This is not a puberty book, and there’s no mention of sex beyond a chapter on having a crush and going on a date (which she suggests you can skip if you’re not into that).

Newman keeps it simple with straightforward suggestions on how to give and receive a compliment, how to shut down gossip, how to be a good neighbor. These illustrated vignettes are peppered with sample dialogue and amusing quizzes to drive Newman’s points home and give kids some scripts to follow. Fong’s art is friendly and funny, depicting a diverse cast of young characters (of different races, genders, abilities) as they negotiate various social scenarios. The second half takes kids through bigger-picture topics like being supportive of the marginalized, disrupting bias and contributing to the wider world. The first half of the book focuses on social skills like how to greet someone, how to stand up for yourself, how to show gratitude and how to apologize. “What Can I Say?,” written by Catherine Newman (the etiquette columnist for Real Simple magazine) and illustrated by Debbie Fong (who also collaborated with Newman on “How to Be a Person”), is a primer for tweens on healthy communication and boundaries, how to be an ally, how to care for your community - basically, as Newman spells out in her introduction, “how to talk to the other people in your life.”