Introducing A New Baby
Taking home the first child is all surprises for mom and dad, but a second comes with a whole other set of issues—namely, how baby number one will deal with a slightly more crowded family.
Cornelius P. Mud, Are You Ready for Baby? is Barney Saltzberg’s latest award-winning children’s book, and it deals nicely with this very issue. Saltzberg is a father of two, and he knows what its like to bring home a new addition. This familiarity with child-sized jealousy, fear, and curiosity is what imbues Cornelius P. Mud, Are You Ready for Baby? with its honest likeability.
The first page begins, “Cornelius P. Mud, there’s someone I’d like you to meet.” What ensues is a question-and-answer session that feels uniquely childlike in its tone (“Can he eat pizza?”) The lack of expositive phrases like “he said” or “Mom told him” add to the liveliness and, I believe, mirror more closely how children see the world. More importantly, the questions presented are real fears that many firstborns have, and Saltzberg addresses them comfortingly. This book is perfect for quelling any apprehensive toddler’s doubts.
Saltzberg illustrates as well, using acrylic and pencil to capture a day in the Mud’s living room.The bright colors are fun, with most scenes set against single-color backgrounds that are very graphically pleasing.
The book is a large hardback, but with paper pages (not board) it’s perfect for my 1 1/2 year old, Buckley. She seems to feel that board books are suddenly a little too childish for her. The only problem is, most of the “big kid” books have too much text to hold her attention right now. Cornelius is just right, with only a sentence or two per page. And Buckley enjoyed it thoroughly, even though she has not yet been faced with any threats to her reign as cutest Kilpatrick baby.
Marti Buckley Kilpatrick’s writings have appeared in Paste, Southword, Southern Living, and Lipstick Magazines.
She blogs about her culinary discoveries at blankpalate.blogspot.com
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