Crawling: A Father's First Year

From an award-winning illustrator and children’s book author comes a touching, honest, and laugh-out-loud funny memoir about parenting, love, and the wonder of new life.

“Hilarious and beautiful.... A new father finally understands what it's all about.” —Chicago Tribune

"I would have sooner been handed a bomb than a baby,” admits Elisha Cooper, early in his charming chronicle of his first year as a father. But that, like everything else, is about to change. Luckily, Cooper recorded it all: from playing Outkast’s “So Fresh, So Clean” as he changes his daughter's diaper, to having a romantic dinner at Chez Panisse with his wife--and baby. Cooper’s disarmingly beautiful essays about the perils and pleasures of parenthood will appeal to any reader, and especially all parents, no matter how old their children. He has done what every new parent is too busy, or too tired, to do—captured with grace the joys, fears, and stumbles of learning to raise a child for the first time.

ELISHA COOPER is the author of the acclaimed children's book Dance! (one of the New York Times Best Illustrated Children's Books of the Year), Ice Cream, and Magic Thinks Big. He lives in Chicago with his wife and two daughters.