Newborns: How Baby Animals Come Into the World

The remarkable variation in the ways animals reproduce is the topic of this over-size picture book translated from a Spanish rhyming book. Following a half page introduction, each of 25 creatures (including humans) is given a double-spread, with a brief paragraph description and a “Wild Fact” as insert. A chart summarizing Gestation Times is included, and a Glossary of vocabulary that may be new to the readership makes up the final page.

Most of the descriptions are simple and straightforward accounts of how the animal gives birth, how long the babies take to develop, the number of young or how much care the adult provides after birth. Interesting species have been included, such as the scorpion which may carry up to 100 babies on its back and the bat which gives birth upside down. In this example, however, “defying gravity”, is a language choice at odds with the target age of 6-8. Some explanations are more complex (resulting in a higher reading level, such as found in the introduction), so youngsters reading this independently will face challenges. For instance, they may find puzzling vocabulary such as “a genius of evolution, because it has triumphed over the altitude”, that sums up the alpine salamander’s adaptation. At times, the science-based narrative slips into anthropomorphism, e.g. newborn octopuses “dart off in search of food, ready to make their mother proud.” Competent young readers will find enough amazing new facts and unusual habits to satisfy their curiosity.
The illustrations are casual sketches in muted tones, but they sometimes lack precise detail. For example, what object is the mouse climbing on in the full-page sketch? The opossum illustration of a single joey in a teaspoon does not match the text information about the way 20 tiny young could fit there. Others simply show an adult animal but do little to extend the text, making the book less appealing to a child browsing the pictures alone.

As an introduction to this topic, there are neat facts in Newborns: How Baby Animals Come Into the World and a nice variety of species for kids who are curious about animals. They’ll have some basic knowledge to recall when reading more detailed investigations of animal life cycles.