Mommy Laid an Egg by Babette Cole

This book is about how babies are made. At first when I started the book I didn't think it was very controversial. It starts out with the parents deciding to tell their kids how babies are made. They poke fun at some crazy ways babies are made like delivered by dinasours. Then all fo a sudden you turn the page and there are pretty graphic line drawings of the human body. The shall I say dirtiest page is a page that actually has images of how "mommy and daddy fit together" as in positions they may use during intercourse. A children's book SHOULD NOT give children suggests on how to have intercourse. That I believe is very very inappropiate for a children's book. I can understand a book that does deal with child birth because I think having a reference book to use is a way parents deal with the topic but to have pictures of positions to use is not ok. I would never read this book to a child.

Another thing I didn't like about the drawings of the ways mom and dad fit together is that they are juxtaposed children's toys. One has the parents floating with balloons. One has them on a space hopper ball and one has them on a skate board. I feel that this sends the message that you can do it anywhere. It also makes it less of a grown up act by having the toys on the pages.

The choice of pictures is interesting. The pictures of the characters is very detailed. The pictures that deal with the process of how a baby is made is supposed to be line drawings as if the parents are drawing them. They have a circle for the females parts and a squiggly line for the male parents that are as large as the whole page. You just can't miss them. But what makes it even worse is the fact that there is an arrow from the male to the female that says "this fits in here."

I am still in shock about the graphic detail of the book and the message that it sends to children. It gives children actual tips about how to have intercourse and plays down the fact that is a grown up thing to deal with by using images of toys with the parents.