Tender. Exciting. Sweet. Scary. Passionate. Complicated. Kathy Stinson explores sexual anticipation and sexual engagement among teenagers in fourteen short stories comprising this absorbing collection. Stinson’s characters are all adolescent teens, experiencing everything from the first charged feelings of excitement to physical desire and physical pleasure. They are also navigating an array of emotional responses—both their own and others—to their sexual awakening and experience. Two teenage boys hot to score have an unexpected encounter with the mother of a pregnant teen girl. A crush on a boy takes a surprising turn when two teenage girls find unexpected, welcome pleasure with one another. Two developmentally disabled teens in love face patronizing adults and prejudice. A teenage boy agonizes over coming out to his best friend. Another teenage boy is so in love that the responsibility of parenthood seems like a game, albeit a serious one, until he discovers his girlfriend wasn’t playing by the rules. Stinson treats her subject with honesty and her audience with respect in a collection that acknowledges and accepts that many teens are curious about sex and offers them, as she notes in an interview at the volume’s end, “the safe context of a book in which to explore that curiosity.” (Age 12 and older)

A quirky collection of stories about teens in lust and in love. From the first stirrings of same-sex desire to paternity questions around a teen pregnancy, 101 Ways to Dance reflects the spectrum of teen sexuality from the sweet to the scary.