A guide for navigating male adolescence.
Dunham, a registered nurse, considers topics including physical changes, body care and feeding, health, school and home life, relationships with family and friends, staying safe, and handling stress. These subjects are addressed generally and conservatively: she mentions wet dreams and breast swellings but not masturbation, condoms, or sexually transmitted diseases, for example. In the “Dating and Romance” section she says “don’t put pressure on yourself to start that part of your life too soon,” and there’s no recognition of the possibility of same-sex crushes. The strength of this particular guidebook is its emphasis on more-adult habits of personal hygiene and behavior at home, with friends, and at school. Added for this fourth edition is new material on “learning disabilities,” social skills and body language, personal empowerment, reputation building, being brave without being a bully, staying safe in the real and virtual worlds, and reminders about the boundary-crossing action of accessing private information without permission. Björkman’s cartoon illustrations show boys and adults of varying ethnicities and lighten the tone throughout. Even libraries already owning the third edition (2015) may want this revision, which adds helpful information for the growing segment of the teen population identified with cognitive and social-learning differences.
This introduction to puberty may be particularly helpful for boys just entering that stage. (resources, index) (Nonfiction. 8-14)Pub Date: Nov. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-60433-713-6
Page Count: 148
Publisher: Cider Mill Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 18, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2017
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | CHILDREN'S HEALTH & DAILY LIVING
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BOOK REVIEW
Young Raina is 9 when she throws up for the first time that she remembers, due to a stomach bug. Even a year later, when she is in fifth grade, she fears getting sick.
Raina begins having regular stomachaches that keep her home from school. She worries about sharing food with her friends and eating certain kinds of foods, afraid of getting sick or food poisoning. Raina’s mother enrolls her in therapy. At first Raina isn’t sure about seeing a therapist, but over time she develops healthy coping mechanisms to deal with her stress and anxiety. Her therapist helps her learn to ground herself and relax, and in turn she teaches her classmates for a school project. Amping up the green, wavy lines to evoke Raina’s nausea, Telgemeier brilliantly produces extremely accurate visual representations of stress and anxiety. Thought bubbles surround Raina in some panels, crowding her with anxious “what if”s, while in others her negative self-talk appears to be literally crushing her. Even as she copes with anxiety disorder and what is eventually diagnosed as mild irritable bowel syndrome, she experiences the typical stresses of school life, going from cheer to panic in the blink of an eye. Raina is white, and her classmates are diverse; one best friend is Korean American.
With young readers diagnosed with anxiety in ever increasing numbers, this book offers a necessary mirror to many. (Graphic memoir. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-545-85251-7
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Graphix/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 12, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2019
Categories: CHILDREN'S SOCIAL THEMES | GENERAL GRAPHIC NOVELS & COMICS
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Shannon just wants to get through eighth grade in one piece—while feeling like her own worst enemy.
In this third entry in popular author for young people Hale’s graphic memoir series, the young, sensitive overachiever is crushed by expectations: to be cool but loyal to her tightknit and dramatic friend group, a top student but not a nerd, attractive to boys but true to her ideals. As events in Shannon’s life begin to overwhelm her, she works toward finding a way to love and understand herself, follow her passions for theater and writing, and ignore her cruel inner voice. Capturing the visceral embarrassments of middle school in 1987 Salt Lake City, Shannon’s emotions are vivid and often excruciating. In particular, the social norms of a church-oriented family are clearly addressed, and religion is shown as being both a comfort and a struggle for Shannon. While the text is sometimes in danger of spelling things out a little too neatly and obviously, the emotional honesty and sincerity drawn from Hale’s own life win out. Pham’s artwork is vibrant and appealing, with stylistic changes for Shannon’s imaginings and the leeching out of color and use of creative panel structures as her anxiety and depression worsen.
A likable journey that is sensitive to the triumphs and agonies of being a 13-year-old girl. (author's note, gallery) (Graphic memoir. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 31, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-250-31755-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: First Second
Review Posted Online: June 11, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2021
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