Description

‘Pia Bramley captures this bizarre love and confusion perfectly’ – Cariad Lloyd
‘A beautiful, bittersweet keepsake for anyone who’s navigated the journey to parenthood during this exceptional time’ – Leah Hazard
‘Tender and moving’ – Katherine May
‘This is a perfect book’ – Isabel Greenberg
‘True loveliness on every single page’ – Lizzy Stewart
‘A thing to treasure and keep close at hand’ – Emily Haworth-Booth
‘A reminder of all the angst, the strangeness, the minor griefs, but – most importantly – of the magic’ – Jennie Agg

A moving, funny exploration of life as the parent of a lockdown baby, by illustrator Pia Bramley.

Since March 2020, babies have been born into a world of masks, hand washing and social distancing. They met their grandparents on video calls. Their parents held them up to windows and took them for long walks in the rain.

Pia Bramley’s illustrations capture the intimacy of the small, strange world of the pandemic baby. She draws on her own experience as a new parent, telling the story of a child’s first year against the backdrop of the pandemic: the quiet streets of the first lockdown, the relative freedom of summer, the long nights of autumn and winter and, finally, new hope as spring arrives and life begins to open up again. Moving, funny and deeply honest, this is a book for every parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle or friend who waited to hold their pandemic baby.

Publisher Review

A beautiful, bittersweet keepsake for anyone who's navigated the journey to parenthood during this exceptional time -- Leah Hazard, author of HARD PUSHED: A MIDWIFE'S STORY Pia Bramley's beautiful, scratchy ink vignettes capture the strangeness of being a new parent in the pandemic. Her drawings are sparse, expressive and tender. This is a perfect book -- Isabel Greenberg, author of 'The Encyclopedia of Early Earth' A thing to treasure and keep close at hand. I would prescribe it to the lost and the lonely, the busy and the overburdened, the heart-broken and the happy -- Emily Haworth-Booth Pandemic Baby takes you inside the strange, muddled and beautiful experience of parenthood in a world shrunken to just a few rooms. Pia's drawings are intimate, lonely and celebratory all at once. This book is, simply, a gem and there is true loveliness on every single page -- Lizzy Stewart, author of It's Not What You Thought It Would Be So deft and well-observed about becoming a parent during the last 18 months ... a reminder of all the angst, the strangeness, the minor griefs, but - most importantly - of the magic -- Jennie Agg