Mother and daughter pediatricians collaborate on unique and indispensable combination Baby Book/Parenting Manual

I Love You Like Sunshine  

How everyday play and bedtime stories build love, connection, and brainpower

By Mariana Glusman, MD, and Marta Killner, MD

CHICAGO, IL, MARCH 10. — Writer, literacy activist, and pediatrician Mariana Glusman, MD, and her mother, photographer and pediatrician Marta Killner, MD, have produced a one-of-a-kind fusion of baby book and parenting guide that also promotes literacy and infant brain development. Their book is a combination of a poem to read to baby, sage advice for parents that runs alongside, and beguiling black-and-white images of newborns and their caregivers.

“I Love You Like Sunshine:  How everyday play and bedtime stories build love, connection and brainpower,” is available for press or for purchase April 2, 2016.  

Dr. Glusman brings together her two decades’ experience as both a pediatrician and a mother with the latest research on early brain development to create a rich text for caregivers to read to infants. Readers will also find things to know, things to do while reading the book, and things to notice about baby as they read. The book is informed by deep knowledge about infants, great empathy for parents, and an understanding that the interaction between babies and those who love them is the key ingredient for optimal brain development in children.  

She recruited her mother, Dr. Killner, a photographer and retired pediatrician, to illustrate the beauty and intensity of relationships between babies and caregivers with striking black-and-white photography that will engage babies as well as adults.

Dr. Mariana Glusman is an assistant professor of pediatrics at Northwestern University and a primary care pediatrician at Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital’s Uptown Clinic, an academic community health center. She is also an expert in language and literacy in pediatrics, and is the medical director of the Illinois chapter of Reach Out and Read, a national program under which, as part of every checkup, thousands of doctors distribute books to patients and advice to parents on the importance of reading together.

“These books are our vaccines against illiteracy,” says Dr. Glusman.

She lives in Chicago with her high school sweetheart and two book-loving teens. Their oldest daughter is a Head Start teacher, working on a master’s in Early Education.

Dr. Marta Killner is a retired physician turned writer and photographer after 41 years of practicing and teaching pediatrics in Mexico City, Boston, and Chicago. She has four children and seven grandchildren, and lives in Chicago with her husband of 51 years, also a physician.  

Some proceeds from the book will benefit Reach Out and Read.

“This beautiful book conveys the author's deep love of children and their parents, and her reassuring belief that things will turn out OK -- all made credible by her long experience and deep expertise. A great addition to any new parent's library.”

--Robert Needlman, MD, Professor of Pediatrics, Case Western Reserve University, coauthor Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care, cofounder Reach Out and Read