Customer Reviews

This is the Day!

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

 

 

As an adoptive mom, I know what a sensitive topic adoption can be--and how touchy various depictions of the adoption process, from either side, often are. But I'd hate to see us all become so hyper-sensitized that we reject a lovely, lyrical book like _This is the Day_ out of some misguided protective impulse. My daughter, 5 1/2, is fascinated by all aspects of adoption, and I won't hesitate to include this playful, quaint, and fanciful tale among our reading. The "folks" roots of this tale and Price's effervescent illustrations make the fantastical, mythical nature of the story clear to all but the very youngest or most literal minds. My daughter finds _This is the Day_ as charmingly preposterous as (and infinitely less creepy than) _The Old Woman Who Swallowed a Fly_. A beautiful addition to a child's read-aloud library.

An adaptation of a folk song stretching back at least a century, This is the Day! presents its subject of newborn babies and adoption in lighthearted verse. While the origins of the folksong are lost in mists of the past (the title page speculates that the song comes from the Ozarks, the American West, or WWII soldiers), Phillis Gershator modernizes it in a way that gets the tone just right. Out of curiosity, I "googled" the original folksong to find the lines, "This is the day we give babies away/ With a half a pound of tea/ You just open the lid, and out pops the kid / With a twelve month guarantee." But what began in its historical form as a nonsense rhyme becomes with Gershator's deft revision much lovelier, fitting verse: "They're waiting for you to / kiss their toes / sing lullabies, / and rock them to sleep." Marjorie Priceman's airy illustrations complement the story perfectly with her lush palette of primary watercolors. Any parent who has ever experienced their toddler pointing and exclaiming, "Look, another baby!" will immediately understand the appeal of this wonderful, folksy book.

Add me to the group who find this book creepy. Babies being handed out like free toasters---what a horrible view of adoption.

Setting aside the entire issue of adoption--I'm an adoptive mother who also has birth kids--this is a wonderful, warm-hearted book to read to babies and tots. My grandbabies (20 mos & 3 years) LOVE this book, which I sing to them with the tune provided in the first page of sheet music.

They're too young to know where babies come from, and they don't care. They just like all the happy ladies picking up all the cute babies and riding/sailing/flying away to happy homes with them. For all they know, that's how they came to join their family. They beg me to read it to them again and again.

Frankly, the thing I and my daughters like best about it is that it shows families from small to large in a positive light. The last lady picks up *seven* babies and rides off with them, saying "Seven is heaven!" Contrast that with a lot of dirty looks when you walk into a store with four kids under 12.

This is a happy, positive book. Five stars from me.

I love this book. The illustrations are so happy and fun and the story is delightful.

As a baby who was given away the whole idea of this book just makes me sick.

This is NOT a happy, joyful celebration of babies, adoption or anything else! It is a creepy, disconcerting story of giving babies away in arbitrary quatities to any woman happening by. It is enough to give many children nightmares! Imagine the child who HAS been given away discovering his/her worth is that of being "the rest" who are taken by a woman on horseback. Imagine the child fearful of losing parents to death or divorce discovering s/he could be given away with a half pound of tea. I understand this is supposed to be "fun" but suggesting to children that they can or did leave their original families with a quart of milk and a dozen cookies seems way, far away to creepy to contemplate.