Before Baby Brains is born, his mother reads to him, plays him tapes of music and languages, and even turns up the TV when the news comes on. His parents are thrilled when he finally arrives but more than a little shocked on their first day home from the hospital. In the morning they find him reading the newspaper. By afternoon he’s fixing the car. “We certainly have a bright one here,” says Mr. Brains, a master of understatement. Soon news gets out about their amazing, unusual baby. It’s not long before Baby Brains (a practicing doctor at two weeks of age) has trained for a mission into space. But on his very first space walk, he looks around at the “vast starlit sky” with “the whole world in front of him,” and he responds like any baby when the center of their universe has shifted: “I want my mommy!” Simon James’s sparkling, tongue-in-cheek story is a delight. (Ages 4–8)