This Is the Way a Baby Rides by Susan Meyers

This Is the Way a Baby Rides Reviews

• 
  Jennifer

  Hiroe Nakata's illustrations carry the main story and setting of a family enjoying a picnic in this delightful picture book outing. The text follows a set pattern throughout announcing that "This is the way a baby..." followed by onomotopoetic, rhythmic action words describing the baby's actions. Each spread has the human family depicting the action on one page contrasted with an animal family participating in the same sort of action on the facing page. So for "This is the way a baby rides. Bump-ity bump. Don't let go!" we see mom giving the baby a piggyback ride on the verso (dad's spreading out the picnic blanket in the background) facing a litter of opossums riding on their mother's back on the recto. Not all of these make the best sense - chipmunks run "Quickity-quick. High and low." but do babies? - but this is exactly the kind of book I like to use for baby storytime because of all the interactive opportunities that it presents. The text is great for reading aloud as long as you leave out the animal name captions and could easily work for older crowds as well. This might work particularly well with mixed age groups where toddlers and preschool children can participate on their own while parents interact with the babies.
  
  Used for Baby Goes Bounce baby storytime 9/17/2010.
• 
  Jennifer

  The text essentially compares one animal per spread to all the things a baby does (otters swim, splishity-splash, deer hide hushity-hush, etc.) - one side is a baby with its parents and the other side is the animal doing the same thing. The text is fine, but the illustrations are just distracting. Overall, it's just meh for me.
• 
  Anna

  I absolutely loved the illustrations. The animals are so darn cute as are the humans. I loved the style and the colors used in the book too. The story was really sweet comparing how a human baby does something to how a baby animal does it. It's really cute.
• 
  Ruth Ann

  A little awkward for Babytime storytimes - small illustrations and it's necessary to point out the animal tie-ins on the second pages of the page spreads.
• 
  Tiff

  Good book for a smaller group during story time. Playful figures of mom and dad with the baby highlight the simple text that is easy to sing or read out loud. The baby imitates different types of animals. Colorful watercolor and gouache paint on Arches paper illustrations compliment the text. Each action is followed by a sound of a verb, like whoosh-ity whose, for flying like a bird.
• 
  Monica

  Similar to the nursery rhyme in sound and movement. The pictures are nice, but might not have enough contrast for baby storytime. It would however be fun to replicate some of the sounds in movement.
• 
  Kate Hastings

  Baby tries to move like a variety of animals-- flying like a bird, leaping like a rabbit, sleeping, etc. Fun!
• 
  Aspasia

  Beautiful watercolor illustrations accompany this cute story about a baby imitating baby animals.
• 
  Lori

  Babies, nature, outings, movement, fun!
• 
  Anaeka

  THere are pictures of babies and animals doing the same things like riding, sleeping etc. I was okay. We read it a few times.
• 
  Casandria

  Babies do things like little animals. Not good for baby story time
  Animals
  Babies
  Picnics
• 
  Jenny

  I love just about anything illustrated by Hiroe Nakata, I'm sure this will be no exception.
• 
  Brooke

  Short but very interactive.