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Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul: 101 Stories of Life, Love and Learning
by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, and Kimberly Kirberger Health Communications
354 pp $12.95

The Go Ask Alice Book of Answers: A Guide to Good Physical, Sexual, and Emotional Health
By Columbia University's Health Education Program
Owl Books
368 pp $15.95

Changing Bodies, Changing Lives: A Book for Teens on Sex and Relationships
By Ruth Bell
Time Books
320 pp $23

Deal With It!: A Whole New Approach to Your Body, Brain, and Life as a Gurl
By Esther Drill, Heather McDonald, and Rebecca Odes
Pocket Books
309 pp $15

The Teenage Guy's Survival Guide: The Real Deal on Girls, Growing Up, and Other Guy Stuff
By Jeremy Daldry
Econo-Clad Books
136 pp $8.95

Feeling Great, Looking Hot & Loving Yourself! Health, Fitness and Beauty for Teens
By Jennifer Leigh Youngs
Health Communications
340 pp $14.95

Twenty years ago, as I was slouching into puberty, my mother handed me a copy of Judy Blume's Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. This fictional tale of a 12-year-old girl and her struggle with training bras, crushes, religion, and her first period became a well-worn bible for me and my friends, and it is considered to have been a primary source of such information for curious adolescent girls in the United States during the '70s and '80s. We admired and related to Margaret Simon, who was not afraid to talk about or question her changing body and relationships. The story of this now-classic character paved the way for modern teen health books.

Since Margaret's debut in 1970, countless health-oriented books, fiction and nonfiction, have sprung up for teens. In the past few years, a slick new genre of hip nonfiction teen health books has joined the boom. While the shelves overflow with single-subject books to help teens cope with specific crises, such as eating disorders, drug problems, or depression, there are even more that seem to have taken their cue from Our Bodies, Ourselves and cover a wide range of these and other tough subjects.

While the information in most cases is technical, concise, and medically sound, the books are peppered with contemporary teenage jargon and colorful, often humorous, cartoons, illustrations, or photos. And, just as some people thought Blume's book was controversial for its subject matter, many of these newer health books for teenagers have to be shelved in the adult section of libraries because of their graphic content.

"I think they're approaching subjects that they never did in the past," says Ellen Basset, a children's librarian in Libertyville, Illinois. "The authors aren't assuming [teens are] not going to do something, they're telling them how to do it right. People feel threatened by that, because these books are more candid, more open. They treat kids more like adults than some of the older ones." Bassett says that teens are often reluctant to ask for the books, and librarians tend to find them strewn around the library, stuffed in dark corners, and shelved in strange areas. "I know they're reading them, because we find them stashed all over the place," she says with a laugh.

Of these sexy new health books that are geared for teenagers and cover various physical and emotional topics, here are a few of the most popular:

Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul: 101 Stories of Life, Love and Learning. While there seems to be a Chicken Soup book for everyone from pets to lovers to drug dealers, this one (along with volumes two and three) has struck a particular chord with the teen set. Emotional stories, fiction and nonfiction, essays, poems, and cartoons ooze inspiration through example. Teens and adults, in a sampling of regular people and celebrities, penned these tales about their own triumphs and travails. They discuss such matters as family, friendship, dating, education, self-respect, and coping with suicide and drunk driving deaths.

"I love these books," says 14-year-old Lindsay Olney-Bell. "I think they're great. They're fun to read because they relate to my own experiences. It's interesting to read about how people are dealing with the same problems." As the title suggests, these stories are geared much more toward emotional rather than physical health, and the editors have done a great job of balancing the mix. Since teenagers have written most of the stories (and have reviewed them all), this book feels more like a battered notebook of collected letters found in high school lockers across the country rather than any sort of adult pandering to teenage emotions. It is this feeling of shared wisdom that makes the three Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul books a genuine hit among both boys and girls.

The Go Ask Alice Book of Answers: A Guide to Good Physical, Sexual, and Emotional Health. The uncompromising questions and answers that compose this book originated on the Columbia University's Health Education Program's popular Web site. Not meant for the younger teen (the book is marketed for ages 15 and older), Go Ask Alice answers the questions that few young people would ever pose to their parents -- or even to their peers: "How do I know if my drinking is out of control?"; "Is it normal to have sex without experiencing an orgasm?"; and "Does Seasonal Affective Disorder really exist?" The university's health staff answers these questions in a straightforward, nonjudgmental manner. The gritty answers don't skimp on facts, and there are plenty of helpful sidebars offering alternative resources and encouraging the questioner to get medical advice when indicated. The seven chapters cover sex and sexuality, relationships, nutrition, fitness, mental health, social concerns, and drug and alcohol issues. This unflinching book might scare the daylights out of some parents, but it provides a safe medium by which older teenagers and young adults can satisfy their curiosity.

Changing Bodies, Changing Lives: A Book for Teens on Sex and Relationships. Written by one of the Our Bodies, Ourselves collaborators, Ruth Bell, this book has the same kind, yet authoritative touch as that landmark volume on women's physical and mental health. It is not quite as glossy as some of the other teen-oriented books, but it packs a punch. In its pages teenagers comment on hard-hitting topics such as gang violence, teen pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and eating disorders, which Bell accompanies with nonjudgmental advice, explanations, checklists, and resources. The majority of the book is about how the body works and teenage sexuality, and Bell does a smooth job of explaining how emotions play into the mix. This is an excellent book to thumb through or simply keep within a teenager's reach as an encyclopedic resource when questions arise.

Deal With It!: A Whole New Approach to Your Body, Brain, and Life as a Gurl. This hot-pink package is dense with grrrl-powered information on everything from sexual organs and crushes to politics and spirituality. Vibrant illustrations help balance some of the serious subjects and alleviate fears (a collage of different breast sizes is one that pops to mind), yet the medical information is thorough and not watered down in the least. The authors respect their teenage readers and offer them forthright adult information -- and a lot of it's downright fascinating, even for parents. The book is full of imaginative trivia, sidebars on topics such as the history of deflowering rituals, the first all-gay high schools, and animal sexuality. (For example, did you know that bonobo apes are referred to as the "make love, not war" primates because they engage in all sorts of sexual activity for most of their waking hours?)

One interesting aspect of this book is that it somehow takes the bite out of the many slang words for female body parts that can hurt or embarrass a teenage girl (or a woman, for that matter). When these words are placed in an open, female-only arena, they take on a less malevolent meaning and give the girl a sense of control of her body -- which is the whole point of this book. Since the authors of this book are also the creators of the popular Web site for teenage girls, gurl.com, they have included plenty of real-life e-mail exchanges between girls to keep the information from sounding too much like an adult-to-kid lecture. Each chapter provides numerous alternative resources for girls, such as where to find more information on birth control, whom to call if you're raped, and what associations are available to teach you more about learning disabilities.

The Teenage Guy's Survival Guide: The Real Deal on Girls, Growing Up, and Other Guy Stuff. Boys are woefully underrepresented on the teen health bookshelves. Whether it's because girls' menstruation and budding breasts often overshadow the changes that happen to boys during puberty or because parents don't think that boys would be interested, adolescent boys tend to get short shrift. They'll be included in the general health books, perhaps, but rarely have their own advisory tomes, whereas there are literally hundreds for teenage girls. This guide, on the other hand, was published last year and seems to have taken a lead from some of the more hip-looking health books for girls, like Deal With It! It's packaged in a cool-looking aqua cover. Friendly sketched characters pop questions to Daldry, and wacky fonts flood the pages (which make it a little tough to read). More importantly, it covers tricky subjects like erections, drug use, depression, and body odor, along with dating issues like how to ask a girl out, coming to terms with your or your friend's homosexuality, making decisions about sex, and respecting your partner's sexual desires and limits.

Daldry writes with a wit that aims at the teenage boy's sense of humor -- he plays the part of an older brother who's been there before and who can laugh at some of the questions while still providing clear-cut answers. This book is more simplistic and includes far fewer medical statistics than the previous three guides, but for boys in need of practical advice, it's a great start. Particularly helpful is his resource list at the end of the book, which provides phone numbers and addresses of associations relevant to each subject.

Feeling Great, Looking Hot & Loving Yourself! Health, Fitness and Beauty for Teens. Compared to the others on this list, this book seems a bit shallow, despite its declared intentions to teach teens about health and confidence. While topics like cigarette smoking, exercise, nutrition, and eating disorders are loosely discussed, and the author suggests tips for being an all-around healthy person, the bulk of the book is oriented toward fashion. Of course, proper moisturizing and healthy makeup choices (such as warnings about acrylic nails) are good things to know about. With such tips packaged among the other somber topics, this book should appeal to a wide range of teenage girls and may even serve as a launching pad for more serious discussions with their parents. Yet the lengthy sections on makeup application, sassy haircuts, and color choices may turn off the more enlightened girl. "I don't think they should be publishing these kinds of books," says Olney-Bell. "It's [pushing the stereotype that] women are really into how they look. I thought it was kind of weird that [looks] was the most important thing." Granted, this isn't top-of-the-line medical guidance, but seeing as skin care-crazed magazines like Seventeen are doing a booming business these days, many girls are bound to enjoy indulging in this book -- and may benefit from its health messages along the way.

As this selection demonstrates, there are a lot of books to choose from, and the approaches they take are as varied as the kids reading them. When buying a book for your teenager, don't necessarily heed the recommended age posted on the books -- as Olney-Bell says, she and her peers have been hearing about a lot of these things for a long time. Finally, it would make sense to try to assess the extent of your teenager's interest to determine which book would be appropriate. Since this is such an embarrassing topic, though, expect a brush-off that has nothing to do with his or her level of curiosity. While teenage health has obviously come a long way since Margaret Simon first recited her mantra, "We must, we must, we must increase our bust," it's still often a struggle to get a teenager to talk about these intimate problems with an adult. Thank goodness for books.

-- Kristin Kloberdanz, M.A., a former associate editor for Consumer Health Interactive, is an editor at Book magazine in New York City.

First published October 20, 2000
Last updated June 18, 2007
Copyright © 2000 Consumer Health Interactive

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