Crime Against Nature is a beautifully illustrated children book by Gwenn Semeel, exploring the many different types of sex and gender roles, sexuality, family structure, etc in the animal kingdom. I am in love with the idea of this book. We often diss people who don't fall into the common tropes in society as being crimes against nature - abnormal, wrong, and not supposed to happen. The book shows that there is in fact a very diverse variety of these issues in nature.
I think it is a great way to explain these kind of stuffs. While this book is intended for children, I think many adults need to read this book as well.
Another thing that makes this book special is how it explains things the way they are. Sometimes, adults are reluctant to explain things like intercourse, sex change, homosexuality, etc to children and opt to give a lousy answer when they ask. This book is honest and doesn't use sugarcoated, shallow explanations to show that these things are not taboo at all, and it's good for children to be open-minded.
These are some of my favorites:
"Boys can become girls. When a clownfish female is removed from her anemone home, the male turns into a female and one of the couple’s young becomes a mature male. The new pair continues to breed in the same anemone."
"Some boys and girls don’t make babies at all. Gray wolves tend to live in packs with only the dominant male and the dominant female reproducing. Other members of the pack nurture the young along with the parents."
"Among black swans, males sometimes pair-bond with other males. These couples tend to be successful as parents since the combined strength of two males allows the swans to maintain a larger nesting territory. They acquire eggs to raise either by briefly forming a trio with a female or by taking over the nest of a heterosexual couple."
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