Baby! Baby!

by Vicky Creelen

This is the first book that ever got my baby's attention. Baby! Baby! has no words, just pictures. Each spread shows a baby and on the other page an animal. There's always a similarity between the two- posture, expression or activity. It's fairly large for a board book, so the baby faces are nice and big and catch your little one's attention. My kid loved looked at the faces, and it was easy to make up some words telling her what was going on: "oh, look at this baby with his legs all bent like a froggy" or "this baby is sitting up like a big ole gorilla!" My daughter's favorite page is the one where a kid sticks out his tongue next to a yawning lion also showing its tongue. I like the one near the end where a baby holds his head high (seen against the blue sky) aside a giraffe also holding its head high. Or the one where a baby sleeps with his hands tucked under him, and a kitty sleeps with its paws tucked just so- they both have just a bit of tongue peeking out, too. The only picture we don't really appreciate is the caterpillar, juxtaposed with a baby lying on the floor on his tummy, arching his back. Both babe and caterpillar look really small on the page, and it's not nearly as engaging for the child. Overall this is a wonderful collection of pictures, arranged so nicely. You'd be surprised how much a kid can look like a turtle's face!

On Flickr you can see some of Creelen's paired photographs. (They aren't all in the book- that only has eleven pairs). And I noticed that some other reviews say it's baby faces next to baby animals, but the animals are definitely not all babies- about half are grown.

rating: 4/5 ....... 24 pages, 2008

more opinions:
Young Readers
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