Posts on sex education

My blog is apparently all about sex, sex, sex today.

The New Rochelle (NY) School District has bowdlerized Girl, Interrupted, by Susanna Kaysen, which is being taught in an upper-level English class. Pages 64 through 70 were physically removed from each student's copy due to sexual content.

While Thomas Bowdler would surely approve, I do not. I hear these stories all the time but still can't quite believe they're real. I mean, the pages about contraception in our 7th grade health textbooks were glued together, but they were from the 70s. As a teacher quoted in the article says, you should "teach a book or not teach a book"! Ripping pages out is so... so... 21st century, apparently.

(Different question altogether: why, in the age of AIDS, was my 7th grade class using health textbooks from the 70s? Fortunately, they weren't our only source material. We also watched The Ryan White Story!)

Via The Miss Rumphius Effect

Speaking of perfectly normal, today a patron asked for sex-ed books for his five-year-old, and I was thrilled to have a book already at the tip of my brain.

Last week, children's book author Robie Harris did a blog tour with stops at Fuse #8, Book Buds, Mother Reader, Kids Lit, and Bookshelves of Doom.

Robie Harris is the author of many picture books (most recently, Maybe a Bear Ate It!), but she's probably best known for her child-oriented sex education books. They're honest, sex-positive, and inclusive.

In order of audience age, youngest to oldest, they are:

• It's Not the Stork!: A Book About Girls, Boys, Babies, Bodies, Families, and Friends (Ages 4+)
• It's So Amazing!: A Book about Eggs, Sperm, Birth, Babies, and Families (Ages 7+)
• It's Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex & Sexual Health (Ages 10+)

I can't remember whether it was a rumor with any bearing in reality, or just wishful thinking, but I've heard talk about Harris someday publishing a sex education book aimed at even younger audiences - say, age two. There's definitely a market for it!