As a curious little girl eagerly awaits the arrival of her sister, she has many questions about what her new sibling will be like.
Will her sister have freckles? How will her family change?
With lyrical language and unforgettable, lush illustrations, Mama’s Belly is an honest and gentle exploration of the excitement and anticipation in welcoming a new family member, assuring young readers that Mama will always have enough love for everyone.
Writing Mama’s Belly
When I wrote Mama’s Belly in 2009, I was in my first semester at Vermont College of Fine Arts studying picture books with the writer and teacher Uma Krishnaswami. I was partly inspired to write the story after finding a picture of myself hugely pregnant with my younger son Andreas, while my two year-old son, Charlie and I faced each other and held our bellies.
The story was initially just a celebration of pregnancy, with the main character only expressing positive feeling about the new baby. I wasn’t really digging into the ambivalence that a child feels about having a pregnant mother and a baby on the way. Uma encouraged me to explore all of the feelings that a child might have while waiting for a brother or sister to be born. The story improved a lot, but still seemed to lack a climactic moment.
I set the story aside for a number of years, and then tried to revise it again. At some point, I remember asking a pregnant neighbor on our corner what her young daughter had wanted to know about her pregnancy. She said her daughter asked, “Will there be enough love for both of us?”
After that conversation, I realized that at the end of the day, that’s really the most important question that any child wants answered by their pregnant mother. I then included a scene centered around this question and the mother’s reassuring answer. At that point, the story finally felt complete. I hope that when children listen to this story, they will be reassured that Mama will always have enough love for both of her children.
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