Kathryn Madeline Allen

Babies love staring at other babies, and this book is full of photographs of babies, which alone makes it a good book. Further, the content should be familiar to babies because it's things they interact with often. It could be more enjoyable for parents to read, but I enjoyed it nevertheless.

Recommended age: 0-2 years

Writing style: Short rhyming, easy-to-read text, such as "This is my mother."

Lexile score: AD240L
Decoding difficulty: 4/5
Vocabulary difficulty: 1/5
Sentences difficulty: 2/5
Patterns difficulty: 4/5

Illustration style: Close-up photographs of babies and their families.

Reality-based? Yes. The book is written from the perspective of a baby introducing objects into their life.… (más)

diverse picture book (babies' favorite things; for babies/younger tots and their caretakers)
* Prominently features diverse characters: yep, see cover for a number of adorable babies with different skin colors. In terms of family-type diversity, the text reads: "This is my father, this is my mother, my grandma, my grandpa, my sister, my brother." Obvi, not all of the kids in the audience will have all of those things, and I kind of wish it had left those out, but I can't think of any way of getting around it either, since family members are so HUGE in babies' lives. Maybe if they'd mixed up siblings and grandmothers and parents so they seem more like individual components and less like complete sets that everyone should have. The picture that later accompanies "This is my family" depicts a mom and a dad (racially mixed couple) with their baby, but the following spread that goes with "and all our pets too. I am their baby..." shows 3 babies with mom and dad, 1 baby with 2 moms, 2 babies with solitary female caretakers, and 2 babies just with pets.
* Would work for baby/toddler storytime: absolutely, though depending on your audience you may skip some pages (I always do). Most of the pictures have giant baby faces on them (v. engaging for babies, if they're old enough to see that far) and text is very short.… (más)