My eyes widened as I started reading my Christmas present from my brother -
"The Power of One" by Bryce Courtenay.  The first four sentences of the book
are:
"This is what happened.
        "Before my life started properly, I was doing the usual mewling and
sucking, which is my case occurred on a pair of huge, soft black breasts.
In the African tradition I continued to suckle for my first two and a half
years after which my Zulu wet nurse became my nanny.  She was a person made
for laughter, warmth and softness and she would clasp me to her breasts and
stroke my golden curls with a hand so large it seemed to contain my whole head."
        I had a (brief) vision of my brother glancing at the first page and
thinking "THIS will do."
        Don't you find people in novel-world *don't* have babies, and women
in soap operas only get pregnant so that they can lose the foetus under
dramatically tragic circumstances?  There seems to be so little media
reinforcement for normal pregnancy, birth and nurturing.
Jacquie Nutt, Zimbabwe