cover image The New Basics: A-To-Z Baby & Child Care for the Modern Parent

The New Basics: A-To-Z Baby & Child Care for the Modern Parent

Michel Cohen. William Morrow & Company, $24.95 (368pp) ISBN 978-0-06-053547-6

Essentially a user's guide to babies and young children, Cohen's book makes parenting sound as simple and straightforward as changing a light bulb or fixing a broken screen door. By no means comprehensive, the book provides simple and reliable information on health care for the under-12 set. Cohen, a founding member of New York's Tribeca Pediatrics, is something of a celebrity pediatrician, and his book has a slightly hip feel to it: it's done in a clean layout, with snappy sidebars featuring""real questions from real parents"" and little symbols near many entries specifying what age group the advice pertains to. Naturally, some subjects get more coverage than others (e.g., the section on adopted children spans three pages, while car sickness gets a quarter of a page). This resource should come in handy as a quick reference on subjects as diverse as calcium, cavities, school anxiety and swimmer's ear.