First comes love : all about the birds and the bees - and alligators, possums, and people, too

Every parent awaits the question: Where do babies come from?

Written by Jennifer Davis, author of BEFORE YOU WERE BORN, the delightful lift-the-flap book that explains to young kids what's going on inside their pregnant mummy's belly.

FIRST COMES LOVE is a charming introduction to the birds and the bees, not to mention alligators, spiders, dragonflies, squirrels, peacocks and - of course - people.

Illustrated by Clare Mackie, whose clever visual jokes and whimsical flourishes will appeal as much to grown-ups as they do children, the book marries fun rhyming text with fascinating fact to tell a story of love, courtship and birth across the animal kingdom.

Written for the ages of 4 to 8, when kids are at their most curious and least embarrassed, here is the story of the lightning bug - "When the firefly is in a flirting mode, / He scribbles and blinks a special code." The penguin - "Quivering and caressing with flippers and beaks, / They touch and talk for two full weeks." And the kangaroo - "Kangaroo babies are rarely seen, / Because they're no bigger than a bean."Then below, in captions that amplify the verse, kids learn that every firefly species has its own blinking language, that penguins try to find the same mate year after year, and that a new-born kangaroo stays in his mother's pouch for the first three months.