Forget the stork
By Sandy Coleman
Illustrations by Michael Emberley
Once upon a time in 1967, children's book author Robie Heilbrun Harris '62 was working on a segment for the famed children's show, Captain Kangaroo. She and her co-writers were simply explaining what is found in a bathroom. Suddenly, they were called on the carpet. Lawyers for the network said they had written an inappropriate word into the script. Baffled, the writers asked: What word?
Toilet.
"We argued by using the word toilet that nothing terrible would happen emotionally or psychologically to any young child who watched the segment," said Harris, recently recalling the story. They lost the battle. The word was not used.
"Now, look what I write about," said Harris, standing in her Boston-area kitchen laughing.
Harris and her latest book, It's Not the Stork! A Book About Girls, Boys, Babies, Bodies, Families, and Friends, were featured this year on NBC's Today Show. The American Library Association (ALA) named it a 2007 Notable Children's Book for all ages.
The author has received many honors. It's Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex & Sexual Health (first published in 1994) for children age 10 and up was a New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year and a Publisher's Weekly Best Book of the Year. The book has been translated into 28 languages. In Mongolia, educators give It's Perfectly Normal for free to middle school students, Harris said. And Harris' It's So Amazing! A Book about Eggs, Sperm, Birth, Babies, and Families (first published in 1999) for children age 7 and up has also received rave reviews and numerous awards.
The world has changed since the early days of Captain Kangaroo when a parent could leave doors unlocked and safely send their children into the neighborhood to play. That was long before there was a sex offender registry or AIDS. Today, parents have a harder time keeping their children safe and making sure they grow up healthy. And children are more challenged by the complexities of the world.
Information is the key in Harris' mind. A mother of two grown children, a grandmother and a writer who is deeply interested in child development, she has devoted herself to helping children and families through her picture-books and nonfiction. Her writing--along with illustrations by Michael Emberley--candidly answers those tough questions about sex and sexual health. (She is among many talented Wheaton alumnae/i who write books for children and adolescents, including Jean Guttery Fritz '37, Helen Masson Copeland '42, Susan Meddaugh Foster '66, Kathy Polka Mackel '72 and Libby Koponen '73.)
"Harris intelligently and forthrightly deals with sensitive and significant subjects," said Rita Auerbach, chair of ALA's 2007 Notable Children's Books Committee. "Her books engage the interest of young readers, respect their curiosity and embrace the diversity of contemporary society."
The fact that It's Perfectly Normal and It's So Amazing! touch so many cultures "confirms that many educators, parents and clergy everywhere want what we all want and that is to keep our kids healthy," said Harris.
In addition to straight-forward talk about the human body, Harris deals with the emotional experiences of childhood--death (Goodbye Mousie), separation anxiety (Don't Forget to Come Back!), the fear of being displaced by a new baby in the family (Mail Harry to the Moon!) and being downright angry (I'm So Mad!).
"The kinds of emotions kids deal with--love, joy, fear, jealousy, anger, even hate--are the same ones we deal with throughout our lives," said Harris. "When children read books that mirror their feelings, it reassures them."
However, the author's willingness to address sensitive subjects like sex doesn't sit well with some. In 2001, 2003 and 2005, It's Perfectly Normal and It's So Amazing! made the list of books that were most frequently challenged by activists seeking to pull objectionable works from libraries and school curricula, according to the ALA. Some people apparently would love to return to the Captain Kangaroo days.
Harris is in good company. Works by Toni Morrison, J.D. Salinger, John Steinbeck and J.K. Rowling also appear on the lists. However, she laments the time and energy librarians across the country have to spend fighting challenges to her books and defending their professional decisions before library boards. Harris calls these librarians "heroes."
"I'm told that my books on sexual health are in most public and public school libraries. If any parent does not want their child to take out one of my books, that's fine. But no parent has the right to have the books removed from the library shelves, so that they are not available to the children whose parents do want their children to have the information in my books.
"So I spend a lot of my time speaking out about this. I would never, ever say that every school, library or household in America should have my books. But in our democracy, anyone or any institution that chooses to have them should have the right to have them."
Sitting in a comfortable chair with her stocking feet on an ottoman, Harris traces her writing route from majoring in English at Wheaton to becoming an acclaimed writer with more than 25 books in print and a speaker who travels the country. She is such a natural storyteller that it is no wonder she ended up a writer, though she initially planned to become a teacher.
She was editor of her high school newspaper and editor of the Wheaton College yearbook. After college, she taught in New York City and was a member of the Bank Street Writers Lab. She helped to put together one of the first 13 Head Start programs in the country. She co-produced and directed a film called Child's Eye View, which chronicled the daily lives of economically disadvantaged children in Hell's Kitchen.
Her books on sexuality came about after an editor asked her to write a book about HIV/AIDS for elementary school age children.
"I had just finished some picture book texts that he was publishing and we began to talk about the state of children and teens in America and all of the issues they would be facing, and that HIV/AIDS was one of those issues.''
To talk about the issue, Harris believed that kids needed information on many different topics, including HIV/AIDS. So she wrote It's Perfectly Normal to address questions about everything from conception and puberty to birth control and AIDS.
Growing up in Buffalo, N.Y., Harris always got honest answers to her questions. Her father was a physician; her mother had been a biology major. "My mom told me the facts of life. And my parents told me that they were people that I could come to to ask questions. They made adolescence as easy as possible."
However, Harris knows not everyone is so comfortable with these topics.
"For many parents, just the idea of thinking of your child as a sexual being is very difficult. And if you begin to think about the adolescent years, it gets even more difficult," she said. "But the point is: if we educate our kids about their bodies and about what they can do to stay healthy, it really helps them navigate those waters. For those parents who may have had a traumatic experience, or for various cultural or religious reasons are not able to talk about sexuality but want to give their kids accurate information, books can be one way to share the information."
When parents talk to children about topics they deem tough, just keep things simple, Harris said.
"A five-year-old may ask, for example, 'How do babies get inside Mommies?' or 'How did I get inside you?' You can answer very simply at first: 'An egg from a woman's body and a sperm from a man's body get together inside a woman's body, and after many months grow into a baby.' Then the child may ask: 'Well, how did the sperm get inside a woman's body?' And when asked, that's a question we need to answer. If we don't answer our kids' questions, what we're saying to them is what you've asked is wrong, dirty or bad."
The danger comes when children have no information or get misinformation, she said. And it is never too soon to start. She and illustrator Michael Emberley are working on a new book for children 2 to 4 years old that will name the body parts--all of them.
And make no mistake, Harris knows her business. She spends a lot of time researching and vetting the text and illustrations in her books with experts--parents, educators, pediatricians, mental health professionals and clergy. It's Perfectly Normal was first published in 1994, but she constantly updates it as new and important scientific information emerges.
In her sunny kitchen, she often spreads out book illustrations to make sure they coordinate well with the words. (Many of her books have been illustrated by Emberley; others by award-winning illustrators, including Molly Bang, Jan Ormerod, Nicole Hollander and New Yorker cartoonist Harry Bliss.) Each day, she reads the text that she has written aloud as if to an audience of children. She wants to make sure the phrasing and pace of each book is perfect.
Harris clearly does not plan to slow down. She carries around a notebook jotting down the language and speech patterns of the children she overhears. She already has new books in the works that will be released over the next three years. And as always, her focus continues to be "in the best interest of the child."
However, no matter how many books she writes, she is competing with the last. "I'm proud of all of my books. But I hope every book I write is better than the last one," she said.
Editor's Note: The Quarterly previously featured stories by and about authors Susan Meddaugh Foster '66 and Jean Fritz '37. To view the stories, please visit www.wheatoncollege.edu/quarterly.
