Customer Reviews

Mommy Laid An Egg: Or, Where Do Babies Come From?

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

Ah, ire. Lovely lovely ire. Nothing gets parents more hot under the collar than debating the relative merits of a sex-ed picture book. Suddenly, once sane and collected adults erupt into veritable Mount Vesuviuses of indignation. Sure, they want their kids to learns the rudimentary mechanics of procreation, but they want it on THEIR terms. "Mommy Laid An Egg" is a very good example of a sex-ex text that's been banned from libraries, burned in bonfires, and generally demonized by those who see fit to dislike it. Obviously, becoming a banned book does not automatically make you worthwhile reading (just 99.9% of the time, really). When it comes to "Mommy Laid An Egg" debaters, they're usually split into two camps. You have the people who love its irreverence, its wit, and its light-hearted handling of a formerly overly serious subject. Then you have the people who point out that this book contains very little factual information, avoids correct biological terms like the plague, and has a gratuitous sequence that I once heard a librarian refer to as the, "kiddie-lit kama sutra". There's a third camp, I should note, that just hates the book because it talks about sex, but these are the kinds of people who seek out such books so as to hate them and, as such, will be duly ignored. So which of these two takes on the book is the correct one? To find that answer, you need to take a closer look at what, "Mommy Laid An Egg" is all about...

As a crazed assortment of kids, pets, and pillows camp out on the living room sofa, a mother and father (hippies to the core) come in and inform their offspring as to how babies are made. The sugar-hepped-up kids are game and suddenly hear a whole heaping helping of blarney from their beloved parental units. They're told that girls are formed from sugar and spice and that boys are from slugs, and snails and puppy dogs' tails. Babies are delivered via dinosaur, and made out of gingerbread, and all other kinds of essentially implausible ideas. Once the parents finish with this "explanation" their far wiser children yuk it up. "What a bunch of nonsense", they crow. Then, with crayons and paper in hand, the kids go about telling their parents exactly how babies are REALLY made. Mommies have eggs inside and daddies have "seeds" in a kind of "seed pod" outside their bodies. The "tube" from the daddies is inserted into the mommies and then the "seeds" swim inside using their tails. There is then a two page spread of various mommies and daddies getting it on via skateboard, clown acts, whilst falling with balloons, and on a fascinatingly labeled "space hopper". The "seeds" race to the egg in the mommy, fertilize it, create a baby, and "when it's ready, out pops the Baby". The children then say that now YOU know how this occurs and so does everyone else. They open their front door and a bunch of different animals with their babies walk on in, suggesting that perhaps procreation is not limited to balloon toting mommies and daddies.

Okay. There's a lot to talk about here. First of all, let's talk about the fact that the book begins with a weird assortment of fables parents might try to sell their kids on when it comes to making babies. If you don't approve of parents misleading their kids in this fashion, better avoid that Woodie Guthrie picture book, "New Baby Train". It may not be your style. Personally, I thought this was a pretty good way to begin the book. These stories are ridiculously untrue, and carry echoes of Shel Silverstein and other silly picture book artists. Next, we come to a far more difficult part of the book. Ms. Babette Cole has decided not to confuse kids with technical terms like "sperm" and "penis". She's conveying the general idea and not the out-and-out factual terms. Now, the go-to guide for explaining sex to kids is usually author Joanna Cole's, "How You Were Born". In that book's opening note to parents, Ms. Cole says that such explanations can be confusing. She says, "The idea of the ovum as an egg leads some children to think that they hatched from a chicken's egg". So this book's choice to not call body parts by their proper names may, in the end, cause more harm than good. Maybe. Maybe not. It's your call to say.

Then we get to the real reason that "Mommy Laid An Egg" gets so much grief. The sheer variety of sexual positions crudely drawn. You know, I'm gonna have to side with the people who say to chill out on this one. Seriously, people. Let's take a breather here. To a parent, these two pages are kind of shocking. You almost never see people having sex in picture books. Obviously Ms. Cole realized that and chose to negate the shock value by making the people in the pictures very very basic figures. There's nothing gratuitous about these illustrations. What they're doing is showing how people "fit together" in as silly and joyful a way as possible. Your child is not going to see these two pages and freak out. They're going to see these two pages and get a visual answer for what the actual sexual act constitutes without it being explicit in any way. Far better that we get SOME idea, as we do here, than as found in that other picture book sex-ed story, "Where Willy Went". In most sex-ed picture books (and Joanna Cole's book is to blame here as well) kids never really understand what sex is except in the vaguest of terms. "Mommy Laid An Egg" is one of the very few to actual show it in an understandable, if downright bizarre, way.

Whew! Got all of that? Good. Now, I personally believe that there is no number one go-to source of sexual information for very young kids. But different books provide different information for different ages. For very young kids, "Mommy Laid an Egg" is ideal. It conveys difficult-to-grasp ideas in a funny way. After that, you can move on to "Where Willy Went" by Nicholas Allan. That book is bad on visuals but does well with technical terms. Finally, when they're even older than that, get 'em an updated edition of Joanna Cole's, "How You Were Born". That book has photographs and is really the number one sex-ed source for children. Decrying the evils of "Mommy Laid An Egg" may make you feel good at the time, but the book really does fulfill a need. It's not an ideal book, no. But it's one of the few that actually has some fun with its subject. I suspect that the real objection so many people have to it is that it doesn't teach its subject with a dour expression on its face. Nothing disturbs people more than goofiness. If you don't believe me, check out some of the negative reviews for this book.

Writer and illustrator Babette Cole won the LA Parent Magazine Book Award for this decidedly non-sentimental look at where babies come from. The book begins with the parents telling their kids all the fanciful myths about babies' origins - "You can make them out of gingerbread," "Sometimes you just find them under rocks." Then the children, amused at their parents' lack of knowledge, proceed to explain just where babies do come from, complete with child-like illustrations. A wonderful book, with just enough information for small children.

Mommy Laid an Egg offers me the opportunity to explain reproduction--and the intricacies that surround it, such as how the egg is actually placed into mommy's uterus--exactly the way I would want a child to understand it...not too much, not too little. It walks the fine line between medical over-articulation, speculative "love talk" (ie: When a man loves a woman...), and baby talk. And best of all, it takes the approach that most children take on this subject--something they already knew. When the parents attempt to offer a childish explanation of where babies come from, the children offer their own explanation in their own language. Children will enjoy getting the upper hand, as the children in the story do. I highly recommend this to all like-minded parents.

When my daughter was five she and several of her preschool classmates had questions about where babies come from. (There were a couple of moms expecting at the time.) I bought this book for my daughter and we read it together many times. She loved it. The level of factual versus farcical information was perfect for her. My daughter wanted to shared it with her classmates at the same time that other parents were asking me about the book so with the teachers permission she took it to school. The teacher read it to the class and they loved it as well. Even five year olds could understand the basic mechanics and appreciate the information while still appreciating that parts of the story are SILLY.
My next daughter wasn't interested in the book until 1st grade but she enjoyed it as well. My daughters are now 8 and 10 and have kept this book on the shelf because they love how silly it is even though they have gone on to read several more books that contain strictly factual information.
This is a wonderful book.

We own this book and also "Where did I Come from?" by Peter Mayle (which I had as a child in the '70's.)

For our family, this book has been a comfortable light-hearted way to answer our preschoolers' questions about where she came from without getting bogged down in confusing medical terminology.
She definitely *GETS* it, thinks it's hilarious (especially the part about the babies growing on plants) and says she loves the drawings. (She's a very visual person) As far as the 2 page spread showing the hippie couple "doing it" on the hippity hop, all I can say is: I think this section was designed to make the adult reader laugh. (Lighten up folks...sex IS pretty funny and slightly ridiculous when you think about it) My daughter barely glossed over this part and was far more interested in the "great egg race". Comparing the 2 books, I am far more comfortable reading this than the Mayle book, which I think is more suitable for older kids as it delves more into the "making love" aspect of reproduction. Kudos to the author/illustrator for tackling a tough topic in a charming and funny way.

...BE READY TO DISCUSS IT. I definitly would not leave this book lying around where it could accidentally make its way into a bookbag and onto the school bus.

HOWEVER, I do not think it's as horrible as the other reviewers said. They may be educators, but I'm a parent, and I thought this book was a great gateway to discussion for me and my 6 year old child.

Children see REAL people in more graphic situations on TV commercials or shows before you can change the channel. Surely a cartoon of stick people isn't THAT offensive. (I dont' think kids should be taught about sex at their elementary school anyway. that's my job- I'M THE PARENT.)

If you are ready to really explain what they are reading/seeing then this is a good book for parents of younger kids who want to know more then just "daddy and mommy decided we were ready for a baby".

Some of the reviewers for this book need to relax. If they are so uptight about a children's book about sex, I'd hate to see just how uptight they are about the subject matter itself. As if there is only one way to explain subject...as there is only one way to have sex. I pity their kids.

When I bought this book, just for myself, I laughed out loud at how hysterically ingenious the author/illustrator pops the pompasity of sex into something understandable and ...funny.

It is non-judgemental, approachable and funny.

Relax and enjoy.

I bought "Mommy Laid an Egg!" for my kids when they were toddlers. Four years later, we still refer to it when reviewing where babies come from. This book states the facts of life simply and with tremendous doses of visual humor. We love it and I've recommended to all my friends, especially the ones who fear talking about the "birds and the bees."

My kids and I love this book. It takes a potentially embarassing subject from lots of blushing, mumbling, and eyerolling, to something funny and open and natural. It's a good way to answer those first questions about the "birds and bees" without getting all clinical and serious. I first gave it to my children when they were around six or seven - they are now approaching their teens and they'll still read it, every once in awhile, just because it's so darn cute and funny. I'm glad it gave us an opportunity to talk about this stuff while they were still young and receptive - it has paved the way for us to continue to be open and communicate with one another as they grow up.

The basic controversy about this book is that it shows cartoonish characters in sexual positions--funny ones on innertubes, swings, etc. Some parents think that it's wrong for kids to know how sex happens. Some think that the pictures offer a great opportunity--perhaps for the parent to have a discussion about healthy, responsible sex.

This book is for the mom who is looking for a way to tell her kids how the sperm gets into the mommy. Yes, I'm one of those parents because I believe that only with the right information will my kids have the wisdom to make good decisions. After all, when they need to make this decision, I probably won't be there, will I?

This is for the parent that believes that having the discussion about sex early and often will encourage the child to continue to come to the parent for sound advice.

This book was a delightful way to make a potentially uncomfortable discussion comfortable. Although the pictures don't get into many details, they allow parents to broaden the discussion. Parents can use the pictures to talk about how it's possible to keep the sperm from getting to the egg; why we might want to do that; when it's a good time to have sex and when it isn't such a great idea; that with this knowledge we have control over what happens.

I love the fact that this book shows that sex is fun. Sex IS fun. That's an important, healthy message too. In the end, I'd rather that my kids hear this from me. They hear it from movies, their friends, and television as it is, so I like the fact that this book allows me to offer my tempering opinion on the subject.

This is a great book for moms who want to raise kids who grow up feeling that sex is a natural, good part of life. The mom who buys this book wants to say that sex is not dirty; sex is not shameful. This book is for the mom who wants her kids to have the basic knowledge they need to act responsibly.