What do guys think about friends, parents, sex, sport, drugs and everything else that matters? In Boys' Stuff, teenagers write about their lives. It's honest, raw and real. They talk about what the rules are, how they break them, and what's really cool.If I haven't done it by the time I'm 21, I'm going to cut it off and become a monk. JohnnyMy room smells of eleven summers, winters, autumns and springs. It smells of the body odour released after a restless night's sleep and the deodorant which is in a constant battle to fight it. BryanYou're supposed to go to the footy, you're supposed to drink a six-pack every week and you're supposed to watch action movies over and over again. I don't like football, I don't like cricket, and I can cook. I think being a man is whatever you want it to be. AndrewI've never really attempted suicide. I merely went through the motions, seeing what the pain would be like, without committing myself to death.Back then, I had no one to talk to. KeithFunny, tragic, shocking and true, Boys' Stuff is better than fiction.

 

This book was recognised by the Shearer's Children's Bookshop Best Designed Children's Nonfiction Book. It was recognised by the Apa Book Design Awards.

There are 224 pages in this book. This book was published 2001 by Allen & Unwin .

Wayne Martino has been a high-school English teacher and now lectures in Education at Murdoch University. He has written books for teachers on masculinity, including Gender and Texts (AATE 1998), From the Margins (Fremantle Arts Centre Press 1997) and What About the Boys? (Open University Press 2001). Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli is well-known for her work on equity issues in schools and youth sexual health, and is senior lecturer in the School of Health Sciences at Deakin University. Maria is also editor of Girls' Talk (Finch 1998) and author of Someone You Know (Wakefield 1991), Tapestry (Random 1999), the story of four generations of Italian women. Together they are writing So What's a Boy? (Open University Press 2001).

This book has the following chapters: What's this stuff about?1 Being a guy2 Boys + their bodies3 Taking risks4 Friendships + relationships5 Sporting around6 School7 Families8 Boys behind the labels9 Life, place + headspaceAcknowledgments + attributions