Review
Now that the Sheffield and others (see KR, p. 63) has persuaded us all that making babies is as beautiful as a School of Paris painting, perhaps the time has come for an admission that it's fun too. Mayle and Robins are disarmingly natural about the naming of parts ("Now, if you put your mother and your father in the bath together you'd notice something interesting. . ."), probably as detailed as kids' interest allows about fetal development (incidentally, it's a girl), and bolder than any children's book yet about the "tickling feeling" of "making love": "The man pushes his penis up and down inside the woman's vagina, so that both the tickly parts are being rubbed against each other. It's like scratching an itch, but it's a lot nicer". . . and it ends in "a tremendous big lovely shiver" that is a little like a good sneeze. You can't deny Mayle's talent for translating adult experience into child-level concepts, and we found Robins' irreverent cartoonlike illustrations (the pudgy nude figures are anything but erotic) a welcome break from the breathless wonderment that has recently prevailed. (For what it's worth, our own kids reacted with some gratifyingly unselfconscious, appreciative chuckles.) (Kirkus Reviews)
