Sex Ed: It's So Amazing! by Robie H. Harris and Michael Emberley

This review is part of my ongoing quest to choose great resources for helping the Sonars understand their bodies, their sexuality, and sex.

It’s So Amazing!: A Book about Eggs, Sperm, Birth, Babies, and Families by Robie H. Harris and Michael Emberley, Candlewick Press (first paperback), 2002.

Harris and Emberley have created a series of three books called The Family Library, which aims to be a resource for families to help kids understand sex and sexuality in a warm, open, funny, and honest way. Harris’s text and Emberley’s colorful illustrations are built from consultation with a long list of experts, as well as kids and families. Targeted at kids seven and up, we’re led through each chapter by Bird (who is curious and enthusiastic about learning about sex) and Bee (who is more skeptical about whether he really wants to talk about any of this stuff). The characters might feel condescending to older kids, but make a great vehicle for mirroring the kinds of anxieties and feelings real kids might have when faced with the mysteries of the human body and sex.

Drawings of both internal and external human anatomy are clear, and the cartoon-style of drawing softens the giggle factor of representing naked bodies. My favorite set of drawings are the life-cycle illustrations, showing what bodies look like as babies, young children, older children, adolescents, adults, and older adults. The biological mechanics of sex, pregnancy, and birth are explained in some detail, and chunks of text are moderate in length and balanced by heavy illustration.

Sex is presented as one kind of Loving behavior, and attention is given to different types of loving behavior that don’t involve sex. The book doesn’t address individual desire or identity, but does try to directly define words. Definitions for terms, even controversial ones, are given without judgement. Descriptions of the many different family configurations that exist in our society are extensive and normalized, again without addressing desire or the controversy that some relationships can inspire. Only when defining masturbation do the authors acknowledge potential controversy. In all other cases, the authors lean toward objective definition.

The tone of the book is respectful of kids, acknowledging that they may have heard or know a lot of things, and fills in definitions and blows up myths that may confuse kids. This is a great book for prepubescent kids who are ready to understand more about human bodies and human families, and introduces foundational concepts that will become important as kids grow.