Jessica Biel hopes to normalize the conversation around menstruation with a new children’s book

By Alli Rosenbloom, CNN

(CNN) — Jessica Biel is the author of a new children’s book focused on destigmatizing and normalizing the conversation around menstruation.

“A Kids Book About Periods” is “designed to inspire positive conversations between children and adults,” according to an official synopsis, and was inspired by Biel’s own personal experience getting her period for the first time.

In an interview with Women’s Health published on Wednesday, Biel said her mom told her she “absolutely prepared” her daughter for the milestone. But the “Sinner” star went on to admit that she had no recollection of such conversation, and even said she thought she “was dying” when she got her period for the first time.

“We have to change the feeling around how we talk about this thing,” she said. She added that even though people like her mom helped prepare her, she wasn’t open to listening “because of the cultural shame around it.”

That “cultural shame” that Biel experienced is something she’s aiming to dispel with “A Kids Book About Periods,” which she hopes will help better inform children today.

“This book provides positive information about how periods work,” the book’s synopsis reads. “It helps to show children aged 7-9 that periods are normal and that getting your period is actually pretty cool.”

Even her own two sons – Silas, 9, and Phineas, 3, whom she shares with Justin Timberlake – aren’t immune to learning about the topic in their home. In fact, the book is dedicated to them.

Biel said that she does plan to one day read the book to her boys, but that in the meantime, “I think we’re creating a very calm and kind of normalized feeling around it.”

“A Kids Book About Periods” is on Kindle and as a hardcover available now.

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