From the expert team behind It's Perfectly Normal and It's So Amazing! comes a book for younger children about their bodies — a resource that parents, teachers, librarians, health care providers, and clergy can use with ease and confidence.Young children are curious about almost everything, especially their bodies. And young children are not afraid to ask questions. What makes me a girl? What makes me a boy? Why are some parts of girls' and boys' bodies the same and why are some parts different? How was I made? Where do babies come from? Is it true that a stork brings babies to mommies and daddies?
It's Not the Stork! helps answer these endless and perfectly normal questions that preschool, kindergarten, and early elementary school children ask about how they began. Through lively, comfortable language and sensitive, engaging artwork, Robie H. Harris and Michael Emberley address readers in a reassuring way, mindful of a child's healthy desire for straightforward information. Two irresistible cartoon characters, a curious bird and a squeamish bee, provide comic relief and give voice to the full range of emotions and reactions children may experience while learning about their amazing bodies. Vetted and approved by science, health, and child development experts, the information is up-to-date, age-appropriate, and scientifically accurate, and always aimed at helping kids feel proud, knowledgeable, and comfortable about their own bodies, about how they were born, and about the family they are part of. Back matter includes an index.
Robie H. Harris (1940-2024) is the
New York Times best-selling author of the acclaimed Family Library series—
It’s Perfectly Normal,
It’s So Amazing!,
and
It’s Not the Stork!—illustrated by Michael Emberley;
CRASH! BOOM! A Math Tale, illustrated by Chris Chatterton;
and
Somewhere, illustrated by Armando Mariño. She is also the author of the Let’s Talk About You and Me series, illustrated by Nadine Bernard Westcott, and many other books for young children.
Michael Emberley is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design. He is the illustrator of many books for children, including several collaborations with Robie H. Harris:
It's So Amazing, It's Perfectly Normal,
Happy Birth Day!, Hi New Baby!, and three picture books in the Growing Up series, books that tell stories and facts about the first five years of life.
Straightforward, informative, and personable…This book will be accessible to its intended audience, comforting in its clarity and directness, and useful to a wide range of readers.
—School Library Journal (starred review)
Harris’ respectful writing targets children’s natural curiosity without cloaking matters in obfuscating language.
—Booklist (starred review)
In their previous landmark volumes . . . Harris and Emberley established themselves as the purveyors of reader-friendly, straightforward information on human sexuality for readers as young as seven. Here they successfully tackle the big questions . . . for even younger kids.
—The Horn Book (starred review)
An excellent introduction to babies’ origins for youngest curious minds.
—Publishers Weekly (featured in Children’s Notes: True Companions)
Emberley's cartoon cast, a celebration of demographic diversity, do double duty as helpful diagrams of body parts and fetal development, and as examples of loving families in action.
—Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
A happy addition to the Harris-Emberley family.
—Kirkus Reviews
Many parents will like this book’s direct approach.
—Wall Street Journal
This informative book covers everything from why boys and girls have different body parts to how a baby is born.
—Parents
The book is written in clear, straightforward language and accompanied by cartoon illustrations.
—Columbus Dispatch (included in a list of the top children’s books of the year)
Adults will gratefully draw on the book's frank language and friendly tone when talking things over with their kids in the car or at the zoo… This must-have family resource addresses all kinds of such funny misconceptions, supplying instead the real facts of life.
—San Francisco Chronicle
Tackles the sensitive subject of human reproduction with delicacy and honesty.
—Baltimore’s Child
We recommend these books for parents, teachers, librarians, health professionals and clergy as trusted and accessible resources to get answers and information about how to talk to youth about sexuality.
—The Parent Buzz
There's a direct correlation between fear of naming body parts and kids' interest in finding out about them…The lucky ones discover the Robie Harris/Michael Emberley
books…
—Newbery winner Susan Patron, quoted in PW Children's Bookshelf
Well-laced with humorous illustrations and diagrams that convey information as well as maintain the cheerful, even exuberant, ‘it’s perfectly natural’ tone of this book.
—Toronto Globe & Mail
Pure sterling. . . . No family with young children (or naïve young adults?) should miss this one.
—Sacramento Bee
A perfect starting point for sex education.
—Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Simple language and colorful illustrations present straightforward and easily understood topics that are sometimes controversial.
—Library Media Connection
For matter-of-fact coverage of everything from a child’s first questions about where babies come from to a teenager looking to read about transgender issues, you can’t go wrong with “It’s Perfectly Normal,” from the author Robie H. Harris and the illustrator Michael Emberley (celebrating its 20th anniversary this year) or with “It’s So Amazing” and their book for even younger children, “It’s Not the Stork.” Leave them lying around the house (after reading them yourself) and you’re bound to start some good conversations with children under 10, and give yourself the opportunity to approach older children.
—Motherlode (NYT blog)
