Writing Hey Baby, It’s Christmas
In November, 2014 the final book in the Hey Baby series, Hey Baby, It’s Christmas, was launched at the Watsonia Preschool by fellow author, teacher, radio dj and friend, Sue Lawson. This was a family fun day with cake, a sausage sizzle, fun activities for children, readings and books for sale. I also seem to recall there were a number of animals wondering about the kinder. There were some great photos taken by both loyal friend Anne Ryan and Chris Putman from Filed Image.
This book number 4 was both easier and more difficult to write, easier in that I was on a kind of roll with writing these short books and going back to my poetry-writing days at school. More difficult in that it had to be different from the other three, no repetition of words or messages.
As I glanced through my writing file for this series, I notice there were others I was writing – Hey Baby, It’s Winter, Hey Baby, It’s Easter, because at the time none of us knew how many books there would be.
The original Hey Baby! later came out in both paperback and board book, Hey Mum, I Love You in hard cover and board book, Hey Dad, You’re Great, in hard cover and board book, also in a Father’s Day pack with card and gift wrapping and Hey Baby, It’s Christmas was given a new cover and released as a Christmas pack with a mini hard-cover version and baby Christmas hat.