Ok, now, let me back up a bit and tell you why.
Sex is a Funny Word: A Book about Bodies, Feelings, and YOU
covers the basics. By basics, I mean such crucial topics as:
- consent
- trust
- masturbation
- secret touch
- sex vs. gender
- respect
- and so much more!
What it doesn't cover is the mechanics of a penis entering an orifice or other forms of copulation. There is another book that came before this called What Makes a Baby? that covers reproduction and a book that will come after which is set to cover intercourse. Without even having to read them, I'm already recommending them. This book is so superb, I'm giving the authors a recommendation on any book they've ever written or will write just because of it. There are precious few hard and fasts in this text. "There are many ways to be a boy or a girl. For most of us, words like boy and girl, or man and woman, feel okay, and they fit. For some of us, they don't." They then go on to discuss being called a boy, but feeling like a girl, vice-versa, feeling like neither or both, feeling unsure, and just being all right with who you are. Sweet fancy Francis, thank you for this book!
One of the only things they write about for which there is no bend is "secret touching." "Secret touching might feel good like helping touch or bad like hurting touch. It might feel strange or weird or scary, or it may just leave you with questions. But one way you can tell it's wrong is that the person doing it makes you keep it a secret." Me likey.
Everything is frank and direct, which is exactly what I like. "Some people use the term private parts to describe parts of the body that have to do with sex. Because any part of your body can be private, in this book we don't call them your private parts. We call them your middle parts, because they are in the middle part of your body. Just because we choose to keep our middle parts private and covered most of the time doesn't mean they are bad." No shame. You will find absolutely zero shame in this book. Hallelujah!
I could go on, gushing over the stellar quality of the words, message, tone, and graphics on each and every page, I could go on quoting all the fantastic excerpts, but I'd simply end up giving you the entirety of the book, which might peeve the authors ever-so-slightly, so I'll leave you, once again, with a link to the book HERE. Get it. Get it and encourage your library to get it, as well, because this book needs to be in every child's hands post haste.
If all of this isn't enough to convince you, just check out my 4-year-old son reading it to himself after I read it to him the first time and started the second round until my throat literally got sore from reading aloud so much in one sitting. If that isn't high praise, I don't know what is. Got questions? Hit me.
