Dorothy Bishop's Reading List

"What we really liked about this book is the way it brings in so many different strands of science. You think this is just going to be a book about bodies, but actually it starts with stardust and talks about DNA and biology. It is very clear in terms of being very positive about diversity, which is of huge interest to me. When I did research I had to develop materials for children who had an extra sex chromosome, an extra X or Y. That doesn’t have a huge effect on you, but some of these children wanted to understand: Were they different? Why were they different? This book is really the sort of thing that we were also trying to produce in terms of explaining that everybody’s got something about them that is not standard and that often is not a cause for worry. You should just accept that people are very, very diverse. All Bodies Are Wonderful also explains the reasons for that diversity, and it does talk about discrimination and tackles that issue head on. This book takes you through the science, and then the social implications of the science, in a way that I think a lot of children can relate to. They might very well feel empowered by this book."