A Very Touching Book...for Little People and for Big People

Rating:
Summary: Grandpa in the shower looks/feels/smells fishy
Review: For the most part, i really enjoy A Very Touching Book. The illustrations and the humorous way that things are presented are great. Unfortunately, there is one page that makes me hesitate to use this book with the kids i work with. There's a page where the child gets really dirty doing something with Grandpa and then the two hop into the shower together. Sorry, but that smacks of common abusive settings to me. Many, many of my clients have been abused by someone in the bathtub. Maybe Grandpa in this instance was okay, but with the frequency of abuse in such settings, i cannot endorse this as a "safe" setting and have to skip this section with my kids.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent - if only she'd used a different illustrator...
Review: I am a mother of two young children and like most parents I sometimes worry about the worst things that could happen to them: what if they were in a car accident, had one of those rare fatal reactions to an immunization, etc. It's a very uncomfortable to think about what if one of them were molested, and what if the abuser were someone they knew and trusted (and presumably I knew and trusted as well). Those who work in the field of child sexual abuse, as Jan Hindman does, tell us that most children are molested by people they know.

Parents like myself ask ourselves "How can I prevent this from happening? Is there any way?" There is no way to prevent such a thing from happening entirely, of course, but I want to do anything I can do to make my children be aware of their rights in regard to their bodies and their sexuality and that no one has the right to abuse them this way. If the worst did happen and my child were molested, I would want him or her (I have both) to immediately tell me or another trustworthy adult and begin the work of recovery.

Jan Hindman's book is an excellent way to introduce even the youngest children to the idea of their sexual rights. It goes through the proper terms for male and female sexual anatomy and does a good job of addressing the embarrassment often goes with these words in a humorous way. There are simple, no-nonsense cartoons of naked adults and children to clarify the body part discussion - very important because if a child is sexually abused he or she needs to name the body parts involved correctly.

What I like most about Hindman's approach is that she helps to clarify what sexual abuse is and is not by creating 3 categories of touching: good, bad and secret. Good touching is defined as touching that is pleasant and makes people feel good (hugging, for example); bad touching hurts people (eg, hitting); secret touching is just what it says it is - secret and it is not okay to keep this secret. The strength of this approach is that it can prevent confusion about what is and is not molestation. An example from the book is of a boy and his grandfather who have gone into a pond and gotten lots of mud and frogs in their underwear (yes, this book can be quite funny on the little-kid level). The boy is staying at his grandfather's house and the grandfather must clean the boy's private parts and so they take a bath together and they get clean and they go tell grandma about it and everybody laughs. Is this molestation? No, because grandpa did not tell the boy to keep anything a secret.

The book does an excellent job of repeating key ideas a lot so that even a 2-3 year old can get the main idea, i.e., to never keep a secret about touching. She also gives a brief explanation about why this kind of touching is bad, bringing in the idea of consent. This approach is more useful than the old "don't let anyone touch you where your bathing suit is" warning.

The only quibble I have, and it is a minor one, is that I really don't like the illustrator. The goofy pictures get the job done and are funny, but I think they're amateurish and ugly. This is just a matter of taste, of course, and the book meets the goal of educating kids about this very important problem in an entertaining way.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent - if only she'd used a different illustrator...
Review: I am a mother of two young children and like most parents I sometimes worry about the worst things that could happen to them: what if they were in a car accident, had one of those rare fatal reactions to an immunization, etc. It's a very uncomfortable to think about what if one of them were molested, and what if the abuser were someone they knew and trusted (and presumably I knew and trusted as well). Those who work in the field of child sexual abuse, as Jan Hindman does, tell us that most children are molested by people they know.

Parents like myself ask ourselves "How can I prevent this from happening? Is there any way?" There is no way to prevent such a thing from happening entirely, of course, but I want to do anything I can do to make my children be aware of their rights in regard to their bodies and their sexuality and that no one has the right to abuse them this way. If the worst did happen and my child were molested, I would want him or her (I have both) to immediately tell me or another trustworthy adult and begin the work of recovery.

Jan Hindman's book is an excellent way to introduce even the youngest children to the idea of their sexual rights. It goes through the proper terms for male and female sexual anatomy and does a good job of addressing the embarrassment often goes with these words in a humorous way. There are simple, no-nonsense cartoons of naked adults and children to clarify the body part discussion - very important because if a child is sexually abused he or she needs to name the body parts involved correctly.

What I like most about Hindman's approach is that she helps to clarify what sexual abuse is and is not by creating 3 categories of touching: good, bad and secret. Good touching is defined as touching that is pleasant and makes people feel good (hugging, for example); bad touching hurts people (eg, hitting); secret touching is just what it says it is - secret and it is not okay to keep this secret. The strength of this approach is that it can prevent confusion about what is and is not molestation. An example from the book is of a boy and his grandfather who have gone into a pond and gotten lots of mud and frogs in their underwear (yes, this book can be quite funny on the little-kid level). The boy is staying at his grandfather's house and the grandfather must clean the boy's private parts and so they take a bath together and they get clean and they go tell grandma about it and everybody laughs. Is this molestation? No, because grandpa did not tell the boy to keep anything a secret.

The book does an excellent job of repeating key ideas a lot so that even a 2-3 year old can get the main idea, i.e., to never keep a secret about touching. She also gives a brief explanation about why this kind of touching is bad, bringing in the idea of consent. This approach is more useful than the old "don't let anyone touch you where your bathing suit is" warning.

The only quibble I have, and it is a minor one, is that I really don't like the illustrator. The goofy pictures get the job done and are funny, but I think they're amateurish and ugly. This is just a matter of taste, of course, and the book meets the goal of educating kids about this very important problem in an entertaining way.

Rating:
Summary: Purple Faces Delight and Bring Parents & Children Together
Review: Jan Hindman brings her vast knowledge of child sexual assault, offender profiles and wonderful humor together in this fine and funny book. My children and I would read four or five pages per night, before bed and talk about the book's content and lessons. Yes, grownups do get purple faces talking about this stuff and kids can help them through it. The very important definitions of good, bad and secret touching are taught sensitively and well. Secret touching must be the emphasis when seeking disclosures of child sexual assault and molestation.
My kids especially liked the fingerprints at the page corners. Children, of course, get to decide when to turn the pages! Important to every family's library and every school library should have several copies.

Rating:
Summary: Every parent should read this book with their children!
Review: Not only does this book provide self protection and early intervention skills it provides important perspective and universally accepted values about sexuality. Absolutely the best book on this topic. (And fun too!)

Rating:
Summary: A very good book (but one disagreement with the author)
Review: This is a very useful book for children and parents. Hindman approaches the topic of "secret touching" sensitively, using phrases and situations that children can understand and relate to. The illustrations are wonderful in the variety of body types and reaces/ethnics groups shown, and they are somewhat amusing (which helps lighten the mood of the book a bit).

The author uses several "what if" scenarios to help children differentiate between good touches and secret (or bad) touches. Parents will, no doubt, want to add a few of their own, and the ones included serve nicely as templates for that purpose.

The major disagreement I have with the material presented is in the author's reasoning [to the reader] for covering the genitals (and female breasts). She states, "Wouldn't it be silly if it were backwards and we kept our elbows and ears special and private but shared our special parts [genitals] with everyone? That would really be silly, wouldn't it? [...] Even on the hottest day of the year, when we need to take off lots of our clothes just to keep cool...[sic] we still keep those special parts private. [...] We cover them and keep them private because they are special and like no other part of our body." Well, as someone who has spent many years researching the effects of family/peer nudity on children, and who (after years of contemplation and several major changes of opinion) now spends time at clothing-optional places [including our home] with my son, I have to state that this reasoning is faulty, and somewhat insulting to our intelligence. It would be exactly as "silly" for people to cover only their ears and elbows as it is to cover only the genitals and breasts -- *all* body parts are "unique and like no other," so this is a meaningless reason. Children do not have an innate sense of shame or false modesty regarding their genitals (ever chase a naked, laughing toddler around the house?) -- these are things they are taught by adults. It would be more accurate for the author to have stated that "many people" feel this way, or words to that effect. Abuse can (and does) occur even though children wear clothing. It is a disservice to teach them otherwise.

I realize the major audience for this book is probably white, middle-class North Americans, but there are millions of people all over the world who regularly go topfree (for women) or nude with no ill effects, and many positive effects. For some, it is a matter of culture; for others, a matter of personal comfort and choice. For the author to state that it is "silly" to be other than what she perceives as normal is both unfair and dangerous. The danger is that well-meaning parents, social workers, and law enforcement tend to take statements like these as absolutes, and it puts families who do not share these views of the body at risk of accusations of child abuse.

In my opinion, the author would do much better to leave comfort issues regarding nudity to the family, and focus on the harmful acts of abusive touching and forced sexualized behavior. She has good, logical things to say about these, and the book would be more consistent had she not chosen to tread on this shaky ground.