It's So Amazing! was created in response to repeated requests from parents, teachers, librarians, and health professionals for an up-to-date book about sex and sexuality for children who were still too young for It's Perfectly Normal. Once again, the Bird and Bee are up to their antics, but this time they're younger. In It's So Amazing!, these reassuring characters reflect the many moods of children age 7 and up: silly, serious, curious, embarrassed. Their voices echo the thoughts, questions, and concerns of a younger audience.

"The creators of It's Perfectly Normal, targeted to middle-schoolers, here reach out to a slightly younger audience with candor and humor, neatly distilling various aspects of sex, reproduction and love. An inquisitive, loquacious bird and an embarrassed bee act as comic and straight man and serve as diverting foils to Harris's conversational narrative; kids will both identify with and chuckle at the two characters' reactions and asides. The duo's cheerful banter also clarifies some potentially confusing issues ('So the fetus doesn't grow where the pizza goes!' proclaims the newly enlightened bee). Specific topics covered include changes in boys' and girls' bodies during puberty, intercourse, birth control, chromosomes and genes, adoption and adjusting to a newborn sibling. The roster of experts in the closing acknowledgments speaks to the sensitivity and intelligence with which Harris and Emberley handle their treatment of masturbation, sexual abuse, HIV and AIDS and homosexuality. Emberley's artwork ranges from lighthearted cartoon panels of a talking sperm meeting up with an egg in the fallopian tube to straightforward drawings of reproductive organs and a developing fetus. With its informal yet informed perspective, this volume renders much 'amazing' phenomena reassuringly comprehensible. Ages 7-up." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"There is plenty of humor and a multicultural cast....A good choice for families and libraries." Children's Literature

An outstanding book. . . . Meets the needs of those in-between or curious kids who are not ready, developmentally or emotionally, for IT'S PERFECTLY NORMAL. — BOOKLIST (starred review)

How does a baby begin? What makes a baby male or female? How is a baby born? Children have plenty of questions about reproduction and babies — and about sex and sexuality, too. IT'S SO AMAZING provides the answers — with fun, accurate, comic-book-style artwork and a clear, lively text that reflects elementary-school children's interest in how things work, while giving them a healthy understanding of their bodies. Created by the author and illustrator of IT'S PERFECTLY NORMAL, this forthright and funny book — newly updated for its fifth anniversary — covers similar territory but with an eye toward younger children's concerns.

With fun, accurate, comic book-style artwork and a clear, lively text, "It's So Amazing" provides answers about reproduction, babies, sex, and sexuality.

Robie H. Harris began her career as a teacher at the Bank Street College of Education's School for Children. She started writing books for children in the 1970s and has numerous titles to her credit.

Michael Emberley is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design.