Baby Brains

Mr and Mrs Brains believe all that stuff about your baby growing up to be a musical genius if it listens to Mozart in the womb, but even they are taken aback when Baby Brains progresses from reading a newspaper to becoming an astronaut in the space of a few weeks of his birth. Then, in the vast emptiness of outer space, Baby Brains discovers that he needs more than the accumulated genius of the ages to feel happy and secure: he needs his mum. James pictures the absurdity of his story perfectly: at once puncturing the pretensions of pushy parents and emphasising the commonplace that love rather than ambition must be at the heart of parenthood. It's all in the deft characterisation of the illustrations. This is a warm and funny picture book story that, like Baby Brains, is perfectly formed.