Boom, Baby, Boom, Boom!

Source: amazon.com via TheFishie's on Pinterest

My first thought when reading Boom, Baby, Boom, Boom! by Margaret Mahy was that Ms. Mahy must have been a flower child of the 60s who just hasn't quite grown out of her psychedelic, aided by hallucinogenics days. This is absolutely a crazy story with an ordinary looking mother and baby, and a handful of average farm animals. You could take these characters and create the most mundane story about a mother feeding her baby girl lunch which the baby decides to feed to friendly looking farm animals. Definitely not what Ms. Mahy chose to do. Instead, the mother has quite the quirk about her--she loves to play drums to the beat "boom-biddy-biddy-boom-boom-boom." Thus, after preparing her baby a "lovely lunch" of bread and honey, lettuce, an apple, cheese, and a carrot, she commences to play her tune. Each time an animal sneaks in the door to be fed part of baby's lunch, mother (a) doesn't notice and (b) adapts the song to fit the animal's cry. Finally, the mother stops playing the drums and turns to her baby. Having been absolutely oblivious to all the animals coming and going through her kitchen as she played, she lauds her baby for eating all her lunch. Fortunately, she also gives her a banana so baby actually has lunch.

Somehow, despite this book's craziness, I loved it. I got into a rhythm of saying "boom-biddy-boom-biddy-baa-baa-baa" or whatever the variation was for the animal and even felt a kick or two as I was reading leaving me to wonder if Blueberry was enjoying the book or the sugar rush from the snack I had not too long ago. The colors are vivid and the illustrations detailed. It's definitely a great story for introducing your young one to animals, their noises, and foods in a fun way. I can't really say why I enjoyed this book so much, but it's a keeper.

Source: Library Book