Book Title: Baby
Author: Patricia MacLachlan
Category: Fiction, Children's Literature
Age Group: 10-12+ (parents should use their own discretion)*
Part of a Series? No.
Larkin's family is complicated. There’s Byrd, Larkin’s excitement-seeking grandma. There’s Papa, who tap-dances on the coffee table; and there’s Mama, artist extraordinaire. You can tell what she’s painting by the colours of paint she gets on her clothes.
And then there’s Lalo, who isn’t really family, but he might as well be. He’s Larkin’s best friend.
No one will talk about him. Larkin never got to see him. He never got a name. It seems like Mama and Papa want to forget he ever lived.
It’s the last day of summer. The tourists are leaving, and soon the islanders are going to have the island to themselves again. Larkin’s family goes to the ferry landing to watch the tourists leave. Everything is the same as last year and the same as many years before that—until they get home and find a baby left in their yard—in a basket, alone. No mother in sight.
There’s a note in the basket. The baby’s name is Sophie. In the note, Sophie’s mother pleads with Larkin’s family, asking them to keep the baby until she is able to come back for her. She’ll lose Sophie if Larkin’s family doesn't keep her.
“Call the police,” says Papa.
“Keep her,” says Mama.
Mama wins.
Papa warns Larkin not to love Sophie, because she isn’t staying. How, Larkin wonders, is she to love Sophie if she never had a chance to love her own brother? But even that does not stop her from learning to love Sophie.
What will happen when Sophie’s mother comes to take her away? Will Sophie’s leaving hurt Larkin’s family even more than they are already hurting? Will Sophie become someone like him, someone Mama and Papa won’t talk about?
One day at school, Larkin’s teacher reads a poem about grieving. It brings up so many emotions inside of Larkin. The anger she feels that her parents never named him. The sadness that she never, not once got to see her baby brother before he died. The hurt that her parents never talked with her about him. They never told her what he looked like. She never had a chance to know him.
Finally, she goes to her mother and tells her how she feels. Lost in grief, Larkin’s mother never took the time to notice how Larkin felt. She never saw the emotions Larkin was struggling with. Mama shows Larkin a painting of her baby brother. “This is what he was like.”
Baby will certainly tug on your heartstrings. MacLachlan did a phenomenal job on this book. The things Larkin struggles with are portrayed sensitively, with a gentle touch. You'll find yourself deeply invested in Larkin's world and the hard things she is struggling with.
Even though it is a sad book, I loved Baby. One of the best parts? MacLachlan doesn’t end on a sad, bitter note completely void of hope. She ends it with Larkin beginning to heal. It doesn’t end on a mountain-top high, but it doesn’t end on a dark valley low either. I am once again wowed by McLachlan's evident skill as a writer, and her onderful instincts on when is just the right spot to end her story. MacLachlan's writing is so tender, so heartbreakingly sweet at times. She was a very talented author, one I would have been happy to have had the opportunity to know.
I can't quite express in words the way Baby made me feel. Let me just say this: You're gonna want to laugh, and you're gonna want to cry, but it's all worth it. Baby is so worth it!
*Baby deals very gently with grief and the loss of a very young baby, but if you are a parent looking for good, healthy books to give your kids, please use your own discretion when deciding whether your child is ready to read such a book. It is a very well-done piece of writing, as I said before, but some kids may simply not be ready, and that's okay.
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