How Babies Are Made (Philip Bunting, Scholastic)

An engaging first look at human reproduction, How Babies Are Made features Philip Bunting’s signature friendly illustration style and the sense of humour common to both his fiction and nonfiction for children. It sits somewhere in the lineage of Peter Mayle’s ubiquitous Where Did I Come From? but with the benefit of 50 years of refinement in how we speak with children about scientific knowledge. Bunting’s book shares Mayle’s blend of matter-of-fact and quirky tones and the use of a second-person plural narrative voice; however, it takes a different direction and focuses more on the anatomical details of conception and pregnancy. It also acknowledges more diverse reproductive science, such as mentioning IVF technology and caesareans, and often substitutes ‘person who is pregnant’ for ‘mother’, presumably to allude to surrogacy and avoid presumptions about gender identity or family structure. While Dr Cindy Pan’s foreword notes that kids can enjoy the book autonomously, they will also benefit from grown-up reading support (noting the book has been pitched to be shelved in the ‘adult parenting section’ of bookshops). Plenty of questions are sure to follow as there is, inevitably, complex information and terminology in a fairly short space. How Babies Are Made will sustain kids aged 6+ as a good reference point through multiple years of their educational journeys through this domain.

Books+Publishing reviewer: Anica Boulanger-Mashberg, an editor and writer, is a bookseller at The Hobart Bookshop. Books+Publishing is Australia’s number-one source of pre-publication book reviews.

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