Puberty Blues

Puberty Blues
Author: Kathy Lette
Publisher: Random House Australia
Total Pages: 146
Release: 2022-01-05
Genre: Australian fiction
ISBN: 1761045687

"By day, we were at school learning logarithms, but by night in the back of cars, under the bowling alley, on Cronulla Beach, or, if you were lucky, in a bed while someone's parents were out, you paid off your friendship ring." For Deb and Sue, life is about surfies, panel vans, straight-leg Levis, nicking off from school, getting wasted, friendships and fitting in. But why should guys have all the fun? When Deb and Sue decide to take to the waves on boards, a whole culture is upturned. Puberty Blues is raw, humorous and painfully honest. An Australian classic that has been reimagined in film and on TV and shocking, exercising, empowering and entertaining readers for more than four decades.

Stone Butch Blues

Stone Butch Blues
Author: Leslie Feinberg
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
Total Pages: 582
Release: 2010
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1459608453

Published in 1993, this brave, original novel is considered to be the finest account ever written of the complexities of a transgendered existence. Woman or man? Thats the question that rages like a storm around Jess Goldberg, clouding her life and her identity. Growing up differently gendered in a blue--collar town in the 1950s, coming out as a butch in the bars and factories of the prefeminist 60s, deciding to pass as a man in order to survive when she is left without work or a community in the early 70s. This powerful, provocative and deeply moving novel sees Jess coming full circle, she learns to accept the complexities of being a transgendered person in a world demanding simple explanations: a he-she emerging whole, weathering the turbulence.

Measuring Up

Measuring Up
Author: G.J. Stroud
Publisher: Scribe Publications
Total Pages: 193
Release: 2009-08-03
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1925113345

Until recently, Jonah’s life has been wonderfully simple: school, partying and surfing with his mates. It’s been uncomplicated — like riding the perfect wave. But that’s all about to change. With the stress of year 12 looming, Jonah’s mission to have sex before his eighteenth birthday is not going well. Jonah’s lack of self-confidence is fuelling his fear that he’s destined to live in the shadow of his legendary older brother, Link. And just when he thinks that things couldn’t get any more complicated his brother drops a bombshell on his unsuspecting family. But life has a funny way of sorting out the big issues from the small. And Jonah discovers that sometimes the answers you’re looking for are right in front of you … Measuring Up is a fresh and funny story of friendship, surf and raging hormones.

One Way or Another

One Way or Another
Author: Nikki McWatters
Publisher: Black Inc.
Total Pages: 252
Release: 2012-03-31
Genre: Music
ISBN: 1921870583

In 1981, fifteen-year-old Nikki McWatters is living in a Gold Coast suburb, dragging herself through humdrum schooldays and dreaming of losing her virginity to a rock star. With three friends she starts the Vulture Club for aspiring groupies – and so begins a festival of sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll. As Nikki gets older, her conquests get bigger and the stakes get higher. From Australian Crawl to INXS, Pseudo Echo to Duran Duran, she is living her teenage dream – but is the groupie life all it’s cracked up to be? One Way or Another is an irresistible romp through a world of pub rock, big hair, wild nights and mornings after. With irrepressible humour and a bulging little black book, Nikki McWatters recalls an age when everything seemed possible – even if everything wasn’t such a good idea. ‘A vivid, heartfelt trip into the human side of rock ’n’ roll ... Painfully honest and insightful, this is a Puberty Blues for the ’80s generation.’ —Richard Lowenstein, director of Dogs in Space and He Died with a Felafel in His Hand ‘McWatters renders her story with skill, sensitivity, wit and honesty ... a fascinating look into some of rock’s seedier aspects.’ —Bookseller+Publisher ‘A great Australian rock ’n’ roll read’ —Steve Kilbey

HRT: Husband Replacement Therapy

HRT: Husband Replacement Therapy
Author: Kathy Lette
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 368
Release: 2024-08-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1035901609

An outrageously funny, heartbreaking read – when Ruby finds out she has cancer on the brink of her 50th birthday, she decides to start living instead of complying... Ruby has always been the generous mediator among her friends, family and colleagues, which is why they've all turned up to celebrate her 50th birthday. But after too many glasses of champers, Ruby takes her moment in the spotlight to reveal what she really thinks of every one of them. She accuses her husband of having an affair and lambasts her mother for a lifetime of playing her three daughters against each other – it's blisteringly brutal. As the stunned gathering gawks at Ruby, the birthday girl reveals that she has terminal cancer, and has cashed in her life savings to take her two estranged sisters cruising into the sunset for a dose of HRT – Husband Replacement Therapy. But is Ruby being courageous or ruthlessly selfish? Praise for Kathy Lette: 'Fabulous, fast-paced, funny & unapologetically female. Nobody does it better.' DEBORAH FRANCES-WHITE, THE GUILTY FEMINIST 'Deliciously rude and darkly funny, but with compassion and humanity at its heart. Read with relish.' NICOLE KIDMAN 'Kathy Lette can turn from raunchy farce to the most tender emotion in a trice.' STEPHEN FRY

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Puberty—and Shouldn't Be Googling

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Puberty—and Shouldn't Be Googling
Author: Morris Katz
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 114
Release: 2020-11-24
Genre: Health & Fitness
ISBN: 1950587134

This is the puberty book written by the cool, older brother—that takes boys from their first armpit hair to their first wet dream—and beyond. Facts about developmental changes to tween and teen boys' bodies and brains are spelled out in fun, familiar, boy-speak and illustrated in edgy graphic novel format. So boys 10 and up can learn about health, hygiene, sexuality, and more in a way that's not embarrassing or tedious, but real, engaging, and enlightening. A recurring "Puberty Goggles" feature pokes gentle fun at the way a testosterone-tormented tween views himself and the world around him. The book also explores current hot-button topics from social media and cyberbullying to respecting women.

Scum Valley

Scum Valley
Author: Matthew Ellks
Publisher: Matthew Ellks
Total Pages: 331
Release: 2014-05-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1497313201

This book follows the local boardriding culture through a period of decadence and high times. It is the first book of a trilogy about the challenges that faced the subterranean surfing culture as it began losing its heritage to the yuppies who took advantage of negative gearing in the late 80s and started buying up Bondi. As property values and rates climbed, school enrollments fell and so started the decline of the working class folk of 'Scum Valley'. Us surfers used to call the beach 'Scum Valley' because of the old stink pipe at north that used to pump raw sewerage out into the ocean for us to surf in. We valued street credibility above all else and the community was very tight considering it's close location to such underworld locations as Kings Cross, Darlinghurst and the CBD in general. Being a city beach meant that a colourful cross-section of characters graced our town with the millions of other tourists and beach goers. The story has a David and Goliath twist to it as a rich kid waltzes into town and sets up a surf shop and begins winning friends and influencing people. A staunch local named Dan has a run in with him and so starts a feud that lasts for a decade (Span of the 3 books). Dan eventually opens his own shop and the fallout between rival surf shop clubs sends ripples through the beach. It divides opinions and sets a precedent for ongoing battles that are fought in the streets and in the water.

Head-to-toe Guide to You

Head-to-toe Guide to You
Author: Sarah Wassner Flynn
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Total Pages: 130
Release: 2010
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 0545202361

Counsels early adolescent girls on everything from the changes that come with puberty to general health and hygiene, sharing questions and answers and sections on popular myths, embarrassing moments, and handling challenges.

You Know, Sex

You Know, Sex
Author: Cory Silverberg
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
Total Pages: 436
Release: 2022-04-12
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 1644210819

2023 ALA RAINBOW BOOK LIST WINNER 2023 DOUG WRIGHT AWARD A completely new approach to learning about puberty, sex, and gender for kids 10+. Here is the much-anticipated third book in the trilogy that started with the award-winning What Makes a Baby and Sex Is a Funny Word "Silverberg's writing is fearless . . . Here is that rare voice that can talk about the hardest things kids go through in ways that are thoughtful, lighthearted and always respectful of their intelligence." —Rachel Brian, The New York Times Book Review In a bright graphic format featuring four dynamic middle schoolers, You Know, Sex grounds sex education in social justice, covering not only the big three of puberty—hormones, reproduction, and development—but also power, pleasure, and how to be a decent human being. Centering young people’s experiences of pressures and joy, risk and reward, and confusion and discovery, there are chapters on body autonomy, disclosure, stigma, harassment, pornography, trauma, masturbation, consent, boundaries and safety in our media-saturated world, puberty and reproduction that includes trans, non-binary, and intersex bodies and experience, and more. Racially and ethnically diverse, inclusive of cross-disability experience, this is a book for every kind of young person and every kind of family. You Know, Sex is the first thoroughly modern sex ed book for every body navigating puberty and adolesence, essential for kids, everyone who knows a kid, and anyone who has ever been a kid.

Just a Girl

Just a Girl
Author: Kirsten Krauth
Publisher: University of Western Australia Press
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2013
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9781742584959

Layla is only 14. As she sits in bed with a laptop, her mother Margot sleeps in the next room. But, what separates them is more than just a wall. It's every mother's nightmare. Layla cruises online. She catches trains to meet strangers. And Margot never suspects. Not even when Layla brings a man into their home. Margot's caught in her own web: an evangelical church and a charismatic pastor. Pastor Bevan preaches to the faithful, reeling them in to his tangled conceits with podcasts and twitter. Meanwhile, downtown, a man opens a suitcase and tenderly places his young lover inside. just_a_girl tears into the fabric of contemporary culture. It's a Puberty Blues for the digital age; a Lolita with a webcam. It's what happen when young girls are forced to grow up too fast. Or never get the chance to grow up at all....Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?Ã?Â?