The Best Books on Talking to Kids About Sex

This book covers exactly what the title says: how babies are born. It’s another one with cartoon-like illustrations, and an overall soft, comforting aesthetic. This is the book we had around the house when I was growing up, and I remembered it fondly and wanted to share it with my kids. Some of the text is euphemistic and dated ("when a mommy and a daddy really love each other..."), but it’s still heartwarming.

Robie H. Harris has written three books about sexuality for different age groups. They all feature clear, straightforward factual information combined with humorous cartoon images and candid questions. This one, for preschoolers, covers the basics of how bodies change during adolescence and how parents make babies. It also contains a very short passage about appropriate boundaries for touch and personal privacy. If you are going to buy just one book about sexual health for this age group, this is the one.

This book is hands-down the kids' favorite. It's a hilarious tale of befuddled parents trying to teach their kids the facts of life. The parents tell the kids that babies are squeezed out of toothpaste tubes, grown in flowerpots and delivered by birds. Finally, the kids set them straight with a funny, straightforward account of sexual development, sexual relations, pregnancy and birth. Most-repeated phrase around my house: "...and the Mommy gets fatter, and fatter, and fatter."

This is the book to give your child for his or her 10th birthday. Another tactic a friend of mine took was to leave a copy of it lying around the house until it disappeared into her adolescent child’s bedroom. This book, a follow-on to It’s Not the Stork, answers questions kids have about their changing bodies, emotions and desires with clarity, honesty and humor. It’s accurate and thorough without seeming overwhelming, and a great resource for teens to keep going back to.

This book, from the publishers of Our Bodies, Ourselves, provides the same kind of exhaustive, encyclopedic answers to teens health concerns that Our Bodies, Ourselves offers to women. Every family should have a copy of this on their bookshelves. It’s a vital resource for teens and the adults who care for them.

I gave this book to my little sister when she hit puberty. It has a fun, cool approach to girl’s questions about bodies, sex, self-care and growing up as a girl. I liked the punk aesthetic of the book, and the tone felt very real to me as a teen girl. It was like a conversation with another teenager, but one who was not as confused and ill-informed as most teenagers really are. One with answers, and accurate, smart answers at that. A definite win.