Babies: All You Need to Know
Deborah Heiligman, Laura Freeman
Hardcover
(National Geographic Children's Books, Sept. 1, 2002)
The Jump Into Science book, Babies, looks at what babies can and can't do, their development, growth, and more. It follows a newborn home from the hospital under the watchful gaze of his older sister. As she learns, we learn. How fast do babies grow? What do they eat? How do we take care of them? Readers will learn amazing baby facts, such as: Newborns can see only in black-and-white. They taste only sweet, bitter, and sour, but they like sweet best. And, if you kept growing at the rate that babies grow when they're first born, you'd weigh more than a thousand pounds by the time you were five! Understanding what's going on with a baby's development will help older siblings look beyond the cooing and the crying. Kids will find out that babies like to imitate and that they learn through imitation. A do-it-yourself activity at the end of the book let's kids be a baby scientist by trying to get a baby to respond to simple gestures and then by recording those observations on a chart. Kids will be surprised to learn that peek-a-boo is an educational game for a baby! And they'll see why babies aren't ready for solid food or for walking or talking until they're a little older. The Babies artwork is charming and funny and clearly directed toward an older sibling in the 4-8 age group. It follows one family's baby antics - midnight feedings, trying to guess what the crying baby wants - but it also shows babies of every type and description at the hospital, at the park, and in multiple groups from twins to septuplets!
J