Stephanie Weaver: Teenage Boys Talk

Random House

$24.95

Anyone who has a teenage boy in their life or who is a teenage boy should read this book. It's humane, intelligent, self-questioning and very positive about this much-maligned segment of our population.

Most adults, Weaver realised, have a negative opinion of teenage boys, perhaps even of boys generally.

She interviewed 50 boys, aged from 13 to 17, from around the North Island, about their home lives, families, schools, social lives, sexuality, communication, employment, society and belief systems.

"I expected to like most of the boys I interviewed, but I liked them all, and genuinely admired over half of them for the ways they were coping in difficult situations," she writes.

The book should be a great help for parents and teachers, and includes checklist-type questions to help readers focus on their own relationships.