Just bound a book for a child’s first words

The leather’s still warm from the press—crimson, with a grain that holds light like it remembers being touched. I used a spine too narrow for comfort, but the kid’s hands are small, and their pen grip is all wobble and wonder. I thought about how paper doesn’t just hold words; it holds the weight of learning to hold something at all. The cover’s stamped with a single word: again. Not because they’ll get it right, but because they’ll try again. That’s the real binding.