From Publishers Weekly
Hefty doses of reassurance and gentle humor fill MacGregor's read-aloud, which is aimed at children of pregnant mothers. Paring down facts for a preschool audience, the author skips over the issue of conception, explaining that a baby grows in a womb, "a snug, cozy, comfy little place inside a woman's tummy." As she emphasizes that a newborn's arrival won't mean that the parents will love the older sibling any less, she strengthens her discussion with kid-appropriate analogies. For example, she likens parents' capacity to love more than one child with a youngster's yearning to have more than one pet ("You won't love your first dog any less if you get a new dog"). Adding a realistic twist, the author observes that children will have to share parents' time with a baby. Yet even here there is a comforting note: it's not just Mommy and Daddy's new baby, "It's your baby, too"--parents will have to share the infant. Cartoon illustrations are cheerful but not always geared to the audience (e.g., a picture captioned "I'd like to have a baby brother, please," shows a jaded-looking child at a table, consulting a menu labeled "Genre du Jour"). The book design, too, is unfortunate, with large blocks of text set in enormous type overwhelming most spreads. Ages 4-7.
Copyright 1996 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
