Hidey ho, pressingly LesbianFamily readers. I’m passing on this question that Shereen left us:
I’m in need of biology/anatomy books for an adopted 5 year old girl. ‘Where do babies come from?’ is coming up, and we need a book that shows a little more breadth than ‘when a man and woman love each other’.
Now I know you all are chock-full of bright ideas and rich resources, so I’m mostly figuring you’ll write in and give a sister some help in the comments stream.
I myself only know of a few resources, and can’t vouch for their quality. There’s AdoptionBooks.com, which is an “authorized affiliate” of Amazon.com. The site selects and reviews “the best in Adoption literature,” and has a Children’s Books section. Don’t know how queer-friendly or even queer-conginzant they are.
Then there’s the excellent site/blog, worth the trip, written by a librarian and focussing on “queer books for kids and teens.” I don’t know whether she’s reviewed any good books lately that answer the “Where do babies come from?” question, but I would imagine she’d be amenable to questions.
Of course the first place I looked was Mombian, since I thought Dana reviewed a book within the past year or so that was a good one on the topic. Alas, I couldn’t dig it up, and of course I also might be mis-remembering where I read about it. Doubly frustrating, since I am for sure not remembering the book’s title.
LesFam Readership, to the rescue!
Tag your pics #villageq to be included in the family album at 
Posting this comment for Dana, here, who valliantly tried twice and was spurned. May be the LesFam spamulator is turned up too high, or some other such odd glitch. If any of the rest of you are not finding your comments posted, please do write us at lesbianfamily at gmail dot com.
And here’s what Dana had to say:
To respond to my own question 😉
I found a book in our library the other day, called “It’s So Amazing” by Robie Harris and Michael Emberley, about “eggs, sperm, birth, babies and families”. It is, as its name implies, amazing. Not a one-read bedtime story, for sure. It’s 80 pages with 22 chapters. There are in-depth sections on all the aspects of sexuality. Sadly, the Male/Female chapter doesn’t discuss the possibility of intersex, and transsexuality is mentioned absolutely nowhere. And the What’s Sex chapter discusses men and women making babies. They talk about making love being for other purposes, but they don’t expand the definition past the heterosexual one.
The good news is that the Becoming a Family sections discusses birth and adoption, and goes further to discuss all the possible permutations of families, including same-sex headed families. And the What’s Love section talks about ‘lots of kinds of love’, including same-sex love.
So, we’ll be happy to share this book with our little squirt, knowing that her questions about babies, adoption, and having two moms can all be addressed within its pages. Hope the reference helps somebody else, too!
I’ll check the bookshelf at our agency, but even from an early age, we’ve shared with our daughter that she grew in “birth mama V’s tummy,” and in our hearts.
Now that’s all fine and dandy when one is 2 years old, as she’ll prance around the apartment saying “birfmamafifian” – and have ONLY the glimmer of what it means. But I think that biology is biology, and it’s OK to talk about the sperm and the egg and gestation. The neat thing about “life today,” is that HOW sperm meets egg, and what happens AFTER gestation is SO vastly different than it was when even WE were kids, you know?
I totally agree. I started by telling the 5-year-old that sperm and egg come together to make a baby, and that babies grow in somebody’s tummy. But, ever the sharp observer, she says to me, “but HOW does the egg get INTO somebody’s tummy?” I got to say that there were all sorts of ways that could happen, which is definitely different than what I was told at her age.
I’m bumping this old post because this is a forever issue and people are bound to be looking these days, too!
“It’s Not the Stork’ by Robie Harris and two more by the same writer/artist combo for kids as they get older, are, hands down, the best birds and bees books I’ve ever seen.
They include nods to families beyond hetero-monogamy, including assisted reproduction, adoption, and other things. They are a great entry point for deeper discussions about various alternatives.
I’ve been telling my kids the facts since day one. Just the facts they ask for–the baby grows in a woman’s uterus. The baby comes through a kind of tunnel called a vagina and out the woman’s vulva. The baby starts to grow when a sperm from a man and an egg from a woman get together.
We are now on the cusp of them wanting to know how the sperm and egg get together, but I actually think my 8-year old knows from “sneaking” (with my knowledge and blessing) through the next book in this trio. I think she’s a little embarrassed to ask.