TODAY’s Craig Melvin Calls New Children’s Book a ‘Love Letter’ to His Kids

Published: May 13, 2024

TODAY’s Craig Melvin Calls New Children’s Book a ‘Love Letter’ to His Kids

By Movieguide® Contributor

TODAY co-host Craig Melvin recently opened up about the origins of his new children’s picture book called “I’m Proud of You!”

“A couple years ago I put out a book I wrote,” Melvin explained on the “Biscuits and Jam” podcast last week. “It was a love letter to my father who struggled with addictions and struggled with a host of things for most of his life and then several years ago cleaned up and is now the kind of father and grandfather that I wish he had been when I was a kid. And I wrote that book—pops during the pandemic—it was cathartic for me.”

That book was an emotionally heavy project for Melvin. So when someone suggested to him that he write a lighter, second book, he took their advice.

“So I still wanted to write something that mattered to me but also mattered to someone else that I cared about,” he said. “So the first time it was a love letter to my dad. This time it’s a love letter to my son and my daughter and also to just fatherhood in general.”

Movieguide® recently reported:

Several years ago, I found myself being pretty amazed at some of the little small things [son Delano, 10] was picking up, like learning how to tie a shoe, jumping off the diving board, shooting a basket for the first time,” Melvin said while appearing on THE KELLY CLARKSON SHOW.

Melvin continued, “And I was like, this is really cool. I want to have a front row seat to it, and I thought they’re probably a lot of other parents that celebrate little milestones like this, but because we’re in the thick of it, the chaos of it all, you kind of gloss over it. You kind of forget about it. I didn’t want to forget about it.”

Melvin tries to tell his children specifically why he’s proud of them.

“I think that when you’re young, those formative years…and this is not obviously to diminish ‘I love you,’ but we say I love you to our children all the time, you know? Every night before I tuck them in as I’m as I’m putting them down, ‘I love you.’ We shower them with love,” he said.

“I think sometimes hearing I’m proud of you is just as powerful—if not more powerful—and so I try to, in my daily interactions with my children, I try to tell them that I’m proud of them…So I wanted to take the way that I try to treat my children and put it in book form,” he continued.

He notes that pride comes easily when it comes to children’s major milestones, but it’s important to let them know that he’s proud of the small ones, too.

“I think that there’s even more value and making sure that they know that we’re just as proud of them for the micro as we are about the macro and so that’s what the book was about,” Melvin shared. “It was about those small moments when a kid [is] growing up and you’re able to actually see them do something for the first time. You’re able to see them overcome a fear or an obstacle, and you’re watching them do something that they maybe didn’t think they could do, and you just you say right after, ‘I’m proud of you’ and so that’s all the book is.”

TODAY shared an interview with Melvin and his 10-year-old son, Delano, who asked him why he wrote the book.

“I wanted to write a book that celebrated fatherhood. That celebrated you. That celebrated your sister. That celebrated, like, just being a parent. And I wanted to write something that you would enjoy,” Melvin told him.

On his social media, Melvin also shared a group photo of himself with TODAY co-hosts, Savannah Guthrie, Sheinelle Jones and Hoda Kotb. All of them held Melvin’s book with smiles spread across their faces.