Being a Teen: Everything Teen Girls & Boys Should Know About Relationships, Sex, Love, Health, Identity & More

Award-winning actress and fitness guru Fonda (My Life So Far) presents a guide to navigating puberty, which grew out of her work with the Georgia Campaign for Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention. The book’s strength is its factual information on puberty, with simple line drawings accompanying clearly explained information. Fonda presents some sensible advice for teens choosing to have sex, but it’s clear that her focus is on preventing pregnancy by a soft-abstinence approach of delaying intercourse (“Don’t just give it away”), while exploring “outercourse” (foreplay), fantasy, and masturbation. As such, her sections on contraception and unplanned pregnancies are weak, and her information on STIs leans toward the scare tactic side of the spectrum. But Fonda’s warmth and love for the teen community is evident, even if her language might be seen by teen readers as a little condescending. LGBT kids get particular support, if no practical sexual information. Parents looking for an abstinence-focused book that is liberal and secular may find this a comfortable choice to hand to their kids, but its overwhelming sincerity in the face of ironic teen culture and its textbook-like feel will likely not motivate them to actually read it. B&w illus. Agent: Lynn Nesbit, Janklow & Nesbit. (Mar.)