I received a sample for this review/feature. Opinions expressed are my own.
Since I am currently pregnant with my third and final baby I find that I am extra sentimental about almost everything. I am not a “crier” but even I tear up randomly at moments throughout the day whenever something touches my heart! When I Carried You in My Belly is a particularly sweet picture book that made me tear up the first time I read it to my older girls and I can’t wait to read it to my baby too. It is acclaimed adult fiction author Thrity Umrigar’s first book for children.
The special bond between a mother and her child begins well before the baby is born. But once the baby is born and starts to grow into her own person, traits from both parents begin to show themselves in delightful and humorous ways. When I Carried You in My Belly is a mother’s song to her growing daughter, capturing the warmth and magic of the time when her daughter was housed inside her belly. The girl’s laugh, her love of music, her sweet disposition, and her carefree attitude can all be traced back to her time in her mother’s tummy, when her mother would laugh, sing songs, eat yummy treats, and dance the day away.
Thrity Umrigar is the bestselling author of a memoir and six novels, including?The Space between Us,?If Today Be Sweet, and?The Story Hour. A winner of the Niemen fellowship to Harvard University, she has written for the?Washington Post, the?Huffington Post, and the?Boston Globe. She’s currently the Armington Professor of English at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.
Ziyue Chen?grew up in sunny Singapore and graduated from Ringling College of Art and Design with a BFA in illustration. Her work has been recognized in the 3×3 Picture Book Show (2014), SCBWI’s SI Scholarship (2013), the Society of Illustrators? Student Scholarship Show (2013), and Creative Quarterly (2012).
Young children love to hear their very own origin stories, and this tale speaks to that need, in the voice of a mother telling her child about the time right before she was born. I tell my girls that with both of them I would love to go on long boat rides while quietly rubbing my belly and that is why they love the water as much as they do today. The soothing, lyrical text and joyful illustrations make this beautiful book a PERFECT gift for a baby shower or Mother’s Day.
