The world is a bewildering place when you have just arrived in it. That is the premise, and Melissa Marr writes it from the mother's side: when the baby will not settle, she decides the baby must be a bunny, or a bear cub, or a fledgling bird, and she soothes it the way that mother animal would.

It is a gentle idea that gives a new parent something to actually say out loud at three in the morning, which is why this book ends up in so many nursery stacks and stays there long after the newborn stage.

Teagan White's illustrations are the reason it gets given as a gift. Pastoral, vintage feeling, painted in soft naturalist detail with a wreath of flowers and foliage framing nearly every page. Kirkus called it a lovely package and Publishers Weekly called it vintage looking pastoral prettiness, and both are accurate: this looks like a book from 1955 and reads like one written now.

A hardcover with the feel of a classic, and one of the most reliable baby shower gifts in the store. Its companion, Bunny Roo and Duckling Too, picks up when the baby becomes a toddler.