Up!: How Families Around the World Carry Their Little Ones

Delightful story. Illustrations representing many different familial relationships for babies in different cultural contexts. It’s a great buy for readers 0-2 years old, or older who are entering sibling-hood.

All around the world, families use different ways of carrying their children. This book travels the globe, showing widely diverse families and how they hold their babies close. There are babies being carried in arms, others in shawls, still others in parka hoods. Baby carriers can be used in different ways, whether you are father or brother and if you are differently abled. Baskets and shoulder rides are also shown. Up we go!Hughes has chosen a wide range of baby carriers in her prose. She keeps it deliberately simple, making it a book that can be happily shared with little ones. The small format of the book also helps make it approachable. Only a little prose is given on each page, the brisk pace and changing scenes keeping the book very lively. It has a lovely bounce to the text, a sway like holding a baby on your hip or bouncing them merrily along.Barron’s illustrations embrace the diversity and add to it. She has people of a wide range of races and religions on the page. The images are done in cut-paper collage and have a simplicity but also fully depict that part of the world. The crisp lines and bright colors add to the appeal for little ones.A grand picture book that I hope gets made into a board book as well, this is a jolly journey through babies and how they are carried. Appropriate for ages 1-4.

What a wonderful message: around the world children are carried in all different ways, but everywhere they are carried with love. This Canadian book features gorgeous illustrations of children being carried by their care-givers. The paper collage illustrations almost seem to jump off the page, and the imagery is so delightfully cozy and warm. Our three-year-old loved the book. The text is simple and limited. I especially appreciated the page with a father in a wheelchair carrying his child in a front carrier; this is how our friend does it! This would be a great gift, especially paired with a baby carrier.

This is a great book depicting various family makeups as well as diversity. Using babies and how they are carried, they show families from around the world. The illustrations are wonderful. They are done by cutting and pasting layers of paper and it makes them look three-dimensional. This is a good book for family libraries as well as kits in a school library when teaching about diversity and multiculturalism. The publisher generously provided me with a copy of this book via Netgalley.

Gorgeous illustrations!