The guy book : an owner's manual for teens : safety, maintenance, and operating instructions for teens / Mavis Jukes.

Includes index.

Provides information for boys on changes that occur in their bodies during puberty and offering advice on sexual topics, nutrition, drugs, girls, and more.

Designed like an owner’s manual for a teenager’s car, this lively guide offers tips on “safety, maintenance, and operating instructions” for boys’ bodies and relationships. The excellent table of contents offers such chapters as “Under the Hood,” “Ignition System,” “Exterior Maintenance,” “Parking,” “Rules of the Road,” and “Road Hazards.” It is a thorough, engaging guide with advice on everything from washing jeans to washing genitals. The text is enlivened by cartoons, sidebars, diagrams, and humorous, ’50s-style photographs of cars, highways, road signs, and kids out on dates. The chapter on “The (Re) Production Line,” for example, pictures cars rolling down the assembly line, and the discussion of the mechanics of intercourse is accompanied by diagrams for assembling auto parts, complete with numbers and arrows. Along with the serious discussion is a darling photograph of a little boy using a long-spouted watering can to gas up a little girl’s play car. The section on “Avoiding Hazardous Conditions” opens with a photograph of an airborne stunt driver flying over parked cars. More than a sex-ed manual, this guide includes frank discussions of pornography, drugs, and the importance of good etiquette and respect in relationships. Teenage readers who see humor, not old-fashionedness, in the illustrations, will find a useful, engaging, and straightforward guide. A good bet for open-minded parents, teachers of health and sex education classes, and all libraries.