Touch me not

 

Adi and Anku

Learn to stay safe: The body safety guide for preschoolers

 

Authors: Aditi Gupta and Tuhin Paul

Illustrators: Tuhin Paul, Aishwarya Shah, Siddhanth Verma

Age: 3 years and above

Price: 295/-

Publisher: Menstrupedia Technologies Pvt. Ltd.

Pages: 20

 Touch me not!

Arti Pandey, Anshumalika Rai and Nimesh Ved

 Thanks to Teacher Plus for publishing and Richa for comments on the draft.

The authors are well-known names in puberty education. Their previous books Menstrupedia (2014) and Gulu (2021) have been well received. These books are a big help to parents and teachers to discuss topics like growing up years and changes in our bodies during these years!

 The book

 This book talks to an age group that is younger – preschoolers. It focuses on touch, privacy, and safety.

 The text is well thought of and sensitively written. Two pages, towards the end, have notes for parents and teachers. Simplicity and bareness are the strengths of the book. Only what is necessary finds a place here.

A sample conversation:

Mother: Did you know some body parts are private?

Son: Private?

Mother: Private means just for you. These are your mouth and all parts covered by your under clothes.

 Illustrations are simple and succinct - homes and clothes depicted are identifiable for readers in India. We found the one where the parents are getting the children to wash and clean especially cute. Also, on each page, both the boy and girl, as also the mother and father, are depicted – this is a book about each of us!

 The questions it raises

Parents, here, talk with children in a straightforward manner. The ‘Notes for parents and teachers’ also states ‘maintain open and positive communication with the child on a daily basis’. This is needed for sure, but how many adults, we wondered, engage with children in this manner?

Parents, and a grandparent, tell a child that an adult, and a familiar person at that, can cause problems and ask him to go away! This – labelling an uncle as unsafe and shooing him away -- is no small step in books for children! This, familiar adults causing harm to children, is a statistic that troubles many but few talk about. Even in our movies this rarely finds place - Meera Nair’s Monsoon Wedding (2001) and Imtiaz Ali’s Highway (2014) had depicted this issue with some panache. Adi and Anku talks about this issue plaguing children, and to its credit, does so without sensationalizing. Does this indicate that we, as a society, have walked some distance on the road?

 As we read and reread the book, it struck us that we do not pay due attention to children’s conversations! Or, do we? Do we listen to children without interrupting them? Do they trust us enough to discuss uncomfortable issues? Do we assure them that we are with them – whatever the situation?

In our school 

We have Menstrupedia (2014) and Gulu (2021) in the book room in our school. They have helped us in our discussions on gender and sexuality – with colleagues and children. Both these books we briefly introduced and kept multiple copies in the open for children to read, go through, and turn pages. These books today are popular among children – ‘they do not have stories but talk about real life issues’ is how the children refer to them. They are amongst the books that are worn out; in other words, books which have been read and re-read. These two books have helped children formulate and ask questions that they have wanted to ask! Questions on issues that nag them and questions they seek answers to!

These books have also helped us get out of our comfort zones and talk with children on issues that matter. We notice that these conversations, over a period of time, are evolving. Adi and Anku will gel well into these evolving conversations. It will help not only enable the younger children to become a part of these conversations but also the overall conversations to move to the next level.

Adi and Anku had just arrived at the school when children of classes 7 and 8 took it. Their only complaint was that it ended too soon! We found the use of NO, GO, and TELL striking!

 This book is useful or rather a must-read for adults – both teachers and parents. It encourages readers to get proactive on the issue of good-touch and bad-touch and not shy away from it.