Review Detail

Lyles illustrations are reminiscent of the work of the great Eric Carle and are rendered in hand painted paper collages with pencil and crayon highlights. This gives a lot of depth to the details of the animals; the birds' wings are particularly lovely. The palette changes depending on the environment, so there are green hills for the sheep and deep blue oceans for the dolphins.

The use of the names of the different types of animal babies is nice to see in the refrain ("my calf, my calf"; also kids, chicks, and foals) interspersed with terms of endearment, and this would lend the book to a nice extension activity of finding out the names of different animal offspring.

This reads like a Runaway Bunny or I Love You Forever for the new millenium, since the Brown and Munsch titles, respectively, haven't aged all that well. In addition to being a sweet book about the enduring love that parents have for children, it's a good book to teach about young creatures, along with Larsen's All of Those Babies, Jenkins' Find Out About Animal Babies, and the classic Little Golden Book illustrated by Garth Williams, Baby Animals.