Nicolas Day's edgy Baby Meets World is the anti‑child-rearing book--a brilliantly researched, fascinating volume that just happens to focus on the subject of babies. It's pretty wild, which is ironic given the potentially bland nature of a subject whose main preoccupations are pooping and sucking. But Day considered these little critters and, lucky for us, determined there was a book to be written.
Day is a master of playing with context: when he assesses the economy of wet-nursing in 18th-century France, he compares it to the milk donation banks of today. He references Good Housekeeping articles written nearly 60 years ago that insisted thumb-suckers would become excessive masturbators as a springboard to a discussion of the reviled pacifier and how perhaps it's not the route to all evil (or dental problems). He writes about mothers from different countries witnessing each other's parenting styles, each convinced the other mothers are doing it wrong. One heartbreaking section references child-rearing manuals from the mid-20th century that ordered parents to kiss and touch their children as little as possible.
Day acknowledges that, 50 years from now, some of the things he does as a parent might seem suspect, too, even ridiculous. And yet, he argues, despite the overeager parents of today and the seemingly clueless ones of the past, most babies survive anyhow. --Natalie Papailiou, author of blog MILF: Mother I'd Like to Friend