Wherever you live, your heart beats with love. No matter what language we speak, no matter where we live in the world, our hearts beat with the same rhythm.

We may hear and say the sounds differently–doki doki in Japanese, tu tump tu tump in Italian, dugeun dugeun in Korean, dhak dhak in Urdu, boum boum in French and thump thump in English–but when our hearts beat, all the sounds mean the same thing: you are alive and you are loved.

A beautiful photographic board book featuring babies from all over the world and the sounds their hearts make as they beat with love. (From Orca Book Publishers)

Rina Singh is an India-born Canadian author from Toronto. She has written more than a dozen books for children, including 111 Trees, Diwali Lights, A Forest of Stories and Moon Tales and Grandmother School, which was a 2021 Blue Spruce Award finalist.