It's Not the Stork!: A Book About Girls, Boys, Babies, Bodies, Families and Friends

by Robie H. Harris, Michael Emberley (Illustrator)

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780763600471
Publisher:	Candlewick Press
Publication date:	07/25/2006
Series:	The Family Library
Pages:	64
Sales rank:	172,996
Product dimensions:	10.56(w) x 11.75(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

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.

Editorial Reviews

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)

From the Publisher

A welcome addition to their oversize- format series about where humans come from and how they grow, It's Not the Stork!: A Book About Girls, Boys, Babies, Bodies, Families, and Friends by Robie H. Harris, illus. by Michael Emberley, addresses common questions raised by children. In Emberley's usual friendly style, cartoon panels illustrate "the big swim" of the sperm to the egg, while on another spread, clear diagrams of a boy and girl illustrate their different body parts. An excellent introduction to babies' origins for youngest curious minds. Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

K-Gr 3-Harris opens by introducing two cartoon characters-a green-feathered bird clad in a purple shirt and blue high-top sneakers and his spike-haired friend, a bee. They wonder, "So where DO babies come from?" Their conversational commentary, given in word balloons, is a lighthearted supplement to a more focused narrative. Told in the second person, the text is straightforward, informative, and personable. Facts are presented step-by-step, starting from the similarities and differences between boys' and girls' bodies, moving to a baby's conception, growth in the womb, and birth, ending with an exploration of different configurations of families as well as a section on "okay" versus "not okay" touches. The book is logically organized into 23 double-page sections. Friendly and relaxed cartoons, either interspersed with the text or appearing in comic-strip form, are integral to the title's success in imparting the material. The labeled drawings show both the outside and the inside parts of the body. As the bee and bird say to one another, "Knowing the names of ALL the parts of your body is-PERFECTLY NORMAL!" Overall, this book will be accessible to its intended audience, comforting in its clarity and directness, and useful to a wide range of readers.-Martha Topol, Traverse Area District Library, Traverse City, MI Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

Harris and Emberley's trademark bird and bee return to help harried parents explain to their preschoolers and early elementary-aged children just exactly where babies come from. Opening with a dialogue that features a number of myths about procreation, the narrative then delivers what readers of It's So Amazing! (1999) and It's Perfectly Normal (1994) have come to expect: frank, age-appropriate discussions of topics that can send the unprepared parent screaming from the room. From the differences and similarities between boys and girls, to a preview of puberty, to conception, pregnancy and birth, Harris's reassuring text and Emberley's cheerfully lumpy cartoons hold the reader's hand through question after question. Concluding chapters explore physical and emotional boundaries, "okay touches" and "not okay touches," and the many different permutations of the modern family unit. Far too long for a bedtime read-aloud, this volume is well-suited for browsing, reference and independent examination. Although it is primarily aimed at young readers, the clarity and candor of the presentation will ensure its usefulness to older elementary children with limited reading skills. A happy addition to the Harris-Emberley family. (Nonfiction. 4-11)

Kirkus Reviews