I Love you because I Love You

Author Muợn Thị Văn and Stonewall Book Award-winning artist Jessica Love detail all the big and small reasons why we love the people we do within a call-and-response picture book that features families across the spectrum.

“I love you because you tell the best stories.

Because I love you, my best story is you.”

What are all the big and small reasons why we love the people we do? And what does it look like when we voice it out loud?

To be read aloud by one or even two people, this affirming prose demonstrates that love is a dialogue. Love is complex. Love is utterly simple.

This is what love looks like.

Muon Thi Van stitches stories by starlight and by daylight. Some of these stories become books, and some of these books are read around the world. From her debut, In a Village by the Sea, illustrated by April Chu, to Wishes, illustrated by Victo Ngai, Muon's books have received many distinctions. Muon’s best stories, though, are her three children; together they live and grow in California.

Jessica Love is an actor and artist with a degree in fine arts from University of California, Santa Cruz and a degree in drama from the Juilliard School. Jessica’s first book, Julián Is a Mermaid, was published in 2018 and was the recipient of the Stonewall Book Award. Jessica lives with her sweetheart in Upstate New York.

"Love is what makes the world go round. Tender and emotive . . . the book gently teases out the relationship between love and various qualities like playfulness, emotional strength, forgiveness, courage, and loyalty. An inclusive, affirming, warmhearted book with lots to love." - Kirkus Reviews