A baby sloth falls from a tree in the picture book 'Mama in the Moon': NPR

hide caption

change caption

mama in the moon 9780593698204 1 custom ccecc0201660a1aa5363eb430e4157114ca812e6

Doreen and Brian Cronin are not related as far as they know. They first met on Facebook: two Cronins, both working in the world of children's books – Doreen as an author and Brian as an illustrator – and living in the same city? They should probably get a cup of coffee!

“We decided to meet up. We both live in Brooklyn and we met on a bench in Prospect Park to just chat,” Doreen Cronin explains, “and that was three years ago.”

They didn't waste the perfect meet-cute – we hit it off, both personally and professionally. Soon they were dating And to collaborate.

“We're in it now!” Doreen laughs.

The Cronins admit that they were initially a little hesitant about working together as a new couple. Brian had never worked with an author before. But they couldn't really do anything about it, says Doreen.

“We were both working on that all day,” she explains. “We always talk about books. We always talk about ideas.” Fortunately it worked.

“I really love it,” says Brian. “I think it made us stronger.”

Their first picture book together was last year Laurens and Sophia. They quickly followed suit Mom in the moon, about a baby sloth who falls from a tree at night and has to wait for his mother to slowly come and get him.

mama in the moon 9780593698204 2 custom 49dcd12c06df36c1150415446e8f9330525f67ba

hide caption

change caption

They came up with the idea Mom in the moon during breakfast – Doreen says they eat and drink a lot – and that morning Brian had just read a news report.

“It was a news story about a sloth that had fallen out of a tree,” he says. “It felt real. It is real.” That's because sloths fall from trees about once a week throughout their lives. “It kind of wrote itself,” says Brian. By the time they left the restaurant, Doreen had already made some notes and Brian already had some drafts for their second children's book.

'Baby loved sleeping between his mother and the moon' Doreen Cronin writes.

“One night Baby tumbled out of the tree. He landed in a soft patch of vines and leaves.

“Mom, where are you?” he called.”

Mom in the moon

hide caption

change caption

Mom in the moon

“We were in tears when we finished it and read it for the first time,” says Doreen.

“I actually was,” Brian adds.

“We're both parents, so we kind of know that — well, all parents know this — your child's sense of separation,” Doreen explains. “When they're waiting for you to come back or they need your comfort, and you can't always get there.”

In the story, Mama Sloth comforts and reassures Baby Sloth. “I'm coming,” she says. She distracts him and asks him to use all his senses to explore the dark world around him.

“Are you close now, Mom?” the baby sloth shouts from the ground.

“'I'm closer, baby. I'm close enough to smell the flowers opening for the night. Can you smell them too?'”

“Baby saw the bright petals of the flowers bend and fold. He could smell their sweet perfume,” Doreen Cronin writes.

mama in the moon 9780593698204 4 custom e492da5ba9b1a2097a7863489baf60af33734f98

hide caption

change caption

The mother sloth's tenderness for her baby sloth really shines through in Brian's art, says Doreen. “I have seen the art so many times. I can still feel her love, her comfort and her calm.”

Brian Cronin says his process for creating art is very simple: He doesn't have any. “Every time I start something, it's a beginning of sorts.” For Mom in the moon, he started with pencil sketches. He then used gouache and a marker for the trees to create a broken line effect.

“I wanted it to feel like there was a human behind the thing,” he says.

One of the challenges of illustrating this story is that it takes place at night. How do you add light so that it doesn't feel too scary and dark? “The moon,” says Brian. The bright, fluffy orb (blurred to mimic the sloths' fur) is on most pages, or otherwise lights up the night sky. The baby sloth is bright salmon pink amid the dark foliage. And when Mama Sloth points out everything that Baby Sloth can smell (like the flowers opening for the night), and hear (like the worms wriggling in the fallen leaves), and feel (like the flutter of moths dancing in the air), they come to life against the charcoal pages in bright, almost neon, yellow, pink, blue and green tones.

Brian Cronin says he hopes the book will help children fall asleep.

“The reason I wanted to do the dark pages was so that when they're in bed and mom and dad, or whoever is reading the book, they're not disturbed by the text or the brightness of anything, and they can just have a suck it up a bit,” he explains. “It's quite relaxing, I think.”

Doreen Cronin agrees.

“I think it's comfort and safety, and I think it puts us in a kind of quiet space,” she says, “and I hope that's true, in the world. Give us some quiet space. Give children a quiet space.”