The musician also tells Hollywood Reporter of penning the tale, which will help parents painlessly wean their toddlers off of pacifiers, for both English and Spanish-language audiences.
For Thalía, dirty diapers and stubborn fevers were nothing compared to parenting challenge of weaning her daughter off her pacifier. Now that the musician has discovered a creative and painless solution, she has released her first children’s book. Chupie, the Binky that returned home (Celebra Children’s Books, $16.99). to spread the good news.
Thalía birthed the story of Chupie during a late night of desperation with her oldest child, Sabrina, when she was a toddler. ‘I was so fried at 3 a.m. – she was crying because she couldn’t find her binky’, she told Hollywood Reporter at her Gilt City book launch last week. ‘I went to that room and said, (You know what’s going on? You cannot find Binky because he wants to go back home, he misses Mommy Binky. Yes, Binky has a mommy. Imagine you and me being apart – it would be tough.)’
The musician had already tried – and failed – countless ways to rid her daughter of her pacifier dependency for six months at that point, but once she tried the narrative, Sabrina immediately began asking more questions. ‘I started telling her this story about this family and these castles’, said Thalía of Binkyland, where the pacifier character Chupie wanders from and, after bonding with a child in the park, hopes to return home to someday. ‘So she sent Binky to Mommy Binky, and that was it. I had to share this story with everybody.’
The wife of Sony music executive Tommy Mottola said that the hardest part about writing the 32-page children’s book was including illustrations that were bright, approachable and memorable, with pictures that appear more like a do-it-yourself coloring than a crisply-printed hardcover. ‘I first did all the illustrations – I just did a little mini-book of exactly what I wanted – but I went through 15 illustrators in order to find the one that respected my little designs and just brought them to the next step’, she said of collaborating with seasoned children’s book illustrator Ana Martín Larrañaga, who immediately understood the unfinished-edge aesthetic the singer was looking for.
Chupie is available in both English and Spanish – a noteworthy decision, as a Spanish-language memoir. Thalía said that she’s excited to share her children’s book with both audiences in America.
‘It’s a very strong community here – we’re like a big force, and it’s amazing that we’re also supporting our own language and getting all those sales, all the awareness by downloading and buying these books’, she said. ‘I think the world is like, (Oh wow, they’re really moving the stick, there’s really something here.) It’s good. Plus, I think it’s very important to promote different languages to your kids. It’s better for their wiring, it makes their brains more sharp and aware.’
The book is also accompanied by a fun song about Chupie, also available in both languages. Thalía launched the book with Gilt City, along with a curated collection of hotspot favorites around New York City.