Based on William Pollack's groundbreaking research at Harvard Medical School over two decades, Real Boys explores this generation's "silent crisis": why many boys are sad, lonely, and confused although they may appear tough, cheerful, and confident. Pollack challenges conventional expectations about manhood and masculinity that encourage parents to treat boys as little men, raising them through a toughening process that drives their true emotions underground. Only when we understand what boys are really like, says Pollack, can we help them develop more self-confidence and the emotional savvy they need to deal with issues such as depression, love and sexuality, drugs and alcohol, divorce, and violence. “Just as Reviving Ophelia opened our eyes to the challenges faced by adolescent girls, Real Boys helps us hear and respond to the needs of growing boys.” —Judith Jordan, Ph.D., Harvard Medical School Featuring a new preface by the author on how parents can make a difference.

Families with boys often find the world reacts to them in mock horror. Even though parents love their sons, privately they admit that boys can be a handful to raise--they are boisterous, competitive, reckless, distractable. The challenge of wills between parent and son starts early, and the quest to civilize young bulls may seem hopeless some days. Yet believers know that God has given them children as a gift of heaven, specially chosen for their particular families and marked as a blessing. If that's so, why does it seem so hard? How can we prepare these boys to serve God when it's all we can do to make it through another day? Isn't there a better way? Raising Real Men: Surviving, Teaching and Appreciating Boys shows the answer is emphatically yes. Written by the parents of six boys, Raising Real Men provides hope and encouragement to families with sons. Starting from the premise that God made boys to become men, Hal and Melanie Young offer Biblical principles and tested, practical ideas for training the manly virtues that can drive parents and teachers up the wall. This is a practical guide to equipping the hearts and minds of boys without breaking or losing your own. "...earthy, realistic, humorous, and scriptural ..." -- Douglas Wilson, author, Future Men "This is just what the doctor ordered for parents who want to raise capable Christian men of character." -- John Rosemond, author, Parenting By The Book

"Pollack follows up on his popular Real Boys (1998) by letting the subjects of that book speak for themselves about the pressures and problems of modern male adolescence."--Booklist.

A young boy emerges from life-saving surgery with remarkable stories of his visit to heaven. Heaven Is for Real is the true story of the four-year old son of a small town Nebraska pastor who during emergency surgery slips from consciousness and enters heaven. He survives and begins talking about being able to look down and see the doctor operating and his dad praying in the waiting room. The family didn't know what to believe but soon the evidence was clear. Colton said he met his miscarried sister, whom no one had told him about, and his great grandfather who died 30 years before Colton was born, then shared impossible-to-know details about each. He describes the horse that only Jesus could ride, about how "reaaally big" God and his chair are, and how the Holy Spirit "shoots down power" from heaven to help us. Told by the father, but often in Colton's own words, the disarmingly simple message is heaven is a real place, Jesus really loves children, and be ready, there is a coming last battle.

Trouble Boys is the first definitive, no-holds-barred biography of one of the last great bands of the twentieth century: The Replacements. With full participation from reclusive singer and chief songwriter Paul Westerberg, bassist Tommy Stinson, guitarist Slim Dunlap, and the family of late band co-founder Bob Stinson, author Bob Mehr is able to tell the real story of this highly influential group, capturing their chaotic, tragic journey from the basements of Minneapolis to rock legend. Drawing on years of research and access to the band's archives at Twin/Tone Records and Warner Bros. Mehr also discovers previously unrevealed details from those in the group's inner circle, including family, managers, musical friends and collaborators.

A heartbreaking and powerful story about a black boy killed by a police officer, drawing connections through history, from award-winning author Jewell Parker Rhodes. Only the living can make the world better. Live and make it better. Twelve-year-old Jerome is shot by a police officer who mistakes his toy gun for a real threat. As a ghost, he observes the devastation that's been unleashed on his family and community in the wake of what they see as an unjust and brutal killing. Soon Jerome meets another ghost: Emmett Till, a boy from a very different time but similar circumstances. Emmett helps Jerome process what has happened, on a journey towards recognizing how historical racism may have led to the events that ended his life. Jerome also meets Sarah, the daughter of the police officer, who grapples with her father's actions. Once again Jewell Parker Rhodes deftly weaves historical and socio-political layers into a gripping and poignant story about how children and families face the complexities of today's world, and how one boy grows to understand American blackness in the aftermath of his own death.

The Real Boys' Workbook is a unique, instructive workbook, full of advice, exercises, and stories to help parents, professionals, and boys themselves understand boys—and how to make life with them better. How to listen to boys, talk and be with them, exercises to teach you new ways to handle situations, and strategies for coping with problems (drug and alcohol abuse, gender identity, depression, bullies) are addressed, as readers are encouraged to respond to questions and situations, to learn how to think about boys with new understanding, and to react more creatively. Through writing down responses in the workbook, using the charts and summaries, and taking part in the provocative question-and-answer sections, you will gain insight into boys and their problems and be better able to be with them in effective and powerful ways.

Tight: Lately, Bryan's been feeling it in all kinds of ways . . . Bryan knows what's tight for him--reading comics, drawing superheroes, and hanging out with no drama. But drama is every day where he's from, and that gets him tight, wound up. And now Bryan's friend Mike pressures him with ideas of fun that are crazy risky. At first, it's a rush following Mike, hopping turnstiles, subway surfing, and getting into all kinds of trouble. But Bryan never really feels right acting so wrong, and drama really isn't him. So which way will he go, especially when his dad tells him it's better to be hard and feared than liked? But if there's one thing Bryan's gotten from his comic heroes, it's that he has power--to stand up for what he feels . . . Torrey Maldonado delivers a fast-paced, insightful, dynamic story capturing urban community life. Readers will connect with Bryan's journey as he navigates a tough world with a heartfelt desire for a different life.

What real boys have to say: "A lot of people use words like 'psycho' or 'wacko' to refer to people who are feeling glum or think they might want to take their own life. I think these sorts of slang terms create further isolation in a teen, and that's not what you want to do to a teen who already feels alone" —Alexander, 18, from a small town in the South "A guy is supposed to be strong, tall, and fast and have the qualities of an ideal athlete. At the same time he's supposed to be smart. He's expected to be nearly perfect." —Chandler, 14, from a suburb in the Northwest "What I hate about this school is that I am being picked on in the halls and just about everywhere else." —Cody, 14, from a suburb in New England In Real Boys, Dr. William Pollack explored the issues that most boys in our nation face today. In this fascinating follow-up bestseller, Pollack goes right to the source: boys ages 10 to 20-evoking the secret struggles and passions of America's adolescent males in their own words. Their voices are searingly honest and eager to be heard, revealing how society's outdated expectations force them to mask their feelings of isolation, depression, longing, love, and hope. We hear from boys and young men in big cities and small towns-including survivors of the Columbine High School massacre-who share compelling, extrordinarily candid stories about bullying, drugs, sports, school, parents, sex, love, and much more. Pollack also offers ways to start a dialog and illustrates through templates what to do in many situations. This is an eye-opening book for teenage boys and girls, but-with its insights and strategies for dealing with their issues-especially invaluable for all the people in their lives.

"In my travels throughout this country, I have discovered a glaring truth: America's boys are absolutely desperate to talk about their lives," says Dr. William Pollack, author of the bestseller Real Boys. Now, in Real Boys' Voices, Pollack lets us hear what boys today are saying, even as he explores ways to get them to talk more openly with us. "Boys long to talk about the things that are hurting them—their harassment from other boys, their troubled relationships with their fathers, their embarrassment around girls and confusion about sex, their disconnection from and love for their parents, the violence that haunts them at school and on the street, their constant fear that they might not be as masculine as other boys." In Real Boys' Voices we hear, verbatim, what boys from big cities and small towns, including Littleton, Colorado, have to say about violence, drugs, sports, school, parents, love, anger, body image, becoming a man, and much, much more. Real Boys' Voices takes us into the daily worlds of boys not only to show how society's outdated expectations force them to mask many of their true emotions, but also to let us hear how boys themselves describe their isolation, depression, longing, love, and hope. How can you get behind the mask of masculinity many boys wear? How can you tell whether a "bad boy" is actually a "sad boy"—and how do you spot the danger signals of depression? How can you grow closer to the boy you love? Pollack explores how to create safe spaces and engage in "action talk," how to listen so a boy will speak the truth about, and be, himself. In the real boys' voices here, boys speak eloquently and truthfully about such topics as shame, bullying and teasing, the pressure to fit in, addictions, how they see the lives of the men they know, the importance of their mothers and fathers, their own spiritual and creative experiences, friendships with other boys and with girls, being gay, and coping with divorce and other losses, including the death of a friend or parent. We also hear what boys from Columbine High School and other places say about fear and violence in their lives. Full of insights from and about young and adolescent boys, William Pollack's Real Boys' Voices is an important, illuminating, and invaluable book, for boys themselves and for all the people in their lives. From Real Boys' Voices " Boys are supposed to shut up and take it, to keep it all in." —Scotty, from a small town in New England " What I hate about this school is that I am being picked on in the halls and just about everywhere else." —Cody, from a suburb in New England " Sometimes people say there are two me's, like I have a dual personality. . . . The public persona is not really who I am. It's a tool . . . to be who everyone wants me to be." —Raphael, from a city in the West " If you see [abuse] coming, just walk out of the room or walk out of the house or go somewhere, go to a friend's house, go for a walk, take your dog for a run, whatever. Just try to get away from that situation before it actually explodes." —Paul, from a suburb in the West " Maybe a couple of times I used to bully some kids. I haven't bullied anyone since the shooting. I try to be nicer to people even if I don't like them." —John, from Littleton, Colorado