Book review: You, Me and the Breast

This is a colourfully illustrated book about breastfeeding. Its simple story follows a mum and baby from birth to weaning, and mentions lots of memorable moments, such as snuggling up in bed with daddy, mama milk to comfort and soothe, and those relaxing moments where one’s ever-active infant becomes still for a little while at the breast.

Although it is clearly presented as a children’s book, I was a little confused about who the target audience was. Some of the information: ‘my nipple darkened… and gave off a rich smell’ sounds unnecessarily technical in a book for a small child. The cursive script was too difficult for my competent five year-old to read himself, and he had a lot of questions about the illustrations (‘which one is her hand?’ ‘why has she got birds in her hair?’).

It was nice to see dad included in some of the pictures, although I have reservations about the depiction of him ‘aeroplaning’ puréed food into the baby’s mouth.

On balance, the more books for children that normalise breastfeeding, the better. It would be good to see this widely available in local libraries and schools.

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To order You, Me and The Breast with a 25% discount, just follow the link and use the discount code KH25 at the checkout.