The Boys' Guide to Growing Up: the best-selling puberty guide for boys Paperback – October 23, 2018

This is the best book I've bought! Tons of pictures (cartoon), easy to read, my 10yo read it through in 2 night. It mentions sex, but nothing crazy, just the right amount of information. No nonsense about having more than 2 sexes or LGQ...whatever. I also bought Boy's Body Book and that book is not worth the money (heavy on text, few pics). So get this one!

Great for my 12 year old son. So informative great pictures easy to read! Really loved this book and so did he!

Easy to understand. Simple concepts. Great book! My 9 year old loves it!

I read 4 books about puberty with a 13 year old boy who’s probably gay or at least bisexual as the target audience to whom I am giving the book. The best is Joanna Cole’s Asking About Sex and Growing Up: A Question and Answer Book for Kids. It covers a wide array of information from bodily changes in both boys and girls to homosexuality through history through sexual abuse and how to avoid it. It touches on all of this very briefly and with clarity and sensitivity. The book is a little disappointing about homosexuality. It says as of the time of writing that gay marriage is legal in one US state so it could use an update. It also maginalizes gayness by saying repeatedly that most people grow up to be straight. In a random sample that’s true but it’s not usually true for a child who has same-sex crushes. In the section on gayness, it says if you’re a teenager you should think carefully about coming out, which is true, but the goal of keeping the text concise sacrifices any mention of how to deal with the loneliness that results from keeping your sexuality to yourself. If anyone knows a book that is more specific to the concerns of a gay male teen, please let me know.The Boy’s Guide to Growing Up by Phil Wilkinson is OK. It has a little bit of the “don’t worry it’s perfectly normal” which has the opposite effect of allaying worry. This one does have a lot more frank discussion of bodies and more drawings of genitalia so it could be reassuring for kids who have expressed insecurity about their bodies. The inclusion of the penile papules is interesting. Must be the author or someone close has them and he had wanted reassurance that they’re normal. They’re very rare. (From my extensive perusal of phalluses.)Everything you Always Wanted to Know About Puberty and Shouldn’t be Googling for Curious Boys By Morris Katz is crappy. Every paragraph says, “Don’t worry about this...” and “It’s perfectly normal…” It’s a waste of space to say that and it starts to make the reader nervous. The reassurance should be conveyed in your tone, which in this book is off. The tone is far too jokey. You can’t chuckle about a topic when it’s all new to you. It’s off-putting that everyone else in the comical presentation thinks it’s funny and the reader is just trying to get some facts. The one thing this book has going for it is a few of the drawings show “puberty goggles,” where the teen boy thinks he has a full, tough looking beard but the reality is he has patchy peach fuzz which would look better shaved until it evens out. These misperceptions are part of puberty and it would be good to cover them in the text or have more than a couple of these illustrations. There’s a lengthy section on how your emotions can get out of control in puberty. This seems unfounded and silly to me, telling boys they can be rage monsters during adolescence.What’s Going On Down There by Karen Gravelle was too wordy to finish reading. It had all kinds of stuff that’s irrelevant for a child like the method doctors use to determine the volume of a child’s testicles is to compare them to plastic models of varying sizes that are attached to a string. Interesting if you’re a jaded adult, weirdly off topic if you’re a clueless adolescent.

I got this book for my 11 yr old with autism because his friends at school were starting to discuss where babies come from. I looked it over before he came home just to make sure there was nothing sketchy in it and found it to be clear and easy to understand with nothing inappropriate. It’s got lots of pictures and I feel like it explains puberty pretty well (even included some brief info on female changes and some great tips on how NOT to speak to/about girls). I loved that it tells boys to surround themselves with real friends. Glad I purchased it.

Bought this for my 12 year old son. I let him read it, and then met a few times to talk through what he had read and answer questions. I think it does a good job of explaining topics at a good level and isn’t overly explicit.

Well it was an awkward conversation to start that I know will be an ongoing one.. the book helped guide the topics along. I did read the book before going over it with my twin 11yr olds.. in public schools 5th grade boys (least at our school) go over puberty. The 1st couple of chapters go over puberty. There is a chapter on sex and where babies come from etc. detail but simple PG science version. For sure would recommend reading this book before reading it to your kids. Pics in book show different stages of manhood parts but little cartoonish drawing (boys giggled) not bad it’s shows the progression of hair on the body etc. I’m not letting them read it alone but I’m going to keep it for my youngest or if the other two need a review or have questions. I did like the fact that it went over that everyone will go though it at different paces esp with twins.

I bought this book for my son who is in junior high. I wanted to give him an option to learn about both puberty and sex without having to deliver the information in a horrible awkward conversation. This allowed him to read it alone first and then discuss it with my husband and I afterwards. I read the book first and loved that it was simple yet informative, with pictures to help the understanding. It didn't overshare like other books I looked at, but touched on everything he needed to know and jump started the conversation that needed to happen. I definitely recommend this book for anyone looking to educate their boy with the proper info rather than them learning from a bunch of kids at school ;)