Name of Book:  Hello Baby!

Author:   Mem Fox

Illustrator:  Steve Jenkins

Publisher:  Parragon

Audience:  Ages 2-5

Summary:  A story celebrating the unique features of different animals, creatures, which ends with celebrating the human baby. The book starts with asking “Who are you?” of the baby, and then works through each of the different animals and their special features. At the end, the parent refers to the baby as “my treasure.”

Literary elements at work in the story:  The book contains collage illustrations with great details. The setting is unclear, and the point of view is first person from an unseen narrator. The story shows the love of a parent for a baby by focusing on the uniqueness of the baby from all of the other creatures that have been made.

How does the perspective on gender/race/culture/economic/ability make a difference to the story? The story is told by a parent about their child, but it is gender-neutral. The human characters are represented as white, but the rest of the characters are various animals. A few of the animals are not “mainstream American” animals, so the Australian influence of the author shows through a bit. This may cause a little confusion with young children, but not much.

Scripture:  Isaiah 43:4, 7

Theology: We are created by God for the glory of God. Upon God’s creation, God deemed everything “good.” When God made human beings and breathed life into us, God had a special purpose in mind for humans. Our purpose is to love God, love one another, and take care of the entirety of God’s beloved creation.

Faith Talk Questions:

1. Do you recognize any of the animals? Which ones?
2. Do you have any treasures? What are your treasures?
3. What do you think it means to be a treasure?
4. Whose treasure are you?

Hello Baby! by Storypath is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.