It Isn't Rude to be Nude by Rosie Haine
This could have been one of those books which 'preaches to the choir': the only people who'll buy it are the people who know that nudity is OK and the ones who know that it's shameful will avoid it like they avoid the hot-and-bothered person in the supermarket who is coughing fit to bust. But... Rosie Haines makes it into something so much more than a book about not wearing clothes. It's a celebration of bodies: bodies large and small and of every possible hue. Bodies with disabilities and markings. They're fine. In fact, they're wonderful.
| It Isn't Rude to be Nude by Rosie Haine | |
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| Category: For Sharing | |
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Reviewer: Sue Magee
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| Summary: A glorious celebration of bodies, large, small, in between and every colour. It's body positivity, writ large! Highly recommended. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 32 | Date: September 2020 |
| Publisher: Tate Publishing | |
| ISBN: 978-1849767002 | |
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The pictures are gloriously simple. They're the sort which you know that you could do just as well but when you sit down to try to draw them, you remember that there are things which you ought to be doing and you'll draw the bodies another day. We start with the fact that everyone has a bum. We've got a page of eight faces and a bum and on the opposite page, we've got eight bums and a face. You can have great fun matching them up - or wondering what would happen if you mixed them up just a little bit. By the time you've done this, bums are perfectly normal and not even that funny. Well, perhaps they are - particularly the hairy one. Nipples are normal too. Willies, the author tells us, are not silly but then admits that maybe they are, just a little bit. I was pleased to see that one of the willie wearers has an artificial leg because that's normal too. People with vulvas should be proud.
This is all fine whilst you're young. Things change when you get older. You might grow hair in strange places or boobs. Bodies will come in all shapes and sizes: here it's the woman who's buxom - and the two men who're looking at each other affectionately. Skin comes in different colours and markings. We have pictures of spots, tattoos, scars, vitiligo and age spots. There's hair (or lack of it) to be considered and all the different ways that people wear it. Finally, we move on to what old age, illness or injury does to the body, but it's all OK because bodies are wonderful.
I have grown weary of the way that children are 'encouraged' to have what's perceived to be the perfect body. Inevitably the template is slim and healthy, but not every body can be slim and healthy for a multitude of reasons. I abhor that people who do not conform to this idea of perfection are somehow perceived - and perceive themselves - as being less. It Isn't Rude to be Nude will encourage discussion and questions. There'll be a lot of laughter too. If It Isn't Rude to be Nude persuades children that their body is wonderful, just because it is their body and that it always will be wonderful, then it will be money well spent.
I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy of the book to the Bookbag. It's from Tate Publishing and it's the sort of classy, hardback book which you'd expect from them.
You could shelve this next to How Do You Make a Baby? by Anna Fiske and Don Bartlett (translator).
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You can read more book reviews or buy It Isn't Rude to be Nude by Rosie Haine at Amazon.com.
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