Customer Reviews

A Baby Book for You (Boston Museum of Fine Arts)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is everything a baby book should be: beautifully illustrated, perfect in size and design (the pages are fastened in a multi-ringed binder), and full of wonderful categories. Unlike some books, which focus on the mother's memories and call upon her to speak for the father, this publication permits both parents to share their thoughts with their child. Finally, the cover is simple, and contains no author's name (just like an old-fashioned baby book). After all, aren't the authors who are important for such a book the parents and child?

As I was perusing the bookstore looking for the perfect baby book, I had in mind the type of book my mother had bought for me 33 years ago. As soon as I flipped through this book, I knew it was the one. The pictures, typeset, and nursery rhymes give the book an antique feel but the covered, three-ring binder feature makes it easy to use.

The Boston MFA Baby Book is a classy one. It is appropriate for children without being mawkish, has a space for each accomplishment I wanted to record, and even considers adopted children. If you are tired of the cartoon-themed books I would purchase this one; exactly what I wanted.

After reading the great reviews, I decided to purchase this record book for my 3rd child, a girl. I was disappointed when I received it for a few reasons. For one, the packaging was terrible and it is really rainy right now. The book got damp and all of the pages are "wavy" now. Secondly, the pages are all shiny, so when you try and write with a pen, you have to let it dry forever before you can close the book or it transfers to the other pages. Not conducive to writing information at all when you have to let each page dry before you can go on to the next. Thirdly, there are absolutely no pockets to put in locks of hair, the hospital bracelets or other memorabilia that you cant just glue to a page. Oh, and there is no space anyplace for footprints - and even if there were, the page material is slippery. The basics of the book are nice, the details are cute but not over the top - but this just isnt what I had in mind for quality.

This book was so fun for me as a first-time mother. The illustrations are gorgeous and classic and the poetry was beautiful - made me cry! My little boy is now 3 and I just realized we still have 2 more years of this book left. I will be sad when it's over. I highly recommend this! I was even going to buy it for my current pregnancy, but thought maybe I should start anew for the new baby (although I can't imagine finding a better baby book).

I loved the art and rhymes in the book. However, there was a lot of fill in the blank spots for your baby's first few years. I prefer to jot my own thoughts instead of someone elses. There is not much place for pictures or extra writing either. I wish it had at least one pocket for storage of keepsakes. I will look for something that meets my needs.

This baby book is so weird! As far as categories and writing prompts, it was fantastic. I loved how thoughtful and diverse the spaces for personal tidbits were and I really wanted to use it as a baby book. The problem was that I couldn't get over how haphazard and awkward the illustration selections were. While all of the illustrations were attractive and well done, they made no sense sometimes. Some of them look like producers of this book got together with a few bottles of wine and flipped through clip art books, getting drunker and gigglier as the night went on, and called the resulting hot mess a total success. Sometimes it's just that there's one style or theme of illustrations on one page and the page opposing it is a totally different theme or style and it clashes. Other times they've actually 'shopped together totally different illustrations in totally different artistic styles to make one complete illustration. Because the book is fairly stark and white, it really relies on the illustrations to brighten the content. So why they chose such odd pictures is beyond me. It was so distracting that I spent more time showing the book to my family and laughing at the "What were they thinking??" kinds of combinations than I did actually filling the book out until I gave up and decided to go find a different book to use. I mean, it's not hideous or anything... it's just confusing. Like... Swedish simplicity on one page and Victorian clutter on the next.

I decided to jot my answers to their prompts into the book as a sort of rough draft to keep track of the information as my pregnancy progressed and then planned to transfer them into a journal or transpose them with new fonts and illustrations into scrapbook pages that are better suited to my personal taste. There's a good chance plenty of other people will like it and not find it as odd as I did though, and with the price what it is, it's hardly a bad gamble. If you love it, there you go. And if you don't, it works as a great journal topic prompter.

This book is completely charming. Not only are the illustrations and poems cute, but the format of the book is very versatile. We homebirth and don't do a lot od doctor's visits, and many baby memory books have several pages dedicated to these things. It means we would have to cross a lot out or have many empty pages. This book has a spiral binding inside the traditional binding, so it is easy to remove a page that does not apply to our experience.

This book prompts you to fill in the data on the pertinent events, but isn't overwhelming with details. I had twins and have found it easy to keep up with recording the data and adding pictures, so they will have a record of their early years.

I have two copies of this book for two of my girls. I agree with some of the other reviewers that it might have been nice to have a bit more accommodation for scrapbook-type items (early artwork and such), but I like the book's artwork and its allowance for a few pictures for each of the first 5 years. There are plenty of pages with "priming" entries for the time right around baby's birth. This isn't for heavy-duty scrapbookers, but is just right for overworked parents who still want to create a nice baby book for their child to cherish.