Baby anything is cuter than its adult version. A blanket statement, I know, but I’m really hard-pressed to think of an exception. Kittens, puppies, tadpoles, lambs--all more precious than the bigger model. Even double chins, chubby thighs, sparse hair and drool are adorable if the person sporting them is still what my grandparents would call knee-high to a grasshopper. Almost every creature seems to have a tender spot for new ones. This is probably nature’s way of keeping often annoying, frustratingly dependent beings from being eaten, I’ll wager. Baby things particularly register with me. Perhaps it’s from being a big sister, or growing up in a religious tradition where women 
are assigned value based exclusively on motherhood, or maybe even a natural immaturity, but whatever caused it did a bang-up job of making an impression. One of the most enduring pictures in my head of a cute baby thing is an early illustration in the paperback version of Charlotte’s Web where Fern is bottle-feeding a newborn, newly-rescued Wilbur and gazing at him adoringly. How could you not save such a ridiculously darling baby thing? I doubt her zeal would have been as…um…zealous if he had been a full-grown, tusk-wielding boar, but tiny piglet Wilbur is another story. In the Little Golden Book Classic Baby Farm Animals, each youngster is shown at its most endearing. I’m not much of an outdoor girl, but these illustrations make me want to at least visit a farm. Someday. If we don’t stay too long.
http://www.amazon.com/Baby-Animals-Little-Golden-Classic/dp/0307021750
http://www.randomhouse.com/golden/lgb/timeline.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garth_Williams
