And then: the boom. In May 1946, nine months after V-J Day, births increased from a low in February of 206,387 to 233,452. In June they rose again, to 242,302. By October they numbered 339,499 and were occurring at a record rate. Landon Jones, historian of the boom, notes that "the cry of the baby was heard across the land."52 By the end of the year an all-time high number of 3.4 million babies had been born, 20 percent more than in 1945. They came in time to abet the sales of a new book, one of the nation's great publishing success stories: The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care by
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