Avery’s diseases of the newborn has reached its eighth edition with a substantial update of all chapters. In reviewing it like any large textbook, it is necessary to formulate basic questions about its purpose. It is hard to imagine that anyone would read every single word, yet almost all of us have at least one great tome sitting on our shelves, and, in many cases, they are simply gathering dust. Books like this are meant to be used in clinics, on the wards, or at home by our telephone, so that we can refer to them when a chance remark …