Anatomy for Babies

"Anatomy for Babies by Jonathan Litton, illustrated by Thomas Elliott Yes it’s sturdy, which is good because it’s going to get thrown around a lot. The reason why I picked this little book for very young babies is, again, for their sense of awareness. Often, when health staff assess a child’s development, they’ll say things like “can you point to your eyes?” and “where is your nose?” and they’ll make an assessment on how that child is developing based on their understanding of anatomy parts. That song ‘Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes’ is a good song to sing with children when they’re around two years old, because it gets them to learn about their body. Having a book and using that for story time helps children start on their journey with their body, to understand and explain it. I’ve had children who, when they’ve been ill, have pointed to the right body part and said that they’re not well and if I get the book then they’ll point to it in the book. It’s incredible. They might not have complex language yet, but they can use pointing and a book to help explain it to you. I would welcome a more mature approach to it. I think with these books there are a lot of limitations in different countries about what you can and can’t show. But certainly, in terms of talking to very young kids in a practical way about their body and their genitals, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children has a really good programme called PANTS. It’s very important because it’s about trying to get children to understand and to speak up if they’ve got any concerns about sexual abuse. The way that they do it is they talk about what’s in your pants, and that it belongs only to you. It’s very good for preschoolers and kids up to around seven years old, using songs and a funny storyline to get across an important message. Sign up here for our newsletter featuring the best children’s and young adult books, as recommended by authors, teachers, librarians and, of course, kids. Yes, there’s no shame, it’s very practical. There’s a song called ‘pantosaurus’, and they have all these dinosaurs that are running around in underpants. The song is lovely, it says that your pants cover up your private parts and things like that. It gives parents advice on when to bring this topic up with children and why that’s important. Children, even really young children, if something happens to them you can see that they have a sense that something is just not right, but they don’t know what. And so it’s really important to try and get them to have that understanding. Sexual abuse transcends all the social classes and all children need to understand that their body is a gift for them and that they have the right to control it. Then if something is happening that is wrong, they understand that it’s wrong. I’m very keen that children have an understanding of their body. If children have an understanding of anatomy, and that it’s their body and nobody else’s body, then they know how precious their body and mind are for their future."