My Puppy is Born

My Puppy is Born
Joanna Cole with photographs by Jerome Wexler/ published 1973 by William Morrow and Company

If your kids have never seen the movie Milo & Otis, they are missing out on probably the only real live footage out there for kids of a puppy being born, moment of squirt out and all! The same can be said in book form of the fabulous My Puppy is Born. If you have a dog at home that is preggers and you want the kids to be involved, this is the most real-to-life book I have ever seen on the subject. The photographs of the actual moment of delivery are graphic, but tasteful, and really show you what a birth is like. (Might also be a good choice for parents wanting to explain the birth of a younger sibling without enduring the trauma of a Bradley or Lamaze video!)

The first puppy comes.
It is born inside a sac.
The mother dog tears the sac open with her teeth.
Now you can see the newborn puppy.
It is attached to its mother by a tube
called an "umbilical cord."

The story takes little Sausage (is that a cute puppy name or what?) from the womb to mommy separation anxiety and is totally hip in its frankness. Not to mention it has a rad 70s look and feel. I really couldn't give this book more of a thumbs up. I mean, I guess I could, but then I'd have to borrow a few thumbs from elsewhere... and well, you know, that could get messy!