(Preschool) Saltz and Cravath take on a considerable challenge: stepping into Robie Harris and Michael Emberley's solidly claimed territory in sex education. Labeled ""A First Guide to Body Awareness for Preschoolers,"" Amazing You! fits the developmental slot just before Harris and Emberley's It's So Amazing!, explaining and naming internal and external sex organs but without mentioning sexual relations. Psychiatrist Saltz offers further advice to parents in her (strongly opinionated) author's note. The full-page illustrations and big, bold typeface are friendly and inviting for young children; cartoon-style pictures show relaxed bodies and smiling sperm and egg. Through brief text and simple diagrams, Saltz and Cravath provide clear, sound information, offering to curious preschoolers a comfortable and positive jumping-off point for frank discussions of bodies and birth. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.

PreS-Gr 1-This title tackles basic body awareness and sex education. The text speaks directly to young children, differentiating between body parts that are visible most of the time and those that are kept hidden, showing the differences between girls and boys and offering a simple explanation of how babies are made without explicit reference to sex. Cravath's sunny cartoons show the various parts in a straightforward manner, though preschoolers may be confused about where the internal ones are. The text also uses terms such as "vagina" and "urinate" without actually explaining what they mean, and, curiously, the text does not discuss breasts at all, though there are side-by-side illustrations of a boy and girl in the baby, preschool, and adult stages. An author's note advises parents on the finer points of discussing these delicate issues. Though Laurie Krasny Brown's What's the Big Secret?: Talking about Sex with Girls and Boys (Little, Brown, 1997) remains the gold standard for sex ed for young children, this book is a friendly supplement or a nice starter for parents who aren't quite ready to go into the detail provided in Brown's book.-Kathleen Kelly MacMillan, Maryland School for the Deaf, Columbia (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Amazing You! Getting Smart About Your Private Parts by Dr. Gail Saltz, illus. by Lynne Cravath, begins with a note to parents, then asks young readers to "Take a good look at yourself in the mirror. What do you see?" Beginning with "Head, arms, hand, legs, and feet," the narrative then progresses to "private parts," calling them by their nicknames and then getting serious about the function of the uterus and penis-tactfully skirting details about intercourse ("When a man and a woman love each other and decide that they want to make a baby, a man's sperm joins with a woman's egg"). (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Brightened by sunny, simply drawn cartoons featuring people of several ages and skin shades, this introduction to the reproductive organs is designed as much to allay parental anxiety as to provide answers to younger children's questions. Saltz, a practicing psychiatrist, describes the male and female set-ups in a light, relaxed tone, suggesting that it's better to use specific terms rather than euphemisms for visible organs, and tracking physical changes from infancy to adulthood. She steers clear of topics deemed beyond her child audience's understanding, such as sexual intercourse, or stages of fetal development, and backs up vague allusions to masturbation and privacy boundaries with a closing note in much smaller type. Though urethras are repeatedly mentioned but never illustrated, there are no lists of further information sources, and a description of sperm as looking "sort of like tadpoles" may leave some misapprehensions about their size, this makes an adequate discussion starter for parents with children not yet up to the level of detail in Robie H. Harris's It's So Amazing! (1999). (Picture book/nonfiction. 5-7) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

PreS-Gr. 2. This upbeat picture book, illustrated with sunny cartoon drawings, introduces kids to basic reproductive physiology. Saltz offers simple, accessible definitions of terms, accompanied by pictures of unclothed kids and labeled diagrams of internal organs. Subsequent drawings show three stages of body development from baby to young adult, followed by an abbreviated explanation, illustrated with a heart-shaped drawing of a smiling egg and sperm, of reproduction: When a man and a woman love each other and decide that they want to have a baby, a man's sperm joins with a woman's egg. From the egg and sperm, a baby will grow. The book is more specific about birth: The baby will come out of the mother's vagina, which is very, very stretchy. Saltz presents the information clearly in a cheerful, positive tone, encouraging kids to learn about their private parts and reassuring them that curiosity and touching themselves (in private) is natural. For a slightly older audience, Dori Hillestad Butler's exemplary picture book My Mom's Having a Baby (2005) explains the facts of life in more detail. --Gillian Engberg Copyright 2005 Booklist