Do you know a child who is soon to be a big brother or sister? If there is another baby on the way in your family, this book is an excellent answer to your little one's swirl of questions. The story is presented as dialogue between a mother and her toddler son. Although there are no quotation marks, it is always clear who is speaking; the toddler's many questions about the arriving baby are in dark grey, while the mother's gentle answers are in light grey. For every two-page spread, one entire page is filled with a picture, while small pictures are interspersed between the words on the accompanying page. The pictures showing the toddler and his mother are drawn with vibrant solid colors, while the pictures showing what the toddler is imagining are made up of just a few different colors of pixels, like old comic books.
The toddler and his mother do many different activities while they talk about the baby, like go for a walk, go out to eat, visit a museum, go to the zoo, and many other activities that you and your little one may be familiar with. The toddler's questions and thoughts will likely echo your own toddler's. Or, perhaps when you told your child the good news, they didn't quite understand what it meant, so they don't know what to think or which questions to ask. Either way, this book provides excellent answers to help soothe any worry and get them excited for their new role of big brother or big sister. The story also contains ample amounts of humor. For example, when his mother suggests the baby might be a chef someday, the toddler imagines the baby cooking in the kitchen and making a complete mess; or when the mother suggests that perhaps the baby will be a doctor, the toddler imagines the baby checking a teddy bear's vitals and bandaging him up.
I read this to my friend Sam, when his mom was ready to have another baby. Sam was adverse to the idea of having to share attention, but when he found out all the fun things big brothers get to do, he turned a new leaf. Sam was particularly excited about helping to chose the baby's name. Inspired by the toddler in the book, who wanted to name the baby either Peter or Spider-Man, Sam wanted to name his little brother or sister (apparently, it didn't matter which) either Pedro (NO idea where that came from), Bob (after Spongebob), or Sam Jr.
--Audra