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Baby Be

Illustrated by Sean Qualls

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About The Book

Dads of all varieties bounce and groove with their babies, letting them know the best thing they can be is themselves, in this exuberant picture book ode to the joy of fatherhood.

Baby!
High five!
Down low!
You ready?
Let’s go!


Dads got moves! Dads got grooves. From shoulder rides to sleepy time snuggles, dads have their own special relationships with their babies, their own way of showing their great big love for one another, and those beats, those boogies, those moments together will live in their hearts forever.

About The Author

Photograph (c) Alison McGhee
Alison McGhee

Alison McGhee is the New York Times bestselling author of Someday, as well as Dear Sister, What I Leave Behind, Pablo and Birdy, Where We Are, Maybe a Fox with Kathi Appelt, Firefly Hollow, Little Boy, So Many Days, Star Bright, A Very Brave Witch, Dear Brother, and the Bink and Gollie books. Her other children’s books include All Rivers Flow to the Sea, Countdown to Kindergarten, and Snap!. She lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Laguna Beach, California. You can visit her at AlisonMcGhee.com.

About The Illustrator

Photgraph by Sean Qualls
Sean Qualls

Sean Qualls’s work is a mixed media combination of painting, drawing, and collage. He has illustrated many picture books, including Before John Was a Jazz Giant, which received a Coretta Scott King Honor Award; The Poet Slave of Cuba, a BCCB Blue Ribbon Book; Dizzy, an ALA Notable Book and a Kirkus Reviews, School Library Journal, and Child Magazine best book, as well as BCCB Blue Ribbon Book and a Booklist Editor’s Choice; and Emmanuel’s Dream, which was a Schneider Award winner and an Amazon Best Book of the Month. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Product Details

  • Publisher: Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books (October 10, 2023)
  • Length: 40 pages
  • ISBN13: 9781534405394
  • Ages: 4 - 8

Raves and Reviews

Working in textured acrylic paint, colored pencil, and collage, Qualls portrays the twosomes with various skin tones and hair textures; incorporates kinetic-feeling movement that tracks with the text; and includes background bubbles, stars, and wafting ribbons that seem to represent music and sound. In equally energetic words, McGhee celebrates unconditional love, not just for an infant’s actions or potential, but for their existence in the present moment. Singing, yelling, and dancing, each adult hints, it’s all “already perfect to me.”

– Publishers Weekly, 9/4/2023

Awards and Honors

  • CBC Best Children's Books of the Year

Resources and Downloads

High Resolution Images

More books from this author: Alison McGhee

More books from this illustrator: Sean Qualls