Sad, beige parents unite! The hilarious Hayley DeRoche will be chatting with Jessie Gaynor about satire and sass at the store, and you wont want to miss it.
About the Book:
Welcome to the wonderful world of beige parenting, where newborns are swaddled in soothingly sophisticated taupe muslin blankies and toddlers play only with wooden toys in shades ranging from oatmeal to sand. In Dress Your Baby in Sage and Taupe, Hayley DeRoche, the creator known online as @sadbeige, delivers a witty, illustrated satire of the perfectly monochromatic curated lifestyle embraced by modern parents. In a collection ranging from essays and quizzes to advice columns and poems, she takes aim at buzzy parenting trends such as feeding children artisanal baby superfoods or choosing obscure names for their kids like Tawny and Sorrel. This guide walks new parents through every step of the sad beige parenting journey, from decorating the nursery (take care to choose a suitably existential theme such as the Vastness of the Universe), all the way to the milestone that is the first birthday party (be sure to eschew plastic party favors in favor of hand-whittled wooden toys.) Along the way, she gently encourages new parents to realize that they are already the ideal caregiver for their unique little person, with or without the latest limited edition baby carrier or must-have sleep course. With custom illustrations by Julia Emiliani, this heartfelt blend of humor and social commentary is a breath of fresh air for both overwhelmed parents and those striving for Instagram perfection.
About the Author:
Hayley DeRoche is a humorist and poet, and the creator of the viral “Sad Biege” TikTok series. Her work has been covered by the BBC, Washington Post, New York Times, and more. She lives with her family near Richmond, Virginia, where she is also a public open_in_newlibrarian.
Jessie Gaynor is a senior editor at Literary Hub. Her debut novel The Glow was published in 2023. Her work has appeared in Mother Tongue, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, The New Yorker, Dirt, and elsewhere. She has an MFA in poetry from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where she was a Rona Jaffe fellow. Her next novel, I Can Tell That Hurts, will be published by Random House in 2027.