How was I Born?

Front Cover
Ever since the publication of the magnificent third edition of A Child Is Born, Lennart Nilsson has devoted himself to retelling this magical story especially for children. How Was I Born? closely follows the experience of Mary who is nearly five and her family as they lovingly prepare to welcome a new baby. The book matches Mary's insatiable curiosity, impatience, and concern with gentle, reassuring information. Nilsson's spectacular photographs illustrate Mary's actual questions: when she wonders how big the baby is, one photo shows an ant on her brother's fingertip, opposite the exact image of her future sibling at that time. When she asks how the baby eats, the reader sees her drinking through a straw as the baby-to-be feeds through the umbilical cord. Meant to be read by a child alone or with a parent, How Was I Born? answers all the questions children ask about pregnancy and childbirth--the biological as well as the emotional ones. Perfect for children aged five and up, it is also a wonderful book of all ages.

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Contents

Section 1
Section 2
Section 3
Copyright

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About the author (1994)

Lars Olof Lennart Nilsson was born in Strangnas, Sweden on August 24, 1922. He received his first camera when he was 11. At the age of 15, he began taking microphotographs of bugs after seeing a documentary film about Louis Pasteur. He began his freelance career covering the liberation of Nazi-occupied Norway in the last days of World War II. After the war, he produced photo essays on a polar bear hunt and on a midwife who delivered 1,500 children in the Swedish mountains. He turned to microphotography after becoming fascinated by a fetus in a glass jar at Sabbatsbergs Hospital in Stockholm. Life published his first picture of an embryo in 1953. His first collection followed a human embryo's maturation from the instant a sperm cell fertilizes an egg. His photographs appeared in Life magazine in 1965 under the title The Drama of Life Before Birth. It was later expanded in book form as A Child Is Born. His other projects used micro-cameras to expose cerebral hemorrhages, the virus that causes AIDS, and tar-laden smokers' lungs. His other books included Behold Man: A Photographic Journey of Discovery Inside the Body. He also created documentaries including The Miracle of Life and Odyssey of Life. His films won three Emmy Awards. He died on January 28, 2017 at the age of 94.