A BABY STARTS TO GROW

You might call this the alternate edition: parents reluctant to tell a youngster just what happened Before You Were A Baby (i.e. the specifics of sexual intercourse) can start when A Baby Starts to Grow--that is, when a sperm and ovum unite to form a new cell. The balance is much the same in both books although the former is more particularized in terms of cell differentiation while this attends more to nourishment and overall growth. And then there are the illustrations--Rosalind Fry's smirking, apple-cheeked mothers and children have a Raggedy Ann aspect that's no match for Ingrid Fetz' sweet delicacy and laughably unsuitable in the case of the unborn baby (while his red and green umbilical cord, intended to be diagrammatic, looks rather like a jolly jump rope). Except for the final, more clinical picture of the emerging infant, a considerably diluted depiction that borders on being hoked up.