Authors: Debra Moffitt
Dear PLS,
My mom REFUSES to let me shave my legsâand I have hairy ape legs. Help!
Anonymous
Dear Anonymous,
This is a common problem. The best thing to do is talk to your mom and CALMLY explain your position. Are you being made fun of at school? Do you dislike the way you look in skirts or shorts? Explain why you'd like to shave your legs. If your mom still says no, negotiate an age when she will be comfortable with you shaving. If she says yes right now, be careful! Be sure to get some lessons from your mom or another girl who knows how to do it safely. Think pink!
Dear PLS,
My crush is acting strange. He is usually happy and funny, but today he yelled at me.
What am I supposed to do?
Confused
Dear Confused,
Crushes can be stressful. It's all so new and strange. Who knows what to expect? But here's one thing we do know: It's not okay for someoneâeven someone you likeâto yell at you and make you feel bad. We hope it doesn't happen again or we'd find a new crush. Think pink!
Girls Can Do It!
Learn more about girls' sports
Best Kept Secret
includes a real-life incident that happened in 1976 at Yale University. It was inspired by women athletes who wanted something simpleâa locker room to change in after practice.
Title IX is a U.S. law that passed in 1972 requiring that boys and girls get the same access to stuff at school, including sports. It started a welcome change: Today about one in three girls plays high school varsity sports. In 1970, it was one in twenty-seven.
Â
Feel your girl power and learn more about women's sports!
Â
Visit the Women's Sports Foundation Web site:
www.womenssportsfoundation.org
Â
Learn more about the Yale incident by watching the film
A Hero for Daisy
.
www.aherofordaisy.com
Â
Go for a run with Girls on the Run International!
www.girlsontherun.org
Every year more than 150 million families, educators, health professionals, and media turn to KidsHealth.org for expert answers, making it the #1 Web site devoted to children's health and development. KidsHealth is physician-led, providing doctor-approved health information about the physical, emotional, and behavioral health of children, from before birth through adolescence. KidsHealth.org features three distinct sectionsâfor parents, for kids, and for teensâeach with its own tone and age-appropriate topics.
KidsHealth is known for its engaging, family-friendly information and has been honored as one of the 30 Best Web sites by
U.S. News & World Report,
one of the 50 Coolest Web Sites by
Time
magazine, and the Best Family Health Site For Moms by
Good Housekeeping.
KidsHealth also created KidsHealth in the Classroom, a free Web site for educators featuring standards-based health curricula, activities, and handouts.
KidsHealth comes from Nemours, one of the nation's largest nonprofit pediatric health systems and a founding member of the Partnership for a Healthier America, a national movement led by First Lady Michelle Obama to solve the childhood obesity challenge. For more information about KidsHealth, please visit KidsHealth.org.
About the Author
Debra Moffitt lives in a house full of boysâwith three sons and one husband. She was a newspaper reporter for more than ten years and is now the kids' editor of KidsHealth.org. That means she gets paid to write about stuff kids care about, like pimples, crushes, and puberty. She'd like to thank all the girls who visit www.pinklockersociety.org. You've asked more than 25,000 questions about growing up and have given tons of kind, thoughtful advice to one another. That's thinking pink!
Also by Debra Moffitt
Only Girls Allowed
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.
BEST KEPT SECRET.
Copyright © 2010 by Debra Moffitt. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.stmartins.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
ISBN 978-0-312-64503-8
First Edition: January 2011
eISBN 978-1-4299-7665-7
First St. Martin's Griffin eBook Edition: January 2011