It's Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, Gender, and Sexual Health

by Robie H. Harris

The sex ed book America keeps trying to ban.

For you if

you want your kid to understand their body before the internet explains it wrong.

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It's Perfectly Normal has been telling kids the truth about their bodies and sexuality since 1994 — and every update makes it more honest, not less. This is the book that treats puberty, reproduction, gender, sexual orientation, consent, and contraception as things kids deserve to actually understand, not things adults nervously skirt around. The illustrated format — with a curious bird and a somewhat mortified bee as guides — gives kids permission to be wherever they are emotionally with this material. It's been banned more times than almost any other children's book in America, which tells you everything about how badly it's needed.

In effect right now

Somebody decided you shouldn’t read this. Read it this week.

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This book doesn't get challenged because it's inappropriate — it gets challenged because accurate, shame-free information about bodies and sexuality removes the leverage that institutions hold over young people. The 'graphic images' objection is a fig leaf: what's actually threatening is a book that treats puberty, gender identity, sexual orientation, and consent as things kids have a right to understand, not things adults get to decide whether they're ready for. Every jurisdiction that pulls it off shelves is making the same argument: that children's access to their own bodies is adults' to control. They've been wrong since 1994.

The record

Llano County, TX
2021
Removed from a public library · County public library
Initiated by: government or statute
In effect nowLast verified Oct 2, 2026Source ↗

Where This Book Lives

Themes: bodily autonomy gender identity
Topics: book banning in the united states

This is one of the most challenged books in American libraries — which means it's working. We include it because kids with accurate information about their bodies are harder to manipulate, shame, and exploit. The 2021 edition adds expanded coverage of gender identity, sexual orientation, consent, and online safety. Start here before the algorithm does.

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