UP!

Diverse caregivers and babies populate this picture-book depiction of caring and carrying.

Inclusivity is a hallmark of this book, but it stumbles a bit at the outset by naming two regions alongside nations: “From West Africa to Peru, from Egypt to Canada’s Far North, from Korea to India, from Poland to China and Afghanistan…families carry their babies in many different ways.” Why not name a specific West African nation or culture? A specific Arctic people? Nevertheless, depictions of families in those places and in that order use detailed, striking cut-paper collages to consciously highlight and value diversity. For example, girls and women wear the hijab on the spreads for Egypt and Afghanistan, and the depicted Korean father uses a wheelchair while wearing his baby on his chest in a carrier. Some spreads are less invested in culturally specific modes than are others. The mother in West Africa, for example, simply carries her baby in her arms, and the Egyptian brother carries his baby sibling on his hip. Others, like what seems to be a depiction of an Inuit amauti in the North Canada spread, are culturally grounded. Repetition of the phrase “upsy-daisy, baby” threads through all interactions, culminating in a scene with a loving multiracial family in an unspecified waterside setting, where a sister picks up her baby sibling.

A celebration of baby love as it’s carried out all over the world.