BABIES, BABIES EVERYWHERE!

Babies are all around, and if you look carefully you can watch how they grow and change.

Newborns sleep, drink milk, burp, pee, poo, and cry. Very soon they can smile and giggle and wave arms and legs. Then they recognize faces, grasp objects, burble, sit up, and even roll about. Things get messy when they start eating solid food, and watch out as they crawl, then stand while holding on to nearby furniture. Time seems to speed up, and they are saying their first words and toddling, a bit unsteadily at first, babies no more. Double-page spreads filled with Asquith’s playful, exuberant cartoons depict babies and families engaged in actions appropriate to each developmental stage. Families depicted are racially and ethnically diverse and include a pair of twins as well as a multiracial, two-mother family, one of whom uses a wheelchair. (A hijabi mum never takes her scarf off, even inside the home.) Some of the illustrations are framed, some are scattered, and some are seen with all the families involved together in a single setting. Babies or their paraphernalia float across the endpapers and along tops or sides of several pages. Hoffman incorporates British vernacular in direct conversational descriptions of babies’ development, with asides in the form of their sounds and perceived thoughts, as well as their parents’ interactions with them. And oh yes, be sure to pay attention to the fuzzy pink toy elephant who appears in each spread with a comment to highlight babies’ new accomplishments.

Little ones, perhaps new big brothers and sisters, will cuddle with a loving grown-up and find comfort and reassurance here.