While I was pregnant, I learned that a newborn baby’s vision is very blurry and limited to black and white for the first few months. This is why high-contrast black and white books are often given to babies in those early days. As a new mother, I was fascinated by this and had no idea before learning it.

As a gift to my daughter, I set out to create one of these books for her. I wanted it to depict a journey through the neighborhood and the city we live in, showing her these scenes long before she would see them clearly with her own eyes, knowing that one day we will walk those streets together and that she might recognize them as home. When I discovered that red is one of the first colors babies begin to perceive, I chose to include a red sun in each image, inspired by her name, Soleil.