We Waited for You: Now We're a Family

by Cindy Chupack, Emily Hamilton (Illustrator)

Overview

A perfect gift for any parent celebrating the arrival of a child. With breathtaking illustrations and a sweet rhyming text, Golden Globe and Emmy-winning screenwriter and director Cindy Chupack's debut picture book celebrates the moment a child and parent form a family.

"We waited for you.

Sometimes it seemed everybody we knew even bears at the zoo had a baby or two

but we waited for you.

We dreamed about you.

Dreamed about all the adventures we'd share once you were there

safe in our care, sweet dreams of you."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781492678960
Publisher:	Sourcebooks
Publication date:	07/11/2023
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	8.90(w) x 11.20(h) x 0.80(d)
Lexile:	AD480L (what's this?)
Age Range:	3 - 6 Years

About the Author

Cindy Chupack is the Emmy Award-winning writer and executive producer of such shows as Sex and the City, Modern Family, and I’m Dying Up Here. She is the author of the New York Times nonfiction bestseller The Between Boyfriends Book: A Collection of Cautiously Hopeful Essays. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband and daughter.

Emily Hamilton is an artist & illustrator based in North Devon, UK. In addition to illustrating children’s books, Emily designs greeting cards and prints.

Editorial Reviews

"A rhyming ode to the perseverance, love, and care of expecting parents." — Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

2023-04-24
In her debut picture book, screenwriter and director Chupack pens a rhyming ode to the perseverance, love, and care of expecting parents.

Written from a collective parent perspective, the book starts by sharing the narrators’ hopes and frustrations while watching other families with children. As the poem builds, the illustrations show parents dreaming about what they would do if they had kids, from reading books to blowing out birthday candles. Interspersed are spreads depicting children waiting for their parents in dreamlike settings. Finally, after dreaming, searching, wishing, crying, and singing, two light-skinned parents are rewarded with a blond-haired, light-skinned baby. The final spread shows other happy, loving parents and their children. This rhyming picture book is structured around an ever so slightly changing refrain, highlighted in a swirly font. The illustrations are bright and enticing, with diverse families and characters amid bright spring colors and crayonlike textures. Although the illustrations are kid-friendly in color and tone, the narration centers parents in such a way that skews it toward adult, not child, validation. In addition to an occasionally forced rhyme scheme, the transitions between fantasy and reality are whimsical but potentially confusing for little ones. While the sentiment is lovely, there’s a lack of discussion around the reasons why some parents might have to wait for a child to be born. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

A gift book for new parents rather than their wee ones. (Picture book. 3-6)

Kirkus Reviews