kirkusreviews.com
This board book for parents-to-be compares a baby’s growth
in utero to fruits and vegetables alongside jokes and witticisms.
Beginning with Week 6 and progressing through Week 40, Tobin’s
“baby-sized guide to your baby’s size” attempts to garner laughs as well as to
show more-or-less accurate representations of the baby’s growth. Each week
receives its own two-page layout with the accompanying watercolor illustration
of a beaming fruit or veggie. The watercolor foods are very cute, if a bit
one-dimensional, each rendered with the same simple smiley face. Two real
standouts are the Swiss chard, with its brightly colored veins, and the
stunning subtlety of color in the mango. The jokes that accompany each
illustration include scattered references to Questlove, Benjamin Button, and
Sponegbob as well as gags about nose-picking and passing gas. There are the
obligatory references to male anatomy (“the [eggplant] emoji is one hundred
percent male”) and sexuality, which demand readers with similar senses of humor.
Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot that is laugh-out-loud funny, and the book can’t
stand on either the illustrations or the text alone. This is certainly nice
enough to toss in with other baby-shower gifts for an expectant parent, but it’s
not a must-have by any means.
A board book for grown-ups that’s mostly unremarkable; some
of the best material is on the cover itself. (Board book. 0-1, adult)
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