Body positive book for toddlers!

@Hearhoovesthinkzebras Maybe you can make a request for your library to buy it and get it in. I know someone who has done this before with another book and they did!

I've just had a google, there's a higher rate of autistic trans than there is non-autistic trans, not that the majority are autistic!
@BeardedVulture I fear they're blindly taking drugs and having surgery in order to be them. But I don't know, hopefully someone with some insight can share with us.

Anyway I'm tired of arguing over a sweet simple small children's book with someone who won't even read it

I definitely would read it, I just don't want to.buy a copy in order to be able to read it. If I see it in the library I will absolutely read it.

BeardedVulture - that is awful.
You'd have to be a brave parent to object for fear that your SEN child might be targeted in school in some way.

I see the derailing is still going on - by someone who's not even read the book!

I want to know how these kids are expressing this identity, since most struggle to communicate even basic things and the concept of gender identity is complex and hard to explain, even by academics and politicians and activists.

@BeardedVulture that's terrible! I think I've read actually that a large proportion of trans are autistic, does anyone have any idea of the statistics or where I've got that from?
Poor kids don't need confusing, your biology and body is what if Is, personality is something completely different and doesn't need recording on your ID.

Oh Bearded that's awful.

FWIW there is a school for severely disabled children next door to my DD’s primary school. The kids are age 4-16 years old, many have severe autism, others have conditions like spina bifida and Down’s Syndrome. A lot of the kids have poor or no verbal communication.

They’ve had Allsorts and Stonewall trainers in thanks to a non-binary assistant at the school and guess what? Now some of those children are coming out as trans. As if by magic.

Anyway I'm tired of arguing over a sweet simple small children's book with someone who won't even read it
I'm out hooves...

You haven't directly said it, but it's the message I've got from your posts.

It is a broad book, it doesn't go into the depths of disability, race or gender. It's a general children's book about loving yourself. There are circumstances girls feel they cannot love their body, forced female circumcision, period poverty, abuse, the list goes on. There are circumstances black or brown people feel unable to love their body, physical or verbal abuse putting them down, perhaps causing physical pain. There are circumstances disabled people feel unable to love their bodies as you have articulated. These can cross over, you could have a black disabled girl who is suffering from every angle. You could also have a black disabled girl whose experience is completely different and is much more inclined to love her body.

This book cannot go in depth on these issues, it'd be too long and confusing for the majority of small children. It's a book which lightly touches over and sends a simple message of inclusion and loving the body your in, I suspect this is a lot more relatable to the majority of children in a UK classroom which as far as I understand this book is presently just sold in the UK. If you want a book that specifically goes into these issues, then no I can't recommend it for that purpose. But I'm struggling to see how anyone can reasonably criticise it for not being the book you want it to be. Do you get so geared up on everything that includes a disability that doesn't match your experience and question what the point of it being there is?

If a child doesn't want to join in that specific way, fine. However if it's because they're trying to will themselves into being different I think that's unhealthy. Your body is your body, it can't change and I think accepting that is important, and embracing that you might not be able to do things the same as your peers. But finding your own way to join in and do things and finding a beauty in that I think is a good message.

Honestly, have you ever been to a book launch ?

Nope I haven't. Are you the author of the book? Not quite sure how it's rude behaviour really. I am as entitled as anyone else to have an opinion..I find some of the things that you've said equally rude.

Doubt it will stop you commenting either.

OK, I probably shouldn't have laughed at that last para, Kantastic, but I did. Thanks for the chuckle.

It's a real stretch to say that this book, which again, you haven't read! is telling children with physical disability they can't utilise medical care to improve their physical functioning.

Apparently it shows a kid with a broken arm. I wonder if the kid is wearing a cast, or whether, as one might expect from the rather idio(syncra)tic interpretation of body positivity being pushed on this thread, the kid's arm is just flopping around all bent in the wrong place.

I rather suspect the former, and that the kid is shown wearing a cast, despite the mean, evil message of body acceptance that would indicate you just have to accept your broken arm as it is and let it dangle and be extremely sad about it.

OK. So no-one should write any children's books at all, and if they do, they should ceetainly be sure to mention that no child, other than those experiencing the authors exact life, health and body circumstances, should read it. AKA fiction is dead, long live the tedious memoir, sorry kids, no story for you tonight.

ARRGGHHH. You've done my head in, Hooves. I'm not sure if that was your intention or not, but if it was, congrats, you suceeded.

Honestly, have you ever been to a book launch ? What you've done here is kinda the equivalent of crashing a launch and spending the entire party bailing the celebrating people up telling them how bad the book is. It's very rude behaviour.

Seriously. Disabled and unwell children need books that speak to their specific experiences,

I agree but I wouldn't presume to be an expert on all forms of disability nor on anyone's experience apart from my own.

Oh for the love of Gaia!

Write the book. Seriously. Disabled and unwell children need books that speak to their specific experiences, as well as to the more general experience of being a child in a reality-denying, body-hating culture. If there's a gap in the market for that book, write it. When it's done and published, tell me, and Il'll get it stocked in the shop I work in. Or if there is a book out there that already does the above wonderfully, again, tell me the name and I'll stock it.

There is room for this book too! Our kids are growing up in a body-hating, reality-denying culture, that has become more and more narrow in what it allows certain kinds of bodies to be and do.

It's a real stretch to say that this book, which again, you haven't read! is telling children with physical disability they can't utilise medical care to improve their physical functioning.

I am done with discussing this book with you now. I think I've been more than fair. I hope you will consider moving any further conversation you want on disability representation in children's literature more generally elsewhere.

I mean, what do you want women to say ? "Terrible book, we must be sure that toddlers know that sometimes they were given the wrong body! 'Cos that's a fucking lie. Nobody gets the wrong body. Not even you.

Except that I haven't said any of that nor said anyone else should say it.

Why can't children (and it's meant for age 3 - 6 isn't it, so not toddlers really) have it acknowledged that they may not be happy with their bodies if their bodies cause them pain or to miss out on doing the things that they want to do? It's like no one can now say they aren't happy with any part of their body for fear that it will be seen to encourage someone else to transition.

Why must people with a disability feign happiness if they aren't in order to possibly stop someone else from transitioning?

If the book is meant to be about acceptance then doesn't that mean accepting the true person, not the person you hope they are? If a child with a disability is sad because they can't run around at school but are offered an operation that might help them achieve that should they refuse the surgery because you want them to accept the body they are born with? This all encompassing "accept your body as it is" is problematic when you apply it across an entire population.

Oh for the love of God, can you start a s/o thread Hooves, please, if you must continue to hyperfocus on the hypothetical (so far as you know, because you haven't, and won't read it) dangers of this book ?

I would be quite interested to read a BROAD discussion of how disability and illness is or isn't treated in children's literature, but hyperfocusing on one picture book out of all the picture books released in 2019 - and one you haven't seen or read - seems pretty fucking rude to me.

I mean, what do you want women to say ? "Terrible book, we must be sure that toddlers know that sometimes they were given the wrong body! 'Cos that's a fucking lie. Nobody gets the wrong body. Not even you.

ThreeLittleDuckies

Well of course I don't want to have a book that says that. Where did that come from?

Why does not saying that you must love your body despite disability mean that you say your disability is a bit shit?

My point is does this book shut down a child's ability to say that they aren't happy because they are left out or can't join in or because they are in pain because they are being told that they should be happy with their lot?

The picture you describe of the boy in the wheelchair holding the skipping rope just ranckles with me. I was that child (not in a wheelchair but forced to be the by stander).and it didn't make me happy because I wanted to join in fully, not enable other children to have the fun while I just had to watch. I don't know, it just feels a bit like children with disabilities are being exploited by this book or patronised in some way. That it's saying don't feel sad that you can't join in with the skipping, enjoy turning the rope so that the other children can enjoy skipping because what's important is accepting your body just as it is.

Maybe it is important for children with disabilities to accept their bodies so that they don't grow into people like me but is a book like this the way to achieve it?

I really don't see that hooves.
You're right, some children with some disabilities might hate their bodies. It might cause them too much pain and the idea of loving it may seem ridiculous and unrelatable. I'm not educated enough on the matter to get into a philosophical debate with you about this specific matter however I will say I don't feel such a debate is suitable for a small childs books.
But let's say you publish such a book as you describe, it would make some disabled children with some disabilities rather needlessly depressed when they are capable of some self-acceptance and self-love. Can you see how even what you describe would be also terrible for some disabled children? Because there are people out there with different frames of references than you. Some black children may live in places where they are beaten due to their skin colour, it may seem impossible to love their body. Shall we just have an all-white able bodied book about children accepting themselves?

This book is not about developing an existential crisis in small children, it's about love, acceptance of how you're born and how others are born. Yes, it highlights the very best. Disabled children joining in how they can, there is a picture of a boy in a wheelchair holding one end of a skipping rope. He is happy, in acceptance he can't jump and joining in how he can. But you're right, not every disabled child can join in that much or at all. But many can.
I think a book that's message is 'your disability is a bit shit. You can't join in, you're different, you're body is failing' is going to cause more harm to disabled children on a whole than 'love who you are and join in how you can, because you've only got one body.'

So a pp said this

Acceptance and celebration of our bodies - even with what are sometimes seen as failings - seems like a generally good thing to me.

Is this not what the book is about?

You really like to occupy women's attention with pointless repetitive nonsense don't you? I feel like I've been roped into the "throw your sippy cup on the floor" game. But here, I'll answer your questions.

why do disabilities have to be co opted to prove some kind of a point in relation to children who want to transition
this is not happening
If the authors want to make the point about the sex we are born with is fixed but that other social constructs are flexible why not make that point on its own why not make that point on its own?
the authors are not making that point and i believe very few toddlers would enjoy reading your proposed essay.

I'm not sure why sex and disability and race have to be compared with each other?
no one's doing that
And to say that is a straw man is saying what about children with disabilities?
absolutely sweet FA.

I'm a bit that it goes straight into 'liking pink' and 'liking blue'. Why choose the colours that are associated with stereotyped gender roles? Can we not escape the pink/blue dichotomy?

It sounds like a great book otherwise but I have to admit I sighed a bit inside, partly because I have been steering my DS away from making a big deal about 'liking pink'.