Love, Sex And Morality. City boy Lockie Leonard is twelve-and-three-quarters years old, terrible at Math and average at most things, but he can surf good for his age. Now Lockie's family has moved to a small, seaside, rural town, and to top that he is going to high school for the first time. He i... more

Love, Sex And Morality. City boy Lockie Leonard is twelve-and-three-quarters years old, terrible at Math and average at most things, but he can surf good for his age. Now Lockie's family has moved to a small, seaside, rural town, and to top that he is going to high school for the first time. He is more nervous than normal, making lots more mistakes and generally turning out a looser no one wants to know. Then Lockie meets Vickie Streeton, the girl of his dreams, and everything changes in his favor. But is everything now as good as he thinks? This very successfully written story is about both sexual awakening and emerging morality. The author achieves this interesting combination by avoiding some of the pitfalls of, for example, prudery, or its opposite, over-sensationalization. The sexuality is always described naturalistically and included as the story demands it. Teenage boys, for example, will enjoy reading a story that reveals that most guys experience some surprise and a little embarrassment when they first have a 'wet dream'. The morality centers on the question of 'when is it the right time for intercourse?' Parents will be relieved to find that, despite all the sexuality, this book does not encourage their children to run out and have intercourse at the first opportunity. The book also has minor themes of law and order, formal religion and social class divisions.