Bitchin' Blog Posts
Mommy Laid An Egg: Or, Where Do Babies Come From? by Babette Cole
by SB Sarah | October 03, 2007 | Wednesday at 10:45 pm | 3 CommentsTitle: Mommy Laid An Egg: Or, Where Do Babies Come From?
Author: Babette Cole
Publication Info: Chronicle Books March 1, 1996
ISBN: 0811813193
Genre: Top 100 Banned Books
Submitted by Aileen
Mommy Laid an Egg is a picture book designed to explain sex to children. When the parents in the book decide to tell their kids where babies come from, they spout off many of the myths we tell children. The kids in the book find these stories hysterical, and sit their parents down for a conversation about how things really work. The book stays honest and fairly simple, and explains sex within what I consider an appropriate range for younger kids (obviously, many people do not agree.) The illustrations are wonderfully whimsical, especially as Cole draws the kids drawing diagrams for their parents. The page that sticks with me most is the one that has something to do with multiple positions Mommy and Daddy can use when making a baby.
While the book doesn’t use the correct anatomical language, it is a simple explanation of how babies are made that is appropriate for the 4 to 8 year-old set. It fills a niche in the market. Should I have children, this book will be a must in their library.
Madeleine said on 10.04.07 at 01:02 AM
Reading about this book reminds me of the story Jessica Mitford told fairly often, about alienating most of the children in the town (well, their parents, really) by explaining sex to them during a…dance class? The punchline, I believe, is “And even the king and queen do it!”
As someone not long out of kid-dom myself, I am glad my parents told me early.
Jenyfer Matthews said on 10.04.07 at 08:38 AM
My sister gave me this book - to get it out of her house! She had bought it for her kids and her kids had absorbed the information and then just liked to make her read it to them because they knew it made her uncomfortable!
I admit I haven’t read it to my own kids yet. They are the perfect age for it, but they don’t even like to see mom and dad kissing and close their eyes during kissing scenes on TV so I’m not sure what they’d make of the interesting diagrams!
Also, I recently found out that my daughter has been at school telling all the kids what “the finger” means so I’m not sure I’m ready to arm her with this sort of information!! She’s not very discreet…
December Quinn/Stacia Kane said on 10.04.07 at 05:43 PM
My husband’s ex bought this book for their daughter, who was at the time six or seven, so hubs and I checked it out at the bookstore. I guess we’re not as cool as we should be, because we thought the drawings of the ecstatic parents doing it from behind or whatever were really inappropriate for a child that age.
I wouldn’t buy it for my girls. But that’s just me. :)
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