Welcome
Hi! Welcome to my website. I'd like to use this opportunity to introduce you to some of my more recent books and tell you how you can find them. Below is a brief description of the ones that are presently available in bookstores and on-line (click on Quick Links), as well as in libraries. To read more about those that interest you, just click on Selected Works for additional information.
Bookstores and On-Line
I asked five 10- to 12-year old girls to help me write The Period Book: A Girl’s Guide to Growing Up. I figured they were experts on exactly what other preteen girls would want to know about going through puberty. We came up with a down-to-earth, practical book that answers any questions you might have about this all-important time in your life.
I also got help in writing What's Going On Down There? A Boy’s Guide to Growing Up – this this time from two boys. Written for guys from 10 to 14, this book answers any questions you might have about puberty – from what it is and what it feels like, to what puberty is like for girls, to how to handle the sexual feelings you may be starting to experience.
Have you recently gotten your driving license? Then The Driving Book: Everything New Drivers Need to Know but Don't Know to Ask is for you! In addition to information on driving safely and maintaining your car, it deals with the special issues that teenage drivers face -- such as handling peer pressure when you're behind the wheel and how to tell your parents that you've had an accident.
If you've ever wondered what makes you think, feel, and act the way you do; why you get along well with some people but not with others; or what makes you the complex person you are, you'll be interested in reading 5 Ways to Know About You. This book introduces you to astrology, palm reading, Chinese horoscopes, numerology, and handwriting analysis and helps you to use these methods in exploring what makes you a unique individual.
If you're interested in the many ways that insects, birds, fish, reptiles, and mammals communicate with others of their species, and sometimes with us, then Animal Talk is the book for you.
Have you ever wondered what it's like to be a Native American teenager? Or, if you're a Native American teen yourself, have you ever wondered why movies and books rarely picture Native Americans like the ones you know? If so, you'll enjoy Soaring Spirits: Conversations with Native American Teens. In this book, Native kids from seven different nations talk about their lives and what it's like to be a Native person in today's America.
A lot has been written about being a teenage mother, but Teenage Fathers is one of the few books that discuss the experience of being a teenage parent from a boy's point of view. Leslie Peterson (herself once a teenage mother) and I talked to 13 guys who first became fathers when they were between 12 and 18 years old. Read what they have to say about the struggles, the problems -- and sometimes the joys -- of being a teenage father.
Being a teenager is difficult enough, but when life deals you a particularly bad hand, it can be expecially hard to cope. In Teenagers Face to Face with Bereavement, teenagers talk about the special problems they face when a family member or close friend dies. In Teenagers Face to Face with Cancer, teenage cancer patients discuss what it's like to have cancer and how they hope other teens will treat them. If you have a friend who is grieving or who has cancer, these books can help you understand what they are going through and how you can be there for them.
In Libraries
The following books are out of print, but they can often be found in libraries.
Where Are My Birth Parents? A Guide for Teenage Adoptees is a must if you're an adopted teenager thinking about searching for your birth parents.
Growing Up in America is a series of three books that take you into the lives of children from different communities in the country. Growing Up in a Holler in the Mountains focuses on a 10-year old Appalachian boy and his family from Kentucky; Growing Up Where the Partridge Drums its Wings introduces you to two 10-year old Mohawk children from the Akwesasne Reservation in New York; and Growing Up in Crawfish Country follows the lives of three Cajun children, ages 10-12, from Louisiana.
Finally, what would it be like to be cold-blooded, have three eyes, be able to change the color of your body, or have a tongue that is almost as long as the rest of you? Lizards will let you slip into the skin of some fascinating animals that fit this description.