Crib Notes: A Random Reference for the Modern Parent - Hardcover

Amy Maniatis; Elizabeth Weil

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0811844056 ISBN 13: 9780811844055

Publisher: Chronicle Books, 2004

Synopsis

Will the baby grow up to be the Dalai Lama? How do you twist balloons into dogs? Which countries offer the best maternity benefits? What are the most common baby names? What does a human face look like to a newborn? Crib Notes is the delightful, illustrated compendium of facts useful and useless, and always fascinating about pregnancy and early childhood. This enchanting volume offers page after page of compelling trivia and practical information, made all the more playful by the juxtaposition of subjects. Growth charts, nanny salaries by region, ancient and modern gender predictors, bedtime story generators, and information and advice on scores of other topics make this whimsical book completely necessary a shower gift that will bring endless pleasure and the perfect cribside companion.

About this title

About the Author

Amy Maniatis is a creative director of marketing at Gap, Inc., and the mother of Lucy, 4, and Chloe, 2. She lives in Berkeley, California.

Review

You're holding your baby son in your arms. And like any new parent, you have a question. Could he be the next Dalai Lama?

"Crib Notes: A Random Reference for the Modern Parent" has the answer (he might be, if he has large ears, long eyes or the mark of a conch shell on one palm) and other facts in an enjoyably quirky new book. How do the gestational periods of women compare to other mammals'? We beat rabbits by a wide margin, 226 days to 31, but the Indian elephant trumps every other creature on the list, with 624 days of pregnancy. There are stage directions for "Itsy-Bitsy Spider," a list of Dr. Seuss characters, tips for making a dog-shape balloon and a list of morals taught in Aesop's Fables. ("The Fox and the Goat" teaches kids to "look before they leap.")

"There was no book out there that spoke to the sort of urban and hopefully hip people we were before we got pregnant," says Elizabeth Weil, who compiled the book with Amy Maniatis. "We wanted to put together a list of everything you wanted to know but probably wouldn't look up yourself, from economics and things that were useful to things esoteric and whimsical." The whimsical includes old wives' tales to predict a baby's sex (if a pregnant woman picks up a key by the round end, she'll have a boy; pick up the long end and it's a girl). The esoteric is for the mom who'd like to make her baby multilingual, giving the word for "mother" in 82 languages. And dads-to-be aren't forgotten: they can find out if a girl or a boy is more expensive to raise. -Newsweek

Edition details

• Publisher: Chronicle Books
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0811844056
• ISBN 13: 9780811844055
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 144