Where Did You Come from, Baby Dear?

Baby-Toddler—Despite a title that suggests a "where do babies come from" offering, this resuscitated 19th-century poem handles the question with the whimsical subtlety of a Hallmark card crossed with an Anne Geddes calendar. Dyer's diverse cast of cherubic infants, drawn with soft pastel-colored pencil strokes accompanies MacDonald's awkwardly rhymed interrogative dialogue about the origin of babies and some of their body parts. In answer to the titular inquiry and the subsequent queries, the poet proffers hazy quasi-spiritual responses. "Why that three-cornered smile of bliss?/Three angels gave me at once a kiss./Where did you get this pearly ear?/God spoke, and it came out to hear." Warm-tone portraits of babies accompany the questions on the verso pages, while the infant's answers depicting their heavenly genesis appear in washed out celestial blues on the recto.