The Baby Tree by Sophie Blackall

Pre-K thru 6th grade – Banned/Challenged selection – Children’s Picture Book

Genre or category

Reproduction

Conversations with Kids

Humorous

Target Age Group

Ages 0 - 8

Kindergarten - 2nd grade

Lexile Level: 540 according to NoveList (EBSCOhost, 2014)

Summary

A very curious young boy is getting a new sibling, but he doesn’t know where babies come from. In search of the answer, he asks several grown-up figures in his life “Where do babies come from?” With each answer more humorous than the last, he will at last learn the truth of where babies come from.

Justification

This book is cataloged and shelved as a Children’s Picture Book at my local public library (Tulsa City-County Library, n.d.). As per the requirements of this assignment, and this particular category selection (see above), The Baby Tree has been challenged in several elementary schools, and even pulled from shelves, out of concern that the topic of reproduction is inappropriate for the age that this book was written for (Blackall, 2015; Blough, 2022). While schools may believe that this book is less than appropriate, this story has been awarded several accolades including the ALA Notable Children’s Books - Young Readers Category from 2015 (EBSCOhost, 2014).

Evaluation

For this review, I will be evaluating illustrations, tone, and pacing.

Sophie Blackall did a wonderful job illustrating The Baby Tree. It is bright and colorful, and it matches the silly tone that the story conveys. The imagination of children is one of the central focuses of the illustrations, as soon as our main character is given one idea of where babies come from, the next page gives us insight into what young children may picture when presented with interesting concepts. Two instances come to mind of childhood imagination on the run: our main character tries to paint a baby tree after being told that they grow on trees, and the image of baby eggs hatching after being told that they come from eggs. The painting of the baby tree in particular could be considered an accurate rendering of an attempt made by a child when asked to paint a “baby tree”. While these images are quite silly, they are very well done.

Sophie Blackall took an uncomfortable topic, flipped it on its head and made it humorous. The humor comes from the imagination of a child, and occasionally the suggestions by the adults and teen, and the informative nature comes from the story itself. In the end, we see that every answer given to this little boy was in fact accurate in some way, except for Grandpa’s tale, even though they may be a little embellished. With the assistance of the illustrations, this story will have adult readers laughing at every page, and will have children enraptured and informed.

This story moves along at a very leisurely pace. I believe that this is done intentionally so that it may guide parents on the uncomfortable journey of telling children where babies come from. It gives them time to build the courage to answer the questions they know are coming once they close this book. For children, this story even provides areas of reprieve from the educational content with moments of light-hearted story telling. This book isn’t meant to be read quickly to get it over with, this fact shows in the intentional pace set by Sophie Blackall.

I gave this book 3 out of 5 stars on Goodreads. It is a very cute and silly book, and I think it is a great tool to assist in having an age-appropriate conversation with young children about reproduction. The last page of the book can be especially helpful as it provides age-appropriate responses to questions that children inevitably ask.

 

References

Blackall, S. (2015, March 11). Censorship and The Baby Tree. Blogger. https://sophieblackall.blogspot.com/2015/03/censorship-and-baby-tree.html#:~:text=It%20has%20come%20to%20my,to%20read%20on%20their%20own.

Blackall, S. (2014). The baby tree [S. Blackall, Illus.]. Nancy Paulsen Books.

EBSCOhost. (2014). The baby tree [S. Blackall, Illus.]. NoveList Plus. https://search-ebscohost-com.db.tulsalibrary.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=neh&tg=UI&an=10315058&site=novp-live

Goodreads. (n.d.) The baby tree [S. Blackall, Illus.]. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18635640-the-baby-tree?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=qKceQKu2lg&rank=1

Tulsa City-County Library. (n.d.). The baby tree [S. Blackall, Illus.]. Catalog. https://tccl.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S63C3031855

Blough, M. (2022, March 28). Cadott school board makes final decision on possible book removals. WEAU 13 News. https://www.weau.com/2022/03/29/cadott-school-board-makes-final-decision-possible-book-removals/