Since 1983, when Lynda Madaras's What's Happening to My Body?: A Book for Girls and its companion book for boys first appeared on the Newmarket Press list, these and two accompanying activity books (released a decade later) have been translated into more than 12 languages and together have sold some 1,350,000 copies in the United States alone. In January, Newmarket published a third, revised edition of the inaugural titles, as well as second editions of the workbooks, My Body Myself: For Girls and My Body Myself: For Boys. "Every year there is a new group of kids who become the audience for books on puberty, which makes for longevity of sales," commented Esther Margolis, Newmarket's president and publisher, who calls the Madaras books "evergreens." Sales numbers for these latest editions appear to warrant this optimism: the publisher has already returned to press on all four titles, for a combined in-print total of 110,000 copies.
Madaras, for 20 years a sex and health educator in California, decided to write What's Happening to My Body? when her daughter, Area, was approaching puberty. "I wanted her transition from childhood to womanhood to be a comfortable, even joyous time," recalled the author. "I went to the library hoping to find a book that would help explain the process, only to find that there was no such book." So Madaras, with the help of Area, wrote the book. Nearly 20 years later, Madaras has updated and revised this and the other volumes to reach out to a new generation of adolescents—some the children of her first wave of readers—who are experiencing puberty a bit differently than their parents did.
How differently? "New research shows that girls are beginning puberty earlier than previously believed," explained Madaras, who in her updated introduction to her debut book refers to a large-scale study (the results of which appeared in the medical journal Pediatrics) indicating that the average African-American girl reaches puberty shortly before the age of nine, while the average white girl in this country begins just before the age of 10. In response to this information, Madaras said, "I wanted to lower the reading level of bit and make this new edition easier for younger girls to read. As I revised the book, I made a systematic effort to simplify sentence structure and vocabulary. At the same time, I was careful not to skip details or sacrifice accuracy."
Similarly, new statistics about male adolescents, among them the fact that today only 60% of boys born in the U.S. are circumcised, prompted Madaras to revise her books for boys as well. "The decision not to circumcise boys has been a trend for some years now, and many of these boys are now reaching puberty," she commented. "In the past, nearly all male babies born in this country were circumcised. And a lot of common-sense knowledge that once was passed on from father to son has been lost."
While revisiting the contents of each of these four titles, the author also took her cue from thousands of letters she has received from pre-teens and teens of both genders, as well as the comments and questions gleaned from the youngsters and parents she encounters at the workshops she conducts across the country. This input led to expanded sections in the girls' books on menstruation and body types and their impact on girls' images of how they "should" look; and, in the boys' books, growth during puberty and penis size (of the latter issue, Madaras noted, "I get more letters from male readers asking about this than about all other topics combined").
Margolis credits Madaras's ability to connect with kids for the success of these titles. "Youngsters love her straightforward language, directness and humor," remarked Margolis, who praised the author's "incredible ear for what kids want to know and her instinct for knowing how they want to hear it."
Another Staple Rejuvenated
A generation of women who grew up with another manual for adolescents, Period. A Girl's Guide to Menstruation, can also pass an updated version of this work on to their offspring. Released in January by Book Peddlers in both paperback and hardcover formats, this title first appeared under the Volcano Press imprint in 1979 and went on to sell more than 200,000 copies over two decades. How the book landed on Book Peddlers' list (which is distributed by PGW), said Book Peddlers publisher Vicki Lansky, "is really a wonderful story about a book's ability to bring two people together and create a friendship."
Soon after Period's original release, Lansky decided to review it for the parenting newsletter she was then publishing. "I thought the book was fabulous and I immediately passed it on to my daughter," she recalled. "Then, while wandering around at ABA, I noticed Ruth Gottstein, publisher of Volcano Press, and introduced myself to her as the one who had reviewed the book." The women stayed in contact over the years and formed a strong friendship. Two years ago, Gottstein traveled to Sweden to attend the wedding of Lansky's son, after which the duo spent some time traveling together. "Ruth was changing the focus of her publishing program and on our trip she happened to mention that she probably wasn't going to reprint Period again. I immediately asked if I could license the book from her and she agreed."
Lansky was well aware that the guide, penned by JoAnn Loulan, Bonnie Worthen and Marcia Quackenbush, needed updating. "Some of the language and art was old-fashioned, and there was no mention of some current issues, such as using the Internet as a resource for additional information," she observed. Though Loulan and Worthen reviewed the book's changes (Quackenbush asked that her name be dropped from the author credits on the revised edition), Lansky herself wrote the new material. The revised book—which has 20,000 copies in print after a second trip to press—concludes with a parents' guide that is removable in the paperback edition.
"Publishing this book has been a very personal experience for me," Lansky explained. "I feel as though I've had a torch passed on to me. I now have the good fortune to pass this important book on to yet another generation of young women."
