Product Description

A combination of short stories and factual information for adolescent women about menstruation and the bodily changes that come with puberty, this text aims to dispel long-held myths with current and reasoned information that will empower young women to celebrate this rite of passage.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #287240 in Books
• Published on: 1997-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 176 pages

Review
"More than a compilation of cultureal and anatomical information, this work contains twenty anecdotal stories about menstruation The combination of anecdotes and factual information is unique and informative ."

About the Author
Kathleen O'Grady has written extensively in magazines and newspapers on menstruation. She is also Director of Communications for the Canadian Women's Health Network.

Paula Wansbrough is a co-ordinator of a community project in Toronto for young adults involving computers and education.

Customer Reviews

I wish this book was around when I was 13
Sex education teachers O'Grady and Wansbrough have produced an ideal gift for young girls preparing to bloom into womanhood, a book that is as entertaining as it is informative.

Sweet Secrets is about menstruation. Your cycle, your period, your curse, your monthly visitor, your Aunt Flo...whatever phrase you use, you know what it is and unless with few medical exceptions, every girl is going to get it whether she likes it or not. Sweet Secrets could be considered a technical manual for a girl growing up: basic terminology is introduced, and behaviors such as PMS are explained.

What endeared me to this title, however, was the positive approach O'Grady and Wansbrough take to the monthly event that annoys me when it arrives and worries me when it doesn't. First menstruation is a "sweet secret" because it is a girl's own private advancement into adulthood, a rite of passage celebrated in many cultures. An accompanying mini-anthology of essays by women and teenagers emphasizes the poignancy of growing into womanhood while offering sympathy and encouragement.

If you have daughter fast approaching her teens and feel apphrensive about explaining to her the facts of life, let this book be a guide for the both of you, a "sweet secret" to share.

Excerpted from The Curse: Confronting the Last Taboo
Sweet Secrets: Stories of Menstruation is the brainchild of Canadians Kathleen O'Grady and Paula Wansbrough. Sweet Secrets laces facts with short stories by various authors about girls having their first periods. The facts are straightforward...Best of all, though, the short stories that form the bulk of Sweet Secrets give girls multiple perspectives on the event - from that of a girl who is flat on her back in a body cast when she gets her first period to that of a girl who has ten minutes between the national anthem and homeroom announcements to cope with her first period alone - so that *whatever* happens when the young reader gets hers, it falls within the spectrum of normal.

-excerpt, by Karen Houppert, reporter for the Village Voice and author of _The Curse: Confronting the Last Unmentionable Taboo: Menstruation.

Reviewed in Reluctant Hero:
The book Sweet Secrets was in a word amazing.

The book is aimed at young girls anticipating their first period...

The first part of the book contains basic information (Aaghh what is going on in my body?), how to deal with it emotionally, and provides some ways different cultures celebrate/reject menstruation.

The second part of the book is an anthology of short stories dealing with girls getting their first period. The range of girls and experiences is quite vast....

Throughout the entire book there are sidebars which dispel a lot of the myths surrounding menstruation. There is also excellent health information....

The very best thing about this book is the feeling of empowerment that it will give girls.

--Michelle Teixeira