cover image Grow, Baby, Grow! Watch Baby Grow Month by Month!

Grow, Baby, Grow! Watch Baby Grow Month by Month!

Meritxell Martí, illus. by Xavier Salomó. Familius, $24.99 (18p) ISBN 978-1-64170-100-6

A parent recounts the stages of a fetus’s development using vivid comparisons to objects in nature (“a little pearl inside an oyster”), while Salomó’s life-size pop-ups show it cradled in its surroundings. The developing fetus is the size of a cherry, then of a frog, “as big as a sunflower,” and, in the sixth month, “bigger than my hand, like a starfish surrounded by coral.” In the eighth month, “it was almost time to fly,” and the child is shown in a bird’s nest, surrounded by white flowers. Martí includes details about a fetus’s physical changes in the womb, as well as the mother’s reflections on its movements: “Sometimes you had hiccups!” Young readers will enjoy seeing the gestational changes in each pop-up spread. Ages 5–7. (Mar.)