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Body-Positive Early Picture Books
Radically Inclusive Books Destigmatizing Body Diversity
If you’ve had a chance to check out our collections on basic anatomy and body awareness, your kid has an idea of what parts their bodies have, and how to use them to interact with the world.
The next step is to learn body acceptance:
- Every body is acceptable and valuable exactly the way it is, no matter what it can do.
- We take care and pride in our own bodies.
- We respect and never shame the bodies of others.
- Bodies come in a wider range than what kids see on TV and in most books.
- All bodies – disabled, fat, intersex, trans, old, Black and Brown, etc. don’t need to be fixed or changed and deserve human rights and respect.
Later, we’ll learn how we are responsible for controlling our own bodies. But first – acceptance.
The following books celebrate and destigmatize bodies beyond white/thin/non-disabled/hetero-normative and young. These are ideal starter books before introducing discussions on disability, gender spectrum, and fat liberation, and sex education.
The only folks who would be offended by these books are unabashed bigots, so they’re safe to leave on the coffee table when guests stop by. Unless it’s your racist, fat-phobic, homophobic, eugenicist Aunt Patty.
Who the hell let her in here? Kick her out and read these books.
March 2021 Update:
I’m no longer actively editing or updating this page. To follow along with new good finds for radically body-positive books, follow the Raising Luminaries bookshop list, which I keep updated here.
You might like: Body-Positive Stories Championing Fat Liberation
The Belly Book, Happy In Our Skin, Lovely, The Best Part of Me, I Like Me!, We’re Different, We’re the Same, Rock What Ya Got, They She He Me: Free to be!, The Bare Naked Body Book (2021 updated edition, I received a free review copy and I AM EXCITED ABOUT IT.)
All ages
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2 observations
Hello! If you haven’t read it yet, I also want to recommend Starfish, by Lisa Fipps, an amazing middle grade book in verse from the perspective of a fat main character who is subject to bullying at school and, more pervasively, at home with her mother. It is amazing. By the end of the book, she comes to fully believe she has the right to “starfish”..that is, stretch out and take up her space in the world. I’ve read no other book like it for middle grade readers…it came out last month.
I AM SO EXCITED about Starfish – just sad I have to wait a few years until my kids are old enough to read it.
I had connected with Tara O’Brien (cover illustrator) a couple years ago to nudge her to make an adipositive picture book for kids and when I saw the cover I was like this looks familiar….oh! Eeeee!