Book List

Books for Fostering Healthy Sexual Development

For parents to read with younger children:

Used in the Care for Kids Curriculum:

• Uncle Willy's Tickles: A Child's Right to Say No by Marcie Aboff
• I Loved You Before You Were Born by Anne Bowen
• How Are You Peeling? By Saxton Freymann
• All By Myself by Mercer Mayer
• The Bare Naked Book by Kathy Stinson

Other Useful Books for Families:

• Feelings by Aliki
• Going to the Potty by Fred Rogers
• Everywhere Babies by Susan Myers
• See How You Grow by Dr. Patricia Pearse and Edwina Riddell
• Once Upon A Potty by Alona Frankel
• My Many Colored Days by Dr. Suess
• People by Peter Spier
• William’s Doll by Charlotte Zolotow
• Belly Buttons are Navels by Mark Schoen
• Where Did I Come From? By Peter Mayle
• Where Do Babies Come From? By Margaret, Bewley, & Shiela Sheffield
• How Babies and Families Are Made by Patricia Schaffer
• Did the Sun Shine When You Were Born? By Sol Gordon
• More More More Said the Baby by Vera Williams
• Amazing You: Getting Smart About Your Private Parts by Dr. Gail Saltz

For parents of younger children:

• Sexual Development of Young Children by Virginia and Edwin Lively
• Ourselves and Our Children: A Book By and For Parents by the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective

For parents to read with older children:

• Sex Stuff for Kids 7-17: A Book of Practical Information and Ideas for Kids and Their Teachers and Parents by Carole Marsh
• Puberty: An Illustrated Manual for Parents and Daughters by Angela Hynes, Gita Lloyd (Contributor)
• Boy's Puberty: An Illustrated Manual for Parents and Sons by Alain Chirinian, Neal Yamamoto (Illustrator)
• What’s Happening to Me? by Peter Mayle, et al
• Changing Bodies, Changing Lives: Expanded Third Edition: A Book for Teens on Sex and Relationships by Ruth Bell
• It's Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health by Robie H. Harris, Michael Emberley (Illustrator)
• Our Bodies, Ourselves by the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective

For parents of older children:

• A Tribe Apart: A Journey into the Heart of American Adolescents by Patricia Hersch
• Living with Teens and Surviving by P. & M. Woods
• Between Parent and Teenager by Haim Ginott
• Teenagers: The Continuing Challenge by Shirley Gould
• You and Your Adolescent by Steinberg & Levine
• How to Parent Your Teenager by Fontenelle

For parents of children of all ages:

• Raising A Child Responsibly in A Sexually Permissive World by Sol and Judith Gordon
• Packaging Boyhood: Superheroes, Slackers, and Other Media Stereotypes by Sharon Lamb and L. Mikel Brown
• Packaging Girlhood: Rescuing our Daughters from Marketers’ Schemes by Sharon Lamb and L. Mikel Brown
• Sex Therapy and Kids: Addressing their Concerns Through Talk and Play by Sharon Lamb
• So Sexy So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood and What Parents Can do to Protect Their Kids by Diane E. Levin and Jean Kilbourne