''Mummy Laid an Egg: or, Where do Babies Come From?'' is a children's book by English author

Babette Cole Babette Cole (10 September 1950 – 15 January 2017) was an English children's writer and illustrator. Life and career Cole was born on Jersey in the Channel Islands. She attended the Canterbury College of Art (now the University for the Creat ...

. It was published in 1994 and won the British Book Awards Children's Book of the Year in that year. It has also been published as ''Mommy Laid an Egg'' in the United States. Under that title it was listed as number 82 in the

American Library Association The American Library Association (ALA) is a nonprofit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with 49,727 members a ...

's "100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-2000".

Plot introduction

The book is a sex education book for young children, and ''

Publishers Weekly ''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of B ...

s reviewer said that Cole "unleashes her endearingly loony sense of humor on the subject of the birds and the bees, and the result is, as expected, hilarious." In the book a couple of parents attempt to explain the facts of life to their two children, who respond to their apparently ignorant parents by explaining matters to them, with stick-figure illustrations.

Translations

Translations into Welsh (''Wy Mam! (Mummy Laid an Egg!)''), Spanish (''Mama Puso Un Huevo!: O Como Se Hacen Los Ninos'') and Greek (Η μαμά γέννησε ένα αυγό!) have also been published.

References

{{reflist, 2 Children's non-fiction books British picture books 1994 children's books Children's books about sex education