What Makes a Baby

I got this book for my 2 year old. There is no mention of gender in this entire book. The book does not show genitals or sex in any way. It says "some bodies have sperm in them, and some do not." With a picture of a completely androgynous person, with a little picture of a sperm close to where the sperm would really be in their body. I recommend this book for every kid in the world and stress that there is no such thing as being too young for this book. Older kids may like it as well, it isnt cheesy and uses real words. The only mention of genitals in this is the word "vagina" but it does not show one. It only talks about the fact that "some babies are born by coming out of a part of the body most people call the vagina" and it shows a picture of a midwife taking a baby out of the vagina in a birds eye view, so that we dont see the vagina. The opposite page shows a c section and explains that the doctor makes a hole, takes the baby out, and closes the hole. The picture is not scary and shows zero blood or gore, but is realistic and easy to see what is happening. There is a picture of the baby upside down inside of a person's body with the umbilical cord. They show a picture of a uterus and explain that some bodies have uteruses and some do not, and that babies grow inside the uterus. There is a picture with lots of people, and some of those people have a uterus and some do not in the picture. Again I stress that there is no gender in this book which is fantastic. The pictures are very colorful and fun, yet informative. The single only complaint I have is that it doesnt talk about the sperm going into the egg, but just the sperm dancing with the egg. After we read the words on that page I just always add "and then the sperm goes in the egg." I think thats all that's really needed. This book started a really nice conversation between my little one and I and now if I ask, my two year old can tell me which parent had an egg, and which parent had a sperm to make my little one and who had a uterus where my little one grew and got bigger and bigger (the book shows pictures of the stages of development) and then came out and how. This book also does not talk about "mommies and daddies" which is great since we have a Daddy and Shoey in our house, and no Mommy. I would recommend this book for families who adopted or had a surrogate, etc. It just talks about a sperm and an egg, but doesnt say anything about what kind of people "should" have a sperm or an egg or a uterus. There is no mention of male or female or intersex or man or woman, etc. It also shows a lot of different families, family members, and babies, but they are very diverse and a lot of them are very androgynous. I haven't looked too much but there may or may not be obviously gay couples, nonbinary couples, and families with 3 or more parents. Super duper inclusive. I love this book. It is absolutely perfect for our family. Perfect for your queer kids and gaybies too. xD

My daughter was donor conceived and I have never kept that hidden from her. She's now 7 and began asking a lot of questions about a year ago. It made me realize that even though it was never a secret, it also wasn't talked a lot about or part of our regular "story." I began searching for books that were age appropriate to help me explain things to her and this was recommended. It's a great book! It's age appropriate, accurately explains things, but does so in a way that kiddos can process the information, and includes brightly colored pictures and fun stories to keep their attention. It didn't match our circumstances exactly, but I don't expect any book to. It was a great foundation and I filled in the holes when needed. This is a wonderful book and I would recommend it a thousand times over!

This book is amazing. First off, it has bright colors and interesting pictures that kids will like. This book is good for any donor families, surrogate families, or any families built in a "non-traditional" way. We are a double-donor, LGBTQ family, and my wife carried our son. I am unaware of any books out there explaining our exact situation. This book accurately explains how babies are made, but it leaves things generic enough that it can fit any family or situation, just like it fits ours. Now we have a great starting point to explain our son's story to him when he gets a little older.

I received this book and read it to myself as my son (3.5 yrs) was busy playing with his Legos. I haven't even read it to him yet since then but I have to say *I* love it and I hope he does, too. I was smiling as I read through it. The illustrations are lovely and whimsical and avoid genderizing more than necessary or even representing ethnicity. Each of the people is represented in an androgynous and colorful (think rainbow) way with no definite faces, hair styles, clothing, skin tones ... the focus is on the reproductive organs necessary for making a baby and the feelings involved in the relationships that result in a baby. Really a well done presentation of the IDEA and the theme to a child who is curious without imposing "social norms". I really like that it doesn't impose a schema of gender expectations on a child or what a "couple" looks like just because the book is talking about sex. Really a lovely and well written and illustrated book! Right length, great simple presentation. (Aside: Just an example of why it's important to me personally that stereotypes are not reinforced: My son has long hair. We live in TX where this doesn't seem to be even remotely common and he is repeatedly confused for a girl even though he is wearing clothing that I would consider typically "boy" clothes. I don't think only girls have long hair or that it should be considered odd for a boy to have long hair, or for a girl to have short hair. So on the same note I would prefer a book to not enforce the expectations of long hair on a female, or specific roles that are required/expected of men or women.)

This book is fantastic. Got it for our almost 4 year old and just turned 2 year old who will be getting a younger sibling soon. Beautiful illustrations, but what I love most is how "body positive" this book is of EVERYONE. It talks about how some people have an egg inside them, some people have a uterus, some people have sperm. It DOES NOT say that only women have eggs or a uterus or only men have sperm. Which is great, because not all women have eggs or a uterus, not all men have sperm, and there are some biological males who identify as women and vice versa. I love that if my kids grow up to be someone who identifies as the opposite gender I won't have made them feel like there is something "wrong" with them by teaching them narrow-minded gender roles. The book does not describe sex (there is no mention of the actual act) but rather focuses more on the sperm and egg meeting, sharing a "dance" and telling each other all their stories. In the end, they have shared so much that now they are one thing and cannot be separated. There are a few illustrations of a baby at various points during gestation. The second thing I love about this book is that it talks about how the baby is born: both by c-section and vaginally. As one of my children was a c-section and the other a VBAC, I love having this beautiful, non-scary illustration to talk to them both about the different ways they came into this world. I would say this is a great book to get the conversation started with toddlers, pre-schoolers, and kindergartners when you aren't quite ready to get into the details of what sex actually is (but still need a way to answer their questions about where babies come from).

I collect children's books because I'm a teacher and intended parent. I have high standards. This text is good. I would have loved higher level vocabulary to be used like "genes" in addition to "stories". One line is, "Just like eggs and just like sperm,..." I want my future kiddos to be exposed to more grammatically correct language when they read informational texts, "Just like eggs and sperm,..." would have been more grammatically correct. I think the book is good, I just think it could easily be great and it's not quite there yet. There's only one sentence on each page. I think more content would have explained even more. I'd still recommend it and buy it.

Our 3-year-old loves this book, which is completely gender and family-structure neutral, does not include sexual intercourse, but provides a nice introduction to the concepts of the egg, the sperm, the uterus, and how you need to bring together a sperm and an egg and give the resulting combination of the two a place to grow (and then time to get bigger and bigger and bigger) to make a baby. I liked the section on birth, too, which gives understandable yet tasteful pictures of both vaginal birth and c-section, emphasizes how it's a pretty big deal for both the baby and the people who were waiting for the baby to be born, and asks nice personal questions like "who was waiting for you to come?" and "who was happy it was you that grew?" It's very quotable. I love the image of how the egg "has so many stories about the body the egg came from" and likewise the sperm, and how they do a special kind of dance to share their stories. The text is simple but great. The bright colors also engage our daughter's interest, and we like the racial diversity as well. Terrific intro for all preschoolers.

Awesome for my donor conceived child. She enjoys the representation in this book, even with c section information. Love the story and is she appropriate

Great book to extend knowledge for our children ages 7 and 9. Goes into a little more detail without too much.

Super brilliant book for parents who are grappling how to explain it right!! Loved it! Everyone should read it for info!

Libro facile, colorato e molto carino. Ho spiegato a mia figlia (7 anni) dopo svariate domande come si fanno i bambini, con un linguaggio semplice senza raccontare fandonie e senza creare traumi. Top. È in inglese ma veramente easy.

This book is perfectly inclusive and just exactly what I was looking for to complement the more mainstream "Amazing You" book by Dr. Gail Saltz. Amazing You!: Getting Smart About Your Private Parts In an extremely inclusive way, it guides children through a basic, colourful, non-gender-conforming understanding of the elements required to create a baby, without even ONCE making reference to a pronoun. I didn't know how they'd do that, but the end result is amazing. I would wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone seeking an honest, accurate no-fuss description of the components required to make a baby. It gets the child to ask themselves who in their lives were waiting for their arrival - a great chance to discuss with ALL children the different ways of being born - from full-term with a biological parent, to adoption, to surrogacy, to surgical deliveries - its a well thought out beginning to many, many doscussions. My son is 4, and I can see that we can go back to this book for several years and just add on different layers as he's ready for them. I am *so* glad I saw this book on an online list, because I knew I wanted nothing religious, nothing that minces words, all while being aware of - and open to things other than - gender-normative terms. As a Birth Doula I especially appreciated the time to mention both vaginal and surgical deliveries. It was a nice touch. Overall this is a great starting point for discussions with a young child, even though my family's CIS-ness made other similar books "accessible". I wanted to do better than that.

I bought this book to help me explain to my egg-donor daughter about the origins of life as simply, broadly and as inclusively as I could. I was blown away by how well the author Cory has achieved this. Cory doesn't mention gender, instead differentiating those who have and don't have sperm, eggs or a uterus. Neither is the sexual act mentioned, just what is required, essentially the egg, sperm and uterus, as well as it being something the parents decide to do, and the illustration suggest conception as a happy event. The illustration are also non-gender specific, alloiwng for the explaination that not all men have sperm, and not all women may have eggs or a uterus. Personally the inclusion of the uterus alongside the egg and sperm really validated for me, my part in my daughters journey, so often in birth books it is just veiwed as a container, but Corys' line; ' How a baby grows depends on the stories that the egg and sperm share, and on the uteus the baby is growing inside of.' brought me close to tears, and was hugely validating. Of course conception does not always result in a live birth and the fact that the 'brand new thing' created by the joining of egg and sperm does not always grow also allows parents who have had previous failed treatments or miscairrages to sensitively explain this to their child, if they so wish. There is so much room for parents to weave in their own childs individual and unique journey from conception to birth, allowing for all the possible combinations and variations in fertility treatments, and surgical as well as natural birth that I really can't think of any situation there this book would not apply, including of course stright forward natural conception and birth.