Click photo for full unboxing videos 🙂

[Originally posted @carolinepritchardwrites on July 14, 2020]

I’m not historically one for avoidance, but WOW did I find every reason not to tear open that cardboard box. Instead, I grabbed it from our doorstep and promptly shoved it under the typewriter. I then proceeded to stare at it suspiciously every time I walked by for the past three days.

Then last night, in the middle of building legos and putting on pajamas, I blurted out that the book was here and asked the boys if they wanted to read it. They sprinted across the room, jumped up on the couch and pulled out our softest blanket. This is the same exact scene that plays out any time we read together. It’s one of the most joyful and purposeful and sacred gifts of being a caregiver. It’s why I write picture books.

And that’s when I realized one possible root of my avoidance. The book inside that cardboard box has come to represent countless real and imagined possibilities in my mind. But there is one thing I hadn’t considered until I was sandwiched between my kids with the weight of GITTY AND KVETCH pressed against my lap: what if these little humans… don’t like it?

So much of my writing process is an invisible one for them— drafting early in the morning, revising late at night, pecking away at ideas in my notes app while they race their scooters. But once that invisible work became a REAL thing they can hold in their hands, then what?! Let’s be real, they most certainly won’t like everything I write. And I don’t need them to!

But today I am taking a moment to say: the book is real! It is here! It will hit shelves on August 31st! You can preorder it now! I’ll share more info on fun swag soon! And… MY KIDS LIKE IT!!!! Swipe to the last video for Afi’s question and Manu’s reaction that just about did me in.

I will be a leaky faucet of thank yous over the next few months, but for now, a special one for @tavitap, the effusive hype-man behind the camera, and @apastor926 for believing in this story (and me) from the very beginning. Now off to frame that note of yours 🙂

Tap the photo to head to Instagram where I posted the full unboxing video 🙂