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WHERE DO BABIES COME FROM? by Angela Royston

WHERE DO BABIES COME FROM?

by Angela Royston & photographed by Steve Gorton & Susanna Price

Pub Date: May 21st, 1996
ISBN: 0-7894-0579-2
Publisher: DK Publishing

An outstanding introduction for preschoolers who are already starting to ask a lot of questions about reproduction. A brief text and stunning full-color photographs provide just enough information to satisfy young questioners. Royston (Rabbit, 1992, etc.) begins by stating that babies come from eggs, and then writes a simple study of plant development, using the sunflower as her example. Next she presents duck reproduction in very basic language: ``It takes a mother duck and a father duck to make a duckling. Inside the father duck there are tiny sperm. Inside the mother duck there are tiny eggs.'' The ducks and subsequent ducklings are displayed in full-color photographs, but eggs and sperm are drawn. For fetal development in both cats and humans, a drawing is superimposed on the photo of the mother to show the fetus in the womb. The human mother is shown with a fetus at 12 weeks, 24 weeks, 38 weeks, and finally holding a newborn. Royston concludes, ``Babies grow up into children. Children grow up into adults. Adults become mothers or fathers.'' Well, not always. But the point is made and the smiling people of different races and sizes in colorful clothes are especially appealing. (Picture book/nonfiction. 4-9)