Several years ago I began a series of books meant to help adolescents with common problems they face. The books also doubled as help for parents who felt uncomfortable talking with their children about certain topics. The books were designed to be mildly humorous anecdotes with a practical solution to the problem at the end of the book. Not all of them hit that goal and some of the solutions I’ve provided have been met with a less-than-enthusiastic response. Be that as it may I continued to write the series.

Having almost no artistic ability myself I’ve had to hire artists to provide the artwork for me. In my first book I hired a teenage student of mine named Victoria Lin. She did fine work and has set the tone I’ve encouraged the other artists to use in the books that followed. You can see some of her artwork below.

The first book I wrote is entitled ‘Alan’s Terrible Boner’. It is about a young boy who awakes one day to his very first boner and has no idea what to do about it. Extremely embarrassed he goes through his day consumed by fear that someone will notice what is happening to him. And, of course, someone does notice. Needless to say it is not a good day for young Alan. The story is exaggerated in several ways including the length of time that Alan has to deal with his problem.

In the end, after Alan has suffered thorough mortification, he ends up in his room bemoaning his fate. His father notices his sons discomfort and teases the reason out of him. At this point his father starts laughing, but not in an unkind way. He tells Alan a story of his own about this particular male issue and then provides a solution going forward.

Although meant as a short story for a younger audience I’ve found many older folk who can relate well to the events that transpire. We all had our own moment of dealing with issues like this one, and even if they felt terrible at the time most of us have moved past that and adopted an amused detachment to what we encountered in our younger years.

As an example: my first time dealing with this particular issue was at a public swimming pool when I was 10 or 11. I had no idea what was happening and hid in the corner of the bathroom for what seemed hours until the problem finally resolved itself. I was terrified and thought something was terribly wrong with me! However, it could have been worse I suppose. After all, no one seemed to notice and eventually I was able to go back out to the pool and continue playing with my friends.

We all have these moments, I’m just trying to capture them for those going through them to realize that they are not quite as big a deal as they think they are.