Bellybuttons Are Navels (Young Readers Series)

Rating:
Summary: A wonderful book that normalizes the body
Review: The "Horn Book Review" finds the presentation of this book "stilted," and calls the illustrations "dreadful." Good grief! This isn't intended to be F. Scott Fitzgerald for kids, nor an introduction to the fine arts. It is a "trying to teach Johnny that his penis is called a penis" book, and it works wonderfully for its target audience!

A brother and sister are taking a bath together. As they wash, and then dry off, they talk about the various parts of their bodies: which parts are shared by both, which are for boys only, which are for girls only, and what their proper names are. If this is "stilted," I suppose billions of parents routinely engage in "stilted" dialogues with their own kids in the same pattern.

It's refreshing to me that the book presents a boy and girl together, and educates both genders about *all* the body parts of *each*. There should be no shame or falsely-imposed mystery about basic human anatomy, and neither the author nor illustrator fall prey to that trap. The presentation is straightforward and honest in a way that young children understand and appreciate. The illustrations are accurate without being hideously graphic (the problem with so many of the "line drawing" books that lose children's interest with their black-and-white cross-sections of genitals), yet they are not so cartoonish as to be unclear.

My son loves the book, as do his young friends (many of whom have the book at their house, too), as did my three godchildren. Let the staff of the "Horn" have Gray's anatomy, if they choose -- my family likes "Bellybuttons are Navels," and I think your family will, too.

Rating:
Summary: A wonderful book that normalizes the body
Review: The "Horn Book Review" finds the presentation of this book "stilted," and calls the illustrations "dreadful." Good grief! This isn't intended to be F. Scott Fitzgerald for kids, nor an introduction to the fine arts. It is a "trying to teach Johnny that his penis is called a penis" book, and it works wonderfully for its target audience!

A brother and sister are taking a bath together. As they wash, and then dry off, they talk about the various parts of their bodies: which parts are shared by both, which are for boys only, which are for girls only, and what their proper names are. If this is "stilted," I suppose billions of parents routinely engage in "stilted" dialogues with their own kids in the same pattern.

It's refreshing to me that the book presents a boy and girl together, and educates both genders about *all* the body parts of *each*. There should be no shame or falsely-imposed mystery about basic human anatomy, and neither the author nor illustrator fall prey to that trap. The presentation is straightforward and honest in a way that young children understand and appreciate. The illustrations are accurate without being hideously graphic (the problem with so many of the "line drawing" books that lose children's interest with their black-and-white cross-sections of genitals), yet they are not so cartoonish as to be unclear.

My son loves the book, as do his young friends (many of whom have the book at their house, too), as did my three godchildren. Let the staff of the "Horn" have Gray's anatomy, if they choose -- my family likes "Bellybuttons are Navels," and I think your family will, too.