The family tradition behind To the Little One I Love.

When I was growing up, my mother had what I think of as a physical lullaby. Every night when she put us to bed, she would pull the covers up to our noses, kiss our cheeks, and squeeze our toes.

She had a horrible singing voice, so she never sang to us! Instead, she repeated those same little gestures every night. I remember them so clearly.

After my own children were born, I started writing down what I remembered my mother doing. Those memories became the beginning of To the Little One I Love. I wrote music to accompany the words and used to sing the story to my children at bedtime.

My mother died when my daughter was just a year and a half old, so there is a personal story behind this book. It comes from something my mother did for us, which I then shared with my own children.

I think of To the Little One I Love as a lullaby for parents. It’s meant to be interactive, with the person reading and the little one sharing the gestures in the story.

Every parent has some version of a bedtime routine. This book grew out of ours.