So… I’m a little behind today… Let’s just pretend it’s Friday morning, shall we? 😊
Welcome to Perfect Picture Book Friday (where it is not 8:33 PM 😊)!
First off, I am thrilled and excited to announce the winner of the Starry Forest giveaway last week!
Congratulations to Andi Chitty! You get to have a 20 minute Zoom meeting with Robert Agis, the president of the publishing company, to ask anything you want about publishing and even have a chance to share some of your own pitches! Thank you so much to Starry Forest Books, Robert Agis, and Amy Dixon for visiting us last week and offering such a wonderful opportunity!
And now, I have such a beautiful book to show you!
Title: How You Came To Be
Written By: Carole Gerber
Illustrated By: Sawsan Chalabi
Publisher: Rise x Penguin Workshop, an imprint of Penguin Random House, nonfiction
Suitable For Ages: 2-4 years
Themes/Topics: prenatal development, nonfiction
Opening: “Before you were born,
a wiggly little cell from another
joined with a little round cell from me.
That’s how you came to be.
Together, these two tiny cells formed
one brand-new cell
that would become YOU.”
Brief Synopsis: From the publisher: “A mother lovingly describes the sizes and stages of her baby’s month-by-month development inside the womb, and the amazement of experiencing it from the outside.”
Links To Resources: there is some very nice back matter in the book with “Helpful Words To Know”, “What Unborn Babies Do”, and “How Babies Are Born”, as well as a Selected Bibliography. The book itself is a wonderful resource.
Why I Like This Book: I love this book. It is so beautifully and lovingly written, in a way that is so perfectly accessible to young readers. Instead of focusing on any of the mechanics of conception, which I think would be pretty hard to make appropriate for very young readers, it shows children, in concrete images they can easily envision, how big they were at 1 month, 2 months, etc. By personalizing growth and development, almost in the form of a love letter to the child, it feels immediate and relatable.
“Every day you doubled in size.
Soon, you were as big as a pea.
Your heart began to develop
and to beat very quickly.“
Children will be captivated by imagining themselves that small, and if they have a sibling on the way, it may help them to feel their soon-to-be-brother-or-sister is more real. If you’re looking for a book that will answer questions about babies without going into the kinds of details you’d like to hold off on until your children are a little older, or if you just want a lovely book that explains a lot about babies in simple, highly appropriate, easy-to-understand words and pictures, this is the perfect choice!
I hope you enjoy it as much as I do 😊
For the complete list of books with resources, please visit Perfect Picture Books.
PPBF folks, please add your titles and post-specific blog links (and any other info you feel like filling out 😊) to the form below so we can all come see what fabulous picture books you’ve chosen to share this week!
Have a wonderful weekend, everyone! 😊
Susanna Leonard Hill 
This book sounds lovely, Susanna! And the black background so unusual. Really beautiful!
It’s a gorgeous book, Jilanne – so perfect for what it’s intended for!
This is very interesting and loving. Really different approach and I love how the little bit of light is on the mother and the rest is dark (like the womb?). Thanks for featuring this one.
Yes, exactly, Maria! That’s what I thought too!
What a beautiful way to present a baby’s growth in the womb! Thanks for sharing this Susanna! 🙂
You’re welcome, Susan! I hope you get to read it – it’s really beautifully done!
So sweet and simple. The illustrator did a good job in showing the babies growth.
I think so, too, Eleanor. Such a lovely book!
I am overwhelmed and so excited to have won last weeks giveaway with Starry Forest Books, thank you *so much*, Susanna!!
This book looks so beautiful. As a momma who obsessed over my baby app while pregnant with my first born, this book would have been right up my alley. And so beautifully written and illustrated. The choice of a black background was perfection, so reflective of the womb itself. Absolutely beautiful.
Thank you again!!
I’m so glad you’re excited about your prize, Andi! And I love this book so much. My daughter just had a baby, and all through her pregnancy she had an app that showed what size the baby was each week as a fruit or vegetable, so I really related to the images in this book
Thanks so much, Susanna, for your lovely review about my new book, HOW YOU CAME TO BE. I dedicated it to my daughters, Paige and Jess, who now have children of their own.
My pleasure, Carole! It’s a beautiful book! And how nice to know about your dedication 😊
What a stunning format and so beautifully written!
Isn’t it great? So perfect!
Absolutely LOVE the cover and illustrations…and the text is gorgeous! Hurray for Carole Gerber!
It is truly a perfect picture book! 😊
I had an early look at this manuscript back in 2016 and could hardly wait until this book was out in the world. It’s truly, truly special! Carole writes beautifully!
She really does, Penny! 😊