DEAL WITH IT! A hot new approach to your body, brain and life as a gurl. By Esther Drill, Heather McDonald and Rebecca Odes. Pocket Books pound;12.99. UNDERSTANDING SEX AND RELATIONSHIPS. By Rosemary Stones. Sheldon Press pound;6.99

Britney Spears may promote abstinence before marriage, and so may many other less luscious Americans. But Simon Blake and Gill Frances, two leading sex education campaigners in the UK, contend that teaching children and young people about sexuality by urging them not to do it is not in their best interests. The findings of their wittily titled book should make comforting reading for those who believe in personal, social and health education.

The authors, fresh from a study tour of the United States, conclude that despite the abstinence education lobby’s claims to have reduced teenage pregnancy rates, the British approach of integrating sex and relationships education within PSHE as an entitlement for all children is more positive and far-reaching, giving young people the skills to negotiate their way through relationships.

The abstinence educationists, on the other hand, prescribe a set of values which dictates the right way of doing things and warns of the inherent dangers of not following that route. There is no attempt to help students deal with real-life situations in which communicating their wishes is paramount, and decisions must be made and negotiations struck.

One young American’s comment to the authors suggests the dangers of ignoring this aspect of education: “Kids have two lives; one where they are all-American kids doing what their family tells them, and another when they are with their friends. Adults have no idea about kids’ lives - what they think and what they do.”

Blake and Frances argue that young people should have the ability to say no to sex that they don’t want, but that they should also be able to enjoy and take responsibility for sex when they do want it. By insisting that sex outside marriage is harmful to physical and mental health and future relationships, the abstinence lobby is paving the way for a generation of young people not only burdened with fear and guilt, but lacking the confidence and skills to make important choices for themselves.

As if designed to invoke apoplexy among those who say “just say no”, two other new books set out to give young people the information they need and want. Deal With It!, by the founders of online magazine gurl.com, is a self-consciously cool and trendy American guide to puberty and adolescence. Beyond the graphics and names of girls who have written in with problems and advice (“giga8pet”, “xylish”), and despite the odd colloquialism in the quoted and sometimes suspect passages (“it sucks when friends die”, “a lot of guys are total perverts and assholes”), this is a rather conventional book using rather conventional language (in its chapter on religion, it talks about Judaism being the world’s first monotheistic religion. How polysyllabic is that?).

But get beyond the curious divisions of chapters into sections on “body”, “sexuality”, “brain” and “life”, and there is a lot of solid information in these overly designed pages for “gurls” aged 13 and above.

Altogether more dowdily British (in the best possible way) is Rosemary Stones’s more considered and intelligent book for the older teenager, containing references to Freud in a discussion on homosexuality, the social context of sex, changes in family structures and legislation and the relativism of pornography.

Probably not every teenager’s cup of tea, but a worthwhile reference book to have around.

REVA KLEIN