The Guy Book: An Owner's Manual (Maintenance, Safety, and Operating Instructions for Teens) [Paperback]

Mavis Jukes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 8, 2002

Mavis Jukes is the queen of girl talk, but this time she’s set her sights on the guys. Told in the author’s usual straightforward, funny, favorite-aunt style, The Guy Book delivers sound information and useful advice for boys preparing to go through, or in the midst of, puberty. Boys will find specific information on a variety of subjects, from getting rid of acne to buying birth control to finding help for depression. Answering questions that are too embarrassing to ask, dealing with guy-basics like tying a tie, being a good friend, and essential dating dos and don’ts, this is a must-have for boys who want to get the facts, be in control, and learn how to make informed choices.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

With such chapter headings as "Under the Hood," "Yielding the Right of Way: Consent," and "Avoiding Hazardous Conditions: STDs," Mavis Jukes's Guy Book offers friendly, accurate, and up-to-date advice for prepubescent and adolescent boys. Covering a range of topics, from masturbation to decoding girls' signals to making that earth-shattering choice between boxers and briefs, this wise collection of information and how-tos will appeal to the testosterone-ridden boy who would sooner die than ask his mom or one of his buddies about spontaneous erections or confusing emotions. On the other hand, Jukes encourages readers throughout to talk to friends and caring, responsible adults, and offers guy-appropriate lingo and tips to help facilitate tough situations. On breaking up with a girl: "Breaking up on a Saturday afternoon at your soon-to-be-ex's house (where support is available) would be better than springing it on a Monday morning at school." Humorous, ironic 50s-style illustrations feature pistons (accompanying male anatomy discussions), engines, and clean-cut boys and girls in big old cars.

Don't fret, girls! Jukes is also the author of It's a Girl Thing: How to Stay Healthy, Safe, and in Charge. (Ages 13 and older) --Emilie Coulter

From Publishers Weekly

Loaded with information about puberty, personal hygiene, dating, sex even the prom Mavis Jukes's The Guy Book: An Owner's Manual puts boys in the driver's seat. Cheeky chapter headings (e.g., "Under the Hood" and "Ignition System"), funky '50s photographs and loads of phallic car parts pump up the volume. Honest talk about the opposite sex and tips on respectful behavior plus a discussion about homosexuality and homophobia are included.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 12 and up
  
• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Crown Books for Young Readers; 1 edition (January 8, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679890289
• ISBN-13: 978-0679890287
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 0.4 x 9.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #50,606 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #32 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Personal Health > Teen Health > Sexuality

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars The best guide for single moms (5 stars, even tho I can't edit it to show them!), August 25, 2006

By 

Patricia Mcgregor "Pat/Siobhan" (San Diego, CA, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Guy Book: An Owner's Manual (Maintenance, Safety, and Operating Instructions for Teens) (Paperback)

I got this book for my son when we got to the point that he had so many questions (technical in nature) that I couldn't remember the exact answer to (or don't know, not being a boy). I turned to my male friends for help, and one recommended "The Guy Book," which he had given to his 5 boys and they liked a lot. My son loved it. It has a lot of info on boys, their bodies, their issues with friends, and such necessary details as how to buy a corsage and tie a tie. My son asked intelligent questions, sparked by the book, and has read bits of it over and over.

The book is laid out in a non-threatening way, with fun illustrations and enough silly entries that it draws the reader in so that when they get to potentially embarassing material they just keep on going. It's also divided up so that, like the car repair manual it emulates, you can dip in to the one specific piece of info you need and then put it down until later.

Because of his interest, I've given this book to my nephews and recommended it to friends with pre-teens. Some of my nieces found it really useful, too, because it explains a lot about how and why boys do certain things.

I recommend this especially to parents who have trouble talking to their kids beyond a certain age, or single moms who, like me, just don't know the right answer. (If you don't know the answers, I recommend you read it. Then you'll know what you need to know to answer the next set of questions.)

The only thing wrong with this book is that I didn't write it. ;-)

43 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Richie's Picks: THE GUY BOOK, February 21, 2007

By 

Richie Partington "Richie's Picks" (Sebastopol, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Guy Book: An Owner's Manual (Maintenance, Safety, and Operating Instructions for Teens) (Paperback)

I did, in fact, know from a young age that "scrotum" was the name of that particular part of my body. But I had absolutely no understanding of the startling, unnerving things that began happening to my body while I was in middle school. Despite spending hours and hours of quality time with my father, regularly working alongside him on his construction sites from a very young age, I was never given "The Talk."

Nor did I have a big brother or sister to guide me through an understanding of the physical changes, the intense feelings, or the perplexing social stuff at school. It was all totally baffling. The result was that throughout middle school I was a great student and a nervous wreck; a quiet kid filled with discomfort and uncertainty. It was bad enough to be picked on and called names without already thinking that the weird things I'd been experiencing were certain proof that there must be something wrong with me.

Unfortunately for me and my contemporaries, Mavis Jukes was still a high school student when I was struggling hormonally, emotionally, and socially in seventh and eighth grades. Fortunately for today's middle school students, Mavis grew up and eventually became an author. Thanks to her having written IT'S A GIRL THING: HOW TO STAY HEALTHY, SAFE, AND IN CHARGE, followed a few years later by THE GUY BOOK: AN OWNER'S MANUAL, today's Twenty-First Century middle school students can avoid being caught in the sort of position in which I found myself.

Today there are serious, potentially life-threatening consequences to traversing middle school while hamstrung by the ignorance with which I traversed it four decades ago. Mavis Jukes not only explains the workings of the body and the changes that adolescents are undergoing physically, but also talks about dangerous behaviors and myths that can kill and provides information about the availability of counseling for those having a bad time of things.

But in addition to the obvious need to understand such weighty topics as sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy, and the absolute need to understand that "'No' Never Means 'Yes,'" it is also essential that middle school students going through these developmental changes avoid having their self-esteem undermined by a lack of information, a problem that is so easily remedied by this book.

As noted on the KidsKeepHealthy website:

"Adolescents with high self-esteem are more likely to believe in themselves and have a sense of importance and self-respect. Self-esteem affects how your children will approach new tasks or challenges and how they interact with others. Teenage children with low self-esteem may avoid challenging activities or may give up quickly, quit, or cheat when things aren't going their way. A child with low self esteem may also be a bully, bossy, controlling, have a low level of self control, and have difficulty making friends."

THE GUY BOOK: AN OWNER'S MANUAL is not only an important source of information, it is an entertaining read. Beginning with the cover image and continuing throughout the book, the author employs an automotive metaphoric treatment with vintage car photos and title headings such as "Under the Hood," "Ignition System," "Rules of the Road: Driver Etiquette," and "Customizing: Developing Your Own Style." In the book's sixteen chapters there is a wealth of information on such practical topics as shaving, pimples, the rights and wrongs of ogling girls, the inside scoop on what their female peers are feeling, on crushes, on who pays when out on a date, on meeting a girl's parents, and on how to slow dance for the first time. Some of the information is downright hilarious -- at least in retrospect -- such as the author's explanation of which strategies employed in hopes of getting noticed by girls might result in your being seen by them in a positive light, and which strategies are bound to have quite the opposite effect. Some of the information is just so amazingly important, such as her discussion of feelings:

"Both boys and girls (and men and women) feel all ways: strong and weak, powerful and vulnerable, confident and insecure, courageous and afraid.
"These are human feelings. They're not attached to a particular gender."

In light of the recent debate concerning some librarians who are excluding the Newbery Medal-winning THE HIGHER POWER OF LUCKY from their school library collections because of the mere inclusion of an anatomical term -- dog's scrotum -- it can be expected that there is a similar group of librarians opposed to the inclusion of THE GUY BOOK in middle school collections. This, of course, puts those librarians' middle school patrons at risk. Considering that every year, in every corner of America, there are middle school students who become sexually active prior to high school, thus facing the possibility of their causing a pregnancy or contracting AIDS during their initial sexual explorations, librarian-imposed ignorance is surely a matter of malpractice that borders on the criminal.

It is hard to imagine a girl today experiencing her first period and having nobody willing to provide her information on why this new thing is happening to her body or, perhaps, suggesting that she wait until high school before obtaining accurate information from her school's library media center. For a boy to experience his first nocturnal emission without having either prior or subsequent information as to what is going on can be no less traumatic then was Brat's ignorance upon experiencing her first menstrual cycle in THE MIDWIFE'S APPRENTICE.

The original intent of having public education in America was to turn kids into good citizens. This is a book with information that unquestionably contributes to that goal. If Mavis Jukes' books for girls and guys are not in your middle school collections, they need to be. And to try and bury such important resources in the shelves, rather than booktalking them and displaying them is a serious mistake.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "thrilling read", January 28, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Guy Book: An Owner's Manual (Maintenance, Safety, and Operating Instructions for Teens) (Paperback)

this is the most truthful manual ever written. a cool way to get inside a guys mind for the girls and a great book for advice for guys. when your done you can go back if you ever need help its sure to answer all your questions, and also has a great humour about it and derserves all4 stars i gave it.