Today’s blog post is a first for Smart Mama, MD! I will be reviewing a colleague’s recently published children’s book, called Baby, MD. I read it with both my fresh 5 year old-boy and my almost 7 year-old girl and they both enjoyed it thoroughly but for different reasons.
The first thing that really caught my eye is, of course, that already in the title of the book Neurology is mentioned. I love reading books about science and medicine to my children. It can be hard to find things that work well for younger children and I think you can start reading this book any time since your baby is born.
My daughter was drawn to the bright colors right away. Her two favorite things were that it was about a woman brain doctor, just like her mommy but also the colors and depictions of playgrounds. My son on the other hand really enjoyed the picture of the brain with all the different parts since he always prefers all the gross things.
The book really simplifies medical concepts around the brain and its functions for children and tries to make them fun and relatable to things they can understand. This was a little bit hard for me at first, since I want all medical books to be as accurate as possible. I have had this issue with most of the children’s books I have on anatomy, math, neuroscience, and general medical topics and I realized I have to adjust my expectations as to what is appropriate for a children’s book.
Overall, I really like this book and highly recommend it. It was fun to read, my kids’ enjoyed pointing out things on each page, and the concepts were easy to grasp since they were broad. My daughter is probably at the older end of the spectrum for who I would recommend this book to. Amazon lists the book for 0-2 year-old children but I thought it worked well for my kids since my daughter could read it to me and we could discuss and expand on each part of the brain. This book would make a great baby shower gift for any doctor friend you might have!
I wanted to give a shout out to the author, Julia Grant, who is a physician-scientist and an example of a woman doing amazing things – mother, wife, neurologist, and children’s book author to name a few.
If you are interested in buying the book, you can find it in Amazon. I tried to post a link in the blog post but only the picture comes up. I will put a link in the Facebook and Instagram posts. I do not get compensation if you buy from my link or elsewhere. I hope everyone enjoys the book and reviews it on Amazon if you like it!
Happy Women’s History Month!