Everywhere Babies

I realize book reviews are typically done on books that are coming out or have just come out. However, I didn't have a baby back in 2004 when this book originally came out. Nor did I when the boardbook/lapbook edition came out in 2011. 

So today I wanted to do a book promotion for an older book with the purpose of sharing an amazing book for future or current mamas with babies. 

I bought this book a month before my baby was born. I originally purchased it because of the rhythm and rhyme. I knew I wanted Harper to be exposed to lots of rhyming books because of what research says about reading books (especially rhyming books) to babies early on. 

I loved the bouncy rhythm and fantastic vocabulary.
Everyday, everywhere, babies are dressed~ in diapers and T-shirts, in buntings and sleepers, in playsuits and dresses, in sweaters and creepers. 

That's it. That's why I bought the book. 

It wasn't until recently (about 18 months after I purchased the book) that I realized how amazing this book is. It wasn't until Harper started bringing the book to me, asking me Weed? Weed?  Up. Up. (Read? Read? Up. Up.- meaning pick me up and put me in your lap.)

Here is why I love and Harper loves this book:

1. Bouncy rhythm, fantastic rhyme, great vocabulary. 

2. The Lapbook edition is a supersized board book which makes the illustrations bigger and the perfect size to read while a child is snuggled in your lap.

3. The Illustrations! I have to be honest. When I first bought the book, the illustrations didn't catch my attention. I was so impressed with the words that I didn't even bother looking at the illustrations. (Sad. I know.)  It took my child staring at them and pointing at images and naming them. Baby! Daddy! Ma! Tree! Lights! Hat! Easy! (Easy is the name that Harper calls our dog and every other dog in the world because when he was little we would tell him "easy" when he would roughly pet Sam.) Or when he would purposely turn back to a page because he wanted to stare at it longer. 

3.a. Richard Scarry-esque. These illustrations are so great because they remind me of those old Richard Scarry books I used to stare at as a child. An intricate world with so many details it would take hundreds of rereads and hours before you could ever notice all the details. 

3.b. The Diversity. What's amazing is that there is so much diversity in this book. Yet it is subtle in a good way. It's there and it's everywhere! But I say it's subtle because it's almost like it's a book about diversity without being about diversity. It's there. It's everywhere. It's the way the world is. It's the way we live together. This book is a version of everyone's "normal."

4. Great re-read-ability! Which is why I'm writing a review of a book twelve years old. Rereading it never gets old because as previously mentioned the details of the illustrations allow you to discover something new each time. 
5. It's a book about babies! Babies love to look at other babies! I had no idea. 

So even though this review may be a decade and a half too late, I'm re-promoting this book because my baby absolutely loves it, which makes me love it even more.