The Gigantic Baby

by Mordicai Gerstein, Arnie Levin (Illustrator)

The more a baby cries, the more she grows, until her brother thinks of a way to reverse the process and turn his gigantic sister into a normal-sized infant

32 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 1991

About the author

Mordicai Gerstein was an American artist, writer, and film director, best known for illustrating and writing children's books. He illustrated the comic mystery fiction series Something Queer is Going On.

Reviews

[Josiah · Rating 2 out of 5]

This story is an allegory, primarily, about how big of a deal it can seem when a new baby arrives and commences to cry all through the night, waking everyone up and making life seem very difficult.

This is what it's like when Marvin's parents bring his new baby sister home from the hospital. At first, her crying seems ordinary ("She seems to cry a lot," Marvin tells his friends at school), but as the baby continues to wail she grows bigger, and the volume of her crying increases, and she grows still larger, and louder, until it seems that the entire scenario is out of control and nothing can be done to save the family. Then Marvin comes up with a simple idea to counteract his baby sister's crying, and his idea works perfectly to remove the constant noise and transform the baby into something nice, after all. Marvin didn't give up on his sister, and the rewards are terrific.

I like Mordicai Gerstein's writing style, and even though he wasn't the illustrator for this book, I liked it overall, anyway. I would give one and a half stars to The Gigantic Baby.

[Cana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mommy says: Plays on the fears of a first born adjusting to the arrival of colicky #2. Fears of the Mom & Dad, too, for that matter.