Cover Reveal for YOUR ONE AND ONLY HEART!

I’m so thrilled to show you the cover of my nonfiction picture book, YOUR ONE AND ONLY HEART!

I first drafted this book way back in 2013, and called it “The Hardest Working Muscle.” I always intended it to be a lyrical nonfiction book, but I couldn’t figure out how to bring it all together. I worked on it then put it aside over and over again for years.

Then one day in early 2018, I got a lightning bolt idea: I’d take pairs of contrasting characteristics of the heart—for example, the fact that it’s singular (your “one and only”) and cooperative (part of the cardiovascular system), simple and complex, electric and muscular—and pair them up in poems I had never really thought about it until then, but to me, science, and especially the science of the human body, is poetic.

In 2020, we sold the manuscript to my wonderful editor, Ellen Cormier at Dial Books for Young Readers. She suggested Lauren Paige Conrad as the illustrator, and when I looked at Lauren’s cut paper illustrations, they blew my mind! Even before she signed onto the project, Lauren suggested putting each set of paired poems in different shades of 7 different colors — the colors of the rainbow! The finished art is beyond anything I could have ever imagined: vivid and sweet, fun and scientifically accurate. And the back matter illustrations are absolute genius! I hope this book draws many young readers into the fascinating world of human biology.

So without further ado, here is the cover of YOUR ONE AND ONLY HEART, coming August 15, 2023, and available for preorder today!

Isn’t it gorgeous? I love the sweet kids and the hearts, both graphic and anatomical, and the wonderful colors! YOUR ONE AND ONLY HEART will release on August 15, 2023 and is available for preorder today!