Snuggle Wuggle Wee is launching this weekend!

"It's here, it's here, I squeal with glee!"

I stole that line from a project that I had been working on for LATCH since March 2013.  It has always been my dream to have more breastfeeding books for children.  Because breastfeeding brought such joy to our family, I look for this theme whenever I buy children's books for N and E.  I listed some of our breastfeeding books in my post back in 2011.  We have amassed more books since then.


However, one thing you will notice in my collection is that there is no single book there by a Filipino author. All of my children's books with breastfeeding themes were brought abroad.  I'm not sure if you have also noticed - but local children's books on babies - especially those introducing a new sibling to the family feature bottles as a part of the equation.

This was my dilemma when I was preparing N for the coming of E.  N had been an only child for almost 4 years and part of our preparation would be reading older sister books.   Because E will be breastfed, I knew that I had to be able to explain to N why I had to spend more time with E, especially during the the first few months.  Happily, I had my collection of breastfeeding-friendly children's books to help me with this task.

Then I realized that Filipino breastfeeding families had the same dilemma.   And so the dream for Snuggle Wuggle Wee was born!  One of my fellow LATCHers, Justine Tajonera was a poet and I knew that she would be the perfect person to work with for this project.  You see, I had the outline in my head - but I know that writing a book is completely different from blogging and someone creative needed to translate the idea into words.  Justine was a blessing and converted my outline into a story.

Of course, we needed to have an illustrator.  And it was our LATCH President - Buding Aquino-Dee who made the magic happen.  Buding found Bryan Delfin who transformed our words into pictures.  Buding also tied the whole project together - from being the critical book editor to coming up with the fancy icing that goes with a book project - book trailer, launch and collateral merchandise (watch out for special edition Clara clips from Celestina & Co. and Snuggle Wuggle Wee shirts from Googoo&Gaga).

We had initially planned to print a limited number of copies (coming up with a book is expensive!) priced at P350 per book.  However, we realized that we wanted to spread the message - to make it available and affordable to more families.  So we decided to increase the number of copies printed and were able to bring down the price to P250 per book.

The book will be launched and first sold this weekend at the Global Pinoy Bazaar at the Rockwell Tent.  The LATCH booth will just be at the entrance (no need to pay entrance fee) and Snuggle Wuggle Wee merchandise will be available there.  Drop by and get first dibs on the book!  Pre-order by filling out the form here bit.ly/SnuggleWuggleWee

The project is not yet over.  I am hoping that this will be made available to school children and perhaps be translated into different dialects to spread the message.  Maybe, we can even come up with a follow-up book focusing on another aspect of breastfeeding - this time - dual language!

Meanwhile, I invite you watch our book trailer and experience Snuggle Wuggle Wee!