Bodies Are Cool: A picture book celebration of all kinds of bodies

Product Information

From skin color, In the mid ’90s, when Feder was a little kid, she was hanging out in the basement at home in Buffalo Grove, Illinois, while her dad did his morning workout routine.

López expands the simply delivered proposal in fresh and lyrical ways—beginning with paired scenes of the authors as solitary children growing up in very different circumstances on (as they put it) “opposite sides of the world,” then meeting as young friends bonded by streams of rainbow bunting and going on to share their exuberantly hued joy with a group of dancers diverse in terms of age, race, culture, and locale while urging readers to do the same. The underlying message, that all bodies are good and welcome part of our vibrant, human reality, comes through without being preachy or corny. As Feder puts it, “Why shouldn’t people that don’t fit this one norm get to be depicted and romanticized in a joyful way? I get the point they are trying to make that people come in all sizes, but I could but help having a creepy feeling the whole way through. They show several different disabilities (colostomies, canes, and more), skin colors, races, sizes, ages, trans guy chest scars, kinds of hair, hairy and not hairy, scars, birth marks and more.Since then, Tyler has illustrated Cristen Conger and Caroline Ervin’s Unladylike, Leah Henderson’s Together We March, and many angsty self-portraits. I got so many comments, way more than anything I’ve ever posted,” said Feder, speaking quietly from her desk at home, her dark hair and bright red glasses immediately recognizable from some of her self-portraits. Big, small, dancing, happy bodies float around the opening text on the first page, setting the stage for an inclusive, body positive journey.

I love the idea of introducing children to the idea that all bodies are diverse and amazing from a young age. Feder chooses clear and unapologetic language to describe body characteristics, challenging the negative connotations that are often attached to those bodies . I honestly don't think that I've ever seen a picture book that had top-surgery, tattoos, vitiligo, stretch marks, back hair, freckles, moles, prosthetic limbs, paraplegics, dwarfism, visually impaired, surgical scars, among many others in one book, but I really truly believe that EVERY parent, teacher and library needs to have this book and ingest it. Her 2020 book, Dancing at the Pity Party , subtitled “a dead mom graphic memoir,” starts before her mother’s ovarian cancer diagnosis and continues after her death when Feder was a sophomore in college, reflecting on the grief of a “motherless life” with candor and humor.From skin color, hair types, body hair, eyes, faces, to tummies, legs, scars and more, there are hundreds of wonderful visuals in this body-positive book that shows that your body and their body and everybody's body is unique and beautiful.