Little Passenger
-
- Pre-Order
-
- Expected Mar 17, 2026
-
- $12.99
-
- Pre-Order
-
- $12.99
Publisher Description
A tender picture book explores the journey of an unborn child toward birth, and the love it receives as it grows, in a perfect gift for new and expanding families everywhere. Beloved, protected, and growing—from pea size to pumpkin size to baby—a little passenger is getting ready to meet the world. In this beautiful picture book evoking all the vulnerability, hope, and tenderness of pregnancy, Deirdre Sullivan’s simple, poetic words capture the inner dialogue and deeply felt connection between a mother and her unborn child. Jessica Love, creator of the celebrated Julián Is a Mermaid, brings her singular art to the pages in an inspired pairing sure to be treasured by expecting parents and older siblings-to-be.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
An adult speaker relates parallel gestational periods in this visually inventive book from young adult author Sullivan, making her picture book debut, and Love (The Poet and the Bees), which unfolds over the course of a single pregnancy. Beginning "Little Passenger./ I have made a space for you/ inside my heart," sensorially anchored lines use anaphora to address the developing embryo, chronicling a gradual transformation from "a dot,/ a pea, a single grape" to "a cabbage,/ a pumpkin,/ and...// a person." Light-filled watercolors seem composed of gentle stitches as they alternate imagery of flora and fruit, a pale-skinned adult with a baby bump sewing by hand, and a glowing pink figure in utero. As the moment for greetings nears, reassuring verse builds with welcoming anticipation ("Are you ready?... There is a soft place for you to sleep"), while illustrations reveal the purpose of the adult's handiwork: a cozy quilt to be shared by caregiver and new arrival. It's a warmth-filled portrait that binds the loving act of making a quilt to one experience of growing a family. Ages 5–7.
