Through the Looking Glass Children's Book Reviews
You Are My Baby: Ocean
Novelty Board Book
For infants to age 4
Chronicle Books, 2014 ISBN: 978-1452126500
The ocean is full of creatures, and it is therefore full of babies of all kinds. Some of the babies, baby whales for example, are large. Others, like baby seahorses, are very small indeed, so small in fact that we often don’t even know that they are there.
In this clever novelty book little children get to meet five ocean babies and their parents. The designers of the book have built in a clever novelty feature whereby there is a little board book contained within in the main board book. When you open the first page of the main book you have to open the first page of the little book to match the right parent animal with its baby.
On the first spread we see a large purple octopus, and the smiling animal is saying “You crawl on the sandy ocean floor.” When we open the little book we see a picture of a little green baby octopus. The words “You are my baby little octopus” appear next to the picture of the eight-legged baby. When the two books are viewed together we are given a complete picture of the octopus and its baby in their home environment on the sea floor.
Later on in the book we see a seahorse, a fish, a turtle and a whale and in each case we need to pair the baby with is parent, completing their family picture when we do so.
This is a perfect book to share with a child, and it is also one that little children will enjoy exploring on their own.
