Oh, Boy! Babies
1980 children's book by Alison Cragin Herzig and Jane Lawrence Mali
Oh, Boy! Babies! is a 1980 children's non-fiction child care photo book written by Alison Cragin Herzig and Jane Lawrence Mali and photographed by Katrina Thomas. The book follows a group of 5th and 6th grade boys enrolled in an infant care-taking class designed to teach bathing, clothing, diaper-changing, and feeding. The book was adapted into a half-hour TV special which aired on NBC in 1982.
Reception
The book won the 1981 National Book Award for Young People's Literature in the nonfiction hardcover category.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Oh, Boy! Babies” is 1980 children's book by Alison Cragin Herzig and Jane Lawrence Mali. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Babies, children's and book, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “1980 children's book by Alison Cragin Herzig and Jane Lawrence Mali” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q137785050. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1980, 1982 and 1981.
Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
- Finding collection records
The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Oh, Boy! Babies”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Oh, Boy! Babies primary sources, Oh, Boy! Babies archive and Babies research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Oh, Boy! Babies”?
- Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
- Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Oh, Boy! Babies” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.