Walker falls for Love's starry celebration of parent-child bonding

Walker Books has acquired A Bed of Stars, a picture book from actor and author-illustrator Jessica Love celebrating parent-child bonding.

The book will publish simultaneously with Walker’s sister company Candlewick Press in the US. Executive editor Katie Cunningham acquired world rights in all languages from Meredith Kaffel Simonoff of the Gernert Company, previously at DeFiore and Company. The book will be edited by Cunningham and designed by executive creative director Ann Stott. It will be released in spring 2023, publishing on 4th April in the US, while Australia and the UK will follow on 3rd and 4th May respectively.

Love’s debut, Julián Is a Mermaid, was published to critical acclaim in 2018. It received several major international awards, including a Stonewall Book Award, a Bologna Ragazzi Opera Prima Award for Debut Authors and Illustrators, and an Ezra Jack Keats Illustrator Honor, among others. It was shortlisted for both the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize and the Kate Greenaway Medal in the UK.

The debut, and its sequel Julián at the Wedding, which published in 2020, are licensed in 19 languages and have sold more than 600,000 copies in print worldwide, according to the publisher.

Love’s new story centres on a father attempting to calm a child’s anxiety about the enormity of the universe by camping out in the desert. 
"A contemplative story of small moments between father and child, A Bed of Stars celebrates first-time camping, parent-child bonding, and feeling at one with the universe," the synopsis reads.

Cunningham said: "One thread that I find over and over in Jessica’s work is that she does not shy away from the complexities that young brains grapple with. She does their adults a kindness, too, by modelling what loving acceptance of those complexities looks like. The alchemy of her books is the moment when the child speaks their truth and the adults believe them, holding space for the wild edges of a child’s intellectual and emotional life."

Walker Books Group is planning a coordinated international marketing and publicity campaign in support of the new publication.