Baby librarian Tilly and her mum Jen review the sweet but not sappy picture book You Are New by Lucy Knisley.
Tilly reviews You Are New
There are lots of babies in this book, so that’s cool. I like other babies. Mostly. I don’t think I’m new anymore, so maybe I’m too old for this book. Mummy and Daddy keep saying how I’m a big girl now and not a baby but sometimes I think they say that to trick me into doing things I don’t want to do. The second half of the book talks about all the new things still to discover, and there are still lots of things that are new to me so I guess maybe this book is still relevant. Last week my grandma took me to the pet shop and we saw fish swimming around! That was new.
Jen reviews You Are New
There are a lot of books out there for newborns (who knew there were so many sub-genres in the world of books for the 0–3 crowd?) and I think this is my favourite. The illustrations are bold and simple and the text is perfectly sweet without being sentimental or sappy, and there is a gentle warmth and humour to the prose. It is written to a newborn baby (as may be obvious from the title) for whom everything is new. But as Tilly mentioned, the book grows with the baby: as your baby turns into a toddler, she will continue discovering and learning new things. A lovely, beautiful book I really enjoyed.