Michelle Rial is the mother of one child, one dog, and a forthcoming picture book, Charts for Babies.

As a sensitive Pisces growing up in the South with Venezuelan immigrant parents, she overthought most norms and interactions. Eventually, her overanalyzing tendencies became the foundation for her debut book, Am I Overthinking This?, which has sold over 100,000 copies and been translated into multiple languages.

Her latest book, Charts for Babies, is inspired by childhood moments with her geophysicist father. True to immigrant parent mentality, he believed it was never too early to learn math—so from a young age, he taught Michelle about fractals, graphs, logic puzzles, patterns, and charts.

When Michelle set out to create a book for new parents in the style of her other adult books, children’s book rhyme cadence was stuck on repeat in the back of her mind (thanks to reading 100,000 books per day with her baby). She flipped to the back of her notebook and began sketching simple charts about opposites, shapes, colors, and other early childhood concepts that lend themselves to chart form. She filled the notebook all the way to the front, and Charts for Babies was born.

Michelle’s work has appeared in The New Yorker, Oprah Daily, WIRED, Fast Company, USA Today, and more. Past clients include Google, NASA, Penguin Random House, and Whole Foods. Charts from her books have been shared millions of times across the internet, and New York Magazine’s Vulture named her one of the funniest illustrators on Instagram. She’s not on there as much these days, but when she is, she’s mostly sending her husband videos about lead and microplastics. And talking about her new book. Which you should preorder. I—I mean she—would appreciate that. So. Much.