dialogue because. I think it needs it, it needs that kind of massaging in order to like, because I don't, I think your original poem is probably a stronger poem than the text that ended up in the book, like on its own.

But 

Mariahadessa: with 

Aaron: pictures it wa but it wasn't gonna be as good of a picture book. It needed, something needed to shift just like my pictures on their own. If I had tried to tell this story with just pictures. It wouldn't have worked and they needed each other. 

Mariahadessa: That makes sense to me because I, now I'm remembering there was nothing about Cool crackling records and trying to remember last night's dream.

That wasn't in there either. Those are things that got added. And you're right. It's why do you turn the page? What is it that makes you do that, right? I can, when we're talking about it, I can remember what was there and I so appreciate you saying what you said about the poem because [00:23:00] maybe the poem has its own life then,

Aaron: Yeah, definitely. 

Mariahadessa: Yeah. Maybe it does, but. Yeah. It doesn't just come. And I do think that editors, like really sensitive editors are just such a gift. And an unsung, often hidden gift. Which is why it's nice to say their names in these spaces. 

Matthew: Wow. It's beautiful that it turned the way that it did.

That it, it turned through your mind. The muse turned through these experiences that you shared with us, that were shared with your daughters. That's beautiful. That all of those things were just, were in there and that, Erin, you have this relationship with colors and with your line and with this looseness and with light and that the poem was beautiful on its own and your wordless stories are beautiful on their own but for it to exist in this way.

This is the form that it took. How beautiful an [00:24:00] expression of art itself. That the hands that help mold it, we can't help but have our likeness shine through it by us touching it. And that is beautiful in that way, and that the hands of someone else, it would've looked like something else, but how great the feather was able to have her hands on this as well to help.

Hear it. Yeah, it's great. It's beautiful. Beautiful. Both of you. I have found if I can put myself onto the book as well as we do as grownups reading the books to ourselves and to children that the we in the title, having me, the reader read, we over and over slowed me. It was, how can I say these words and not slow down?

Because if I don't slow down and let my mind slow down, I'm lying. I'm creating a [00:25:00] fallacy in reading this to people, to children. And in that way, this book required a lot of trust for me. With you, Maria Dessa in particular, because I. I had to trust that whatever your words were going to be on these page turns that Aaron had yet to reveal to me as I was reading through this book that you and I could be, that we as we were reading it.

And that's, I think the sacred relationship. Any author, any illustrator, any storyteller has with their reader, but. It can be where we are in the universe right now, but I felt it in a very tangible way with this book. And I'm grateful in that way that this book came to me right when it did. 

Mariahadessa: Wow.

I'm floored by what you're saying. I thank you for that. I think the wow, the way you phrased this, it makes me think of the sacred we 

Matthew: Sure. [00:26:00] 

Mariahadessa: Yeah, like a sacred we. And so I think the relationship between the grandparent and the child would it's all here on the cover, right? It's right here.

There's a sacred trust that's here with these two walking through the world and in the world, and I love that. You become a part of that trust as well. And I become a part of that trust too, because I'm a witness to these two walking right now. I am also a witness to these two walking.

And you're right, it does, it slows me down when I have to read it. I've only read it aloud. This was the third piece of a time and I noticed my energy just goes right. Yeah. I love the way you said that. It's a fallacy. If you don't slow down, you are lying. Wow. Thank you for that. 

Matthew: Yeah. 

Aaron: It's also, I'll tell you this book for anyone who lives anywhere near New York, it should be an invitation to go to Jackson Heights and walk around this [00:27:00] crazy amazing place in this universe where.

You can travel the world from block to block, and there is no culture that hasn't that in this, on this planet that is not represented in a two mile square area of the world like it is. It is literally like a space station of just like you've traveled into the future and people have figured out how to live together.

Regardless of being able to speak the same language or share the same culture or home life or stories, they don't even need to share the same stories and it, or it is really an astounding place to walk around. And that was a real gift for me was getting to go there and get to know the place and take all of my.

Reference pictures and eat all that food. And eat all that food. 

Mariahadessa: Eat all that food. [00:28:00] Yes. 

Aaron: Yeah. 

Mariahadessa: Queens. Yes. Absolutely. No, Aaron, when Aaron when I saw what Aaron was sketching, I couldn't believe it actually. I was like, it's home, right? Like it's Queens. You've put it here in this book. And it's, it was a gift because I didn't expect to see.

Jackson Heights. I didn't expect to see Jamaica. I feel like I see Jamaica Avenue too with the mangoes in particular. I, it's, and then if I talk to other folks, they see their homes in here too. I've spoken to people from the Bronx. He's oh no, this is the boroughs. And people from, I had someone from.

Baltimore say they saw Baltimore in here. Okay. I had to that, yeah. Someone told me that they saw Providence in here, which was shocking to me. But it's so based in Queens and Aaron last week brought out these gorgeous pictures that he took of things that he saw when he was in Queens. And again, I would, [00:29:00] I was just in awe of the process.

I didn't expect it to be such a beautiful but spot on. Beautiful. Yes, but spot on representation of things that I love about home. 

Matthew: I wanna end with us together in this space. This feels wonderful. Erin, I've asked you this so many times and so I'm gonna ask you first especially because I wanna make sure that I end with Mariahadessa.

And so my friend, I'm gonna ask you that I will see a library full of children tomorrow morning, my friend. Is there a message that I can bring to them from you? 

Aaron: Absolutely. When you close your eyes and think about how it feels to be you and take a moment to actually feel your. Your reality that's in you, that's just yours.

It is a gift you're giving yourself. And take a moment to slow down and be in that space and feel [00:30:00] yourself as something real and important and in this much large, larger universe with all these other people, they're still you. 

Matthew: Is there a message that I can bring to them from you? 

Mariahadessa: Yes, I would say you are enough.

You've always been enough, and you will always be enough.