Madeleine's World: A Child's Journey from Birth to Age Three

This wonderful ''biography'' of a baby manages to avoid almost every cliche in the child-development handbook. Using fresh, revealing details, novelist Brian Hall keeps his wits — and wit — about him while observing his daughter Madeleine's earliest life. Starting at age ''0'' (with the query ''Do fetuses dream?'') and moving on to Madeleine's first nonsensical but richly emotive language, attempts at walking (which Hall finds analogous to an adult learning to fly), and imaginative life (''filling the mute world of her dependable things with voices''), Madeleine's World: A Child's Journey from Birth to Age Three is an enthralling journey into a baby's dramatic world. A