Where Is My Baby?: Life the Flap Book

by Harriet Ziefert, Simms Taback

Boldly illustrated flaps reveal the baby animals their poor mothers are looking for on the farm and teach children the names of seven different animals and the sounds they make. For children under two.

Genres: Animals, Childrens, Picture Books

1 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Harriet Ziefert grew up in North Bergen, New Jersey, where she attended the local schools. She graduated from Smith College, then received a Masters degree in Education from New York University.

For many years, Ziefert was an elementary school teacher. She taught most grades from kindergarten to fifth grade. "I liked it," she said, but she stopped teaching when she had her own sons. When her children were older, Ziefert wanted "a bigger arena" for her work. She went to work at a publishing company, Scholastic in New York City, developing materials for teacher's guides for kindergarten language arts and social studies programs.

"About twelve years ago," says Ziefert in a 1995 interview, "I tried to get a job as an editor, but no one would hire me as a trade editor. So I decided to write my own books." Since then, she has written several hundred books, mostly picture books and easy-to-read books. "I write books very quickly," she says, "in about twelve hours. I rewrite them three times over three days, and then they're done." She writes about twenty books a year.

Reviews

[Janet · Rating 3 out of 5]

Seven double board pages of illustrated animals asking the same question, “Where is my baby.” The child lifts a flay and there is the baby. Illustrations are done in Simms Tabeck folk art style. No white space in these board book illustrations.

[Katrina · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book makes wonderful use of flaps. The momma animal says, "Where is my baby?" with a sad look on her face on the left side of the page. A partial flap on the right side covers the baby animal, but not the rest of the picture, making the flap easy to grab and turn. The words under the flap says, "Here is my _____." [it fills in the blank with the appropriate name of the baby animal:] The lively colored art keeps both child and parents' attention.

[Elizabeth K. · Rating 4 out of 5]

We enjoy this a lot. Lu (19 months) is especially taken by the 1/2 page format, it's different enough that she's captivated by it. I thought the illustration style was a little kooky, but Lu seems just fine with it. Plot-wise, it covers the essential adult/baby animal words. I guess that's the plot. It's hard to review board books.

[Stacie Wyatt · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read Where is my baby, in exchange for review from Edelweiss. The book was a quick read. The book had excellent colors, design, and graphics. Great read for the children

The book has each mama (or daddy) animal, looking for their baby. The book also teaches about the names of baby animals (chick, piglet, kid, etc). The kids loved the book.

[Jen Robinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

With fantastic illustrations by Simms Taback ("Who Said Moo?" is another collaboration), this book is a definite winner. The animals are bright, easy to recognize and full of personality. The flip action is rewarding and reveals little baby animals with their proper names (kid, calf, etc.) Highly recommended for ages 0+

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

A simple book about animal mothers and their babies. A nice perk of the book I got from the library was that one of the pages was torn out, and replaced with someone's beautiful drawing to replace it. How fun! Good for a look at the library.

[Sylvester (Taking a break in 2023) · Rating 3 out of 5]

0* art
3* story

To be clear - Squirt doesn't care that the animals are hideous beyond recognition. This is a fun book, and he's learning that baby animals have different names than their parents, which is good (and confusing, too). My reaction is moot.

[TrinaLynn · Rating 3 out of 5]

And the crowd went .... mild.