New Tummy Time Board Book Series Designed To Stand Up

A new series of accordion-style illustrated board books for babies published by Penguin Young Readers is designed to stand up on play mats so babies can look at them during tummy time. The series of textless, black-and-white illustrated titles launched with Babies Love Animals, published Tuesday with a print run of 40,000, and is illustrated by tattooist and artist Susanne König, with Babies Love Nature and Babies Love Outer Space to follow. I interviewed König, Art Director of HelloBigHug.com, and Jill Santopolo, VP & Associate Publisher of Philomel Books, about the series’ inspiration and the process of creating and producing the books.

In an interview, Santopolo explained the origin of the series that initially, König submitted her art for conisderation to Penguin Young Readers. After Santopolo shared the artwork with an editor, the editor immediately “loved” the heart-shpaed animal art, which fit with what she’d been “about how black-and-white board books help babies developmentally.” When Santapolo started thinking about tummy time, she says the idea “clicked” and asked König to illustrate a book series for babies “that was tailored to them and their needs and could grow with them into toddlerhood.”

König explained how her she came up with the initial concept. “My work has been predominantly concerned with feelings of coziness and family bonds for years now; and I came up with the heart shaped animal hugs a few years back when drawing a present for a friend’s wedding. From there they became quite a popular subject matter for me to illustrate or tattoo.” Of her interest in the series, König says, “I was very excited when Penguin said they wanted to commission me for a series of baby books using my animal hearts as a starting point as I’ve always enjoyed working with this concept.”

Selecting which animals to include in the books was “difficult” for König, with so many options to choose among. “There are so many interesting shapes and textures in the natural world,” the artist said. “After talking to Jill and the team about the science behind tummy time and the black and white images, it became more obvious to me which contrasting textures I should use, so that there was a variety of solid black sections, natural patterns and negative space.”

Santopolo says the decision to not include text and focus solely on artwork was rooted in babies’ brain development. “Babies’ minds respond best to black-and-white images—not only is it what they see first, looking at black-and-white images allows them to focus on the page without the overstimulation of color as they get a little older, and being able to focus that way helps train their eye muscles as they grow. Since we wanted to create this series explicitly for babies and their growing minds, that meant no words and no color,” she said.

Working on the book remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic brought some specific challenges to the book design process, said Santopolo. “Our designer, Monique, had to make sure that the pages folded and stayed together properly while laying things out digitally. We went back and forth with the production team and the printer a few times to make sure we had it right.”

As for where the series fits into the marketplace, Santopolo said, “The only other book I know of that offers something similar is Tana Hoban’s book Black & White, which came out fifteen years ago. Babies Love Animals innovates on that title because it provides a book that will grow with its readers.” Santopolo says the series starts the process by “stimulating the newborn mind and strengthening the body during tummy time,” as well as “providing a jumping off point for parents and children to sit together—with the book folded up—and talk about each animal while the little ones learn the animals’ names and sounds.” But she doesn’t see it as only limited to being useful for babies. “Because it has no text, even older readers can use their imagination to ‘tell’ the story of what’s happening on each page,” she said.