I feel compelled to draw attention to the illustration used in Abby’s latest post. It is from How A Baby Is Made, a book which unfortunately no longer seems to be available in the UK.

The book is aimed at teaching young children the basic birds and bees. If you’re interested, you can read the full book here, complete with delightful illustrations like this:

My parents supplied me with this book when I was very young, so young that I don’t believe I ever had to ask the question “where do babies come from?” It was followed up later with more books, of a slightly advanced nature, dealing with, if I remember rightly, everything from working out your bra size to birth control to masturbation to same-sex relationships. As recently illustrated so well in the recent episode of This American Life, parents find it difficult to talk to their kids about these issues. Although books like this one look really dated now, maybe there’s an argument that something like it should appear in all our school libraries?

Posted by Jess McCabe on 17 October 2007, at 5:05 PM