Meme Na! New Moms Will Want This Heartwarming Baby Book For Themselves

Right now, we cannot think of a more lovely or meaningful baby shower gift than this baby book. Go ahead and get one for yourself.

Méme The Baby Book is a bilingual read-aloud book that can help babies "feel understood while teaching action words to communicate their needs," Rey and Grace Bufi of The Storytelling Project said. 

Long before it was used to describe a virally transmitted unit of information on social meida, méme (méh-meh) was a well-worn word passed from parent to child for Filipino generations.

As th book points out, méme means "go to sleep" in Filipino culture. To this day, some families practice this time-honored tradition, when whispering “méme” to an infant meant to give him the best gift of all — the gift of sleep.

Méme is written by Reni Roxas for her publishing house Tahanan Books. Her picture book Ay Naku! won a National Children’s Book Award in 2011. In 2019, she won a first prize Carlos Palanca Memorial Award for her children’s story, “Pretty Peach and the Color-Matching Kaleidoscope.”

The wonderful illustrations are by one of our favorites Kora Dandan-Albano who has illustrated over 45 children’s books for both local and international publishers. All About the Philippines, a book she illustrated for Tuttle Publishing, received the American Moonbeam Children’s Book Award gold prize in 2016. 

A writer herself, Kora is the daughter of Perdo S. Dandan, a prolific, multi-awarded fiction writer in Filipino. Her children’s book, Habulan, written in verse, won a National Children’s Book/ Best Reads for Kids Award in 2016. Her most recent picture book is Ed-Eddoy: An Ifugao Folk Song (Tahanan Books, 2018). The artist lives in Baguio with her family.