A few weeks ago, Sprinkles reviewed a handful of children’s books about puberty written for girls. Today she is writing about children’s books about puberty written for boys.
This review is intended for parents and guardians.
Today’s post is about five books about puberty appropriate for young boy bunnies who are approaching that important time of great change. The first four are written exclusively for an audience of boy bunnies, and at the end of the post, I will mention a fifth book that can also help this particular audience though it is not exclusively targeting them.
The first book I will discuss is What’s Going on Down There? A Boy’s Guide to Growing Up, a 2017 book written by Karen Gravelle and illustrated by Robert Leighton.
This book makes a neat companion to the author’s 1996 The Period Book which I wrote about in my review on books about puberty written for girls. Published by the same company, the book comes in a small format just like the earlier book. And just like that earlier one, this is a very readable and surprisingly informative book. In thirteen chapters ranging from how boys’ bodies change during puberty to sexual harassment, from sexually transmitted diseases to how babies are made and how they can be avoided, Gravelle’s book offers young readers a ton of useful information, well organized and presented in fluent and compassionate language. There is even a full chapter on how girls change during puberty so boys reading the book will not be totally clueless about what is going on with their female classmates, their sisters, and their female cousins. The goal is not merely to quench curiosities though; I believe the inclusion of this chapter also serves a more compassionate purpose. When a boy understands that girls are changing too, and that boys are not the only ones who are feeling awkward, uncertain, and even perhaps scared, maybe he will be a bit more compassionate towards himself and others. He will also hopefully be able to see the girls in his life more like peers and friends rather than alien, incomprehensible objects.
What’s Going On Down There? uses explicit and scientifically accurate language about the sexual organs and human reproduction. The illustrations are hand-drawn, and though detailed, would most likely not be viewed as obscene. The author is compassionate and matter-of-fact through the book, and she mentions both homosexuality and transgender individuals and the possible social and religious tolerance limits in relation to both. Being a woman, she explains that she had substantive input from two young boys, Chava and Nick Castro, as well as interviews with fifteen men who told her the most important things they wished they knew when they were boys themselves.
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The next book I will write about is the 2020 book Everything you Always Wanted to Know About Puberty — and Shouldn’t Be Googling – For Curious Boys, written by Morris Katz and illustrated by Amelia Pinney.
Everything you Always Wanted to Know About Puberty — and Shouldn’t Be Googling – For Curious Boys is written from the perspective of a “cool older brother”, as the author Morris Katz describes himself tongue in cheek. The pages are colorfully organized and illustrated. The style is informal and perhaps a bit unserious, though the author voice comes across as friendly and helpful: the author is indeed young and has younger brothers, so the tone feels authentic. The main thrust of the book is captured in this little excerpt:
“My advice on this could be applied to puberty as a whole. You can’t control what’s going to happen, but you can control how you react to your experiences. Accepting things as they are and taking it easy on yourself no matter what will make your life a lot less stressful. Don’t drive yourself crazy over things you can’t control.”
Some sections of the book provide extensive details. The hormonal changes that eventually lead to puberty in boys are described in great detail, for example. Therefore, I was surprised that the male genitalia and the general reproductive system are not described as much in detail as in Gravelle’s What’s Going On Down There? book. The book does cover an extensive list of topics, distributed into three large parts (Part 1. What Looks, Sounds, and Smells Different? Part 2. What Feels Different? and Part 3. The Outside World). There is thoughtful discussion of social media, peer pressure, relationships with parents, thrill seeking and risky behavior, respecting girls and women, avoiding toxic masculinity, and many more.
Parents may or may not feel comfortable with the tone in which topics such as drugs, masturbation, and porn are discussed. To me, the particular tone felt consistent with an older brother, one who knows what is best for you, one who wants you to make the right decisions, and who is trying to support you along the way without sounding preachy. But some parents might wish for a different tone altogether. All in all, I found this to be a good book, but all families are different, and parents would best take a good look at it before sharing with their little ones.
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The third book from my shelves is Growing Up Great!: The Ultimate Puberty Book for Boys, written by Scott Todnem, illustrated by Anjan Sarkar, and first published in 2019.
Growing Up Great is written by Scott Todnem who has been teaching health education to middle schoolers for a long time, and you can read him as a trusted teacher who is telling it like it is. The main thrust of the book is captured in two statements the author makes repeatedly in slightly different forms throughout the book:
“Change is good. And knowledge is power.”
and
“Just be you through it all. No one has ever been you, and no one will ever be you.”
Among the books I have read for this review, this one is perhaps the most “factful”, if I am allowed to use one of Caramel’s favorite words. I have learned quite a lot of things from the book myself (which may not be too surprising, especially given that I did not have brothers or male cousins or even male classmates as I was growing up — having gone to a girls’ high school — and so did not have first-hand experience with male puberty). The book covers the physical changes a boy’s body goes through extensively. There is also much emphasis on the importance of mental, physical, and social health, self-respect, and consent in all situations.
Among the books I have read for this review, this one is perhaps the most “factful”, if I am allowed to use one of Caramel’s favorite words. I have learned quite a lot of things from the book myself (which may not be too surprising, especially given that I did not have brothers or male cousins or even male classmates as I was growing up (having gone to a girls’ high school) and so did not have first-hand experience with male puberty). But I did find the book very readable and informative.
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The fourth book about puberty written for boys that I wanted to talk about in this post is the 2017 book Guy Stuff: The Body Book for Boys, written by Cara Natterson and illustrated by Micah Player.
Brought to us by American Girl Publishing, just like Cara Natterson’s earlier book The Care & Keeping of You 2: The Body Book for Older Girls, Guy Stuff is one of a series of books aiming to help adolescents learn more about themselves as they are going through puberty. It is overall well organized and playfully illustrated. The text is not one long narrative; rather, each page has different text boxes, lists, short subsections, and other organizational tools that allow for skimming and jumping back and forth rather than simply sitting down for an extended time to read through from cover to cover.
The chapters themselves are vaguely organized around the body: the “Heads Up” chapter focuses on hair, ears, eyes, face, and so on, while the “Belly zone” chapter focuses on nutrition, body shape and size. The “Get Going” chapter is about legs and feet but also exercise and physical movement. The “Big Changes” chapter is where we get into the big basics: the subheadings list hormones, pubic area, underwear, erections, shaving, voice, moods. The book begins with a short chapter (“Body Basics”) emphasizing good habits and attitude, and ends with another short chapter (“Your Inner You”) including a discussion under the subheadings: “your feelings”, “being a guy”, “all of you”, where peer pressure and the stereotype of “boys don’t cry”are covered.
All in all, Guy Stuff is engaging and informative. There are clear illustrations of male body parts. However, the book does not touch some of the topics that might be more uncomfortable for some parents (e.g., masturbation, porn) that some of the other books do mention, at least in passing, so it could perhaps be a safer choice for more parents.
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The four books I mentioned above are all written for an audience of boys exclusively. And they all do the job quite well, to inform and comfort the young bunny whose body is going through some surprising changes. However, before I wrap up, I would like the readers to also consider the gender-neutral classic, It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health, written by Robie H. Harris and illustrated by Michael Emberley.
As I wrote earlier, It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health is a somewhat controversial book as it depicts naked human bodies (in caricature) and certain sexual acts (also in caricature). It also introduces ideas of gender diversity (Chapter 5 is titled “Who You Are: Straight, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, transgender, +”) and discusses masturbation and abortion (Chapter 16: “Perfectly Normal: Masturbation” and Chapter 24: “Laws and Rulings: Abortion”, respectively). So even parents who might find these topics suitable for their young ones might wish to review the book on their own before sharing it with them.
All that being said, I found the book very informative and generous. The laws in the United States are in constant flux in relation to abortion, but other than that, most of the information in the book is up to date and seemed to me to be more than relevant to a young bunny growing into her own body. The generosity I am talking about is in the compassionate ways the book explains differences of opinion about controversial topics like abortion and LGBTQ+ issues, as well as the many ways people can form families by methods such as in-vitro fertilization and adoption. And the bird and the bee that we had met in the other books by Harris and Emberley apparently first made their debut in this book, and they are just the same funny odd couple they were in those other books. Their reactions to the illustrations as well as the content of the text reflect the many types of natural reactions a young bunny may have to them. The bird is often the more enthusiastic one, enthusiastic about learning everything there is to learn, while the bee is often the one who is a little overwhelmed with it all and wants to quit talking about it. Both are natural reactions, and I have seen them in my own children at times when these issues came up. I think therefore that their presence through the book might help a young bunny reading the book to feel seen.
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It is probably time to wrap up this review. I have already written a lot, and only about five books; there are many other options out there. However, I chose these five because each of these books is clear and informative and supportive. Overall, I am glad there are so many good options for young people these days to learn about puberty. I do hope caring parents and loving guardians will encourage their young ones to read some of these books and use them as a way to initiate conversations and discussions about the many exciting features and challenges of puberty.
BookBunnies 