If only the Cat in the Hat had two moms!

Special Blog Post by Keren Moran Co-founder at mememepress.com

I think it was Dad’s shoes in ‘The Cat and the Hat Returns’ that gave us away. They were definitely too… ‘mannish’ for our fashion-conscious, gender-vigilante (we’re assured this will pass!) 4 year old daughter who called our ‘bluff’ and uncovered the truth we’d been hiding – the kids in the book – Sally and Conrad – have a mom and a dad (!!!) not two moms like our family.

We’d been swapping genders and pronouns to make the book read more like our family but our kid was NOT impressed by our ‘trickery’ (!!) and this is where the first little kernel of Mememe Press was born.

Why couldn’t ANY family find themselves in the books they were reading to their kids? We looked around and could see we weren’t the only families who couldn’t find themselves in their books. In fact the majority of modern families don’t actually fall in to the Mom + Dad + 1-2 kids formation any more. The definition of family has stretched and changed so much yet the publishing world, the traditional custodians of the keys to our kids’ reading experiences are slow and dare I say, fearful of change.

We decided to take matters in to our own hands. We were (we are) two moms propelled by a passion for young reading and its impact on the development of little humans (the kind with well-adjusted cores). Plus, having run a creative agency together for 14 years, servicing clients across major creative and tech endeavours – we knew we could make it happen.

Our objective – publishing quality kids literature personalized to reflect any family to the kids living in it – every kid deserves that magical feeling of validation.

Our first title: Ready or not here comes… your kid – is written by Kate and Jol Temple, award winning authors whose books have already been read by more than half a million kids and it is lavishly illustrated. The story line, based around a hide & seek romp in a monster home changes to include different family members and they are all depicted as cute furry monsters to take the focus away from reflecting any particular ethnicity – we are all cute monsters on the inside!

We’re so excited the book is out in the wild for all to enjoy and make their own. It has already been earning rave reviews from families all over the world. @twopoofsandapudding (a two-dad family from the UK) had this to share:

We absolutely love this book! Reading it with our son who is 2 is such a joy. Every time we read it and say his name he gets so excited and shouts his name too. Also when he sees that his two daddies are in the book he looks at us both with the biggest smile on his face. Reading it with his cousins is funny as they are shocked pudding has his very own book. They know he is special the way he came into our life through adoption but this book makes them think he is super special. 

…and just to show how endlessly diverse the families represented actually are – Kim Kardashian loved her copy of the book so much (complete with her 4 little ones as well as Kanye, Aunty Khloe and grandma Lovey she posted about it to her 140 million followers!

To buy your personalized copy of the book – head over to www.mememepress.com To celebrate pride month – use ReadWithPride at checkout for 20% off.