Recent debates about sex education in schools have sparked a conversation about what kids should — or shouldn’t — be learning when it comes to sex.

But frankly, most sex education rarely talks about stuff kids really want to know about — that is how to deal with the emotions, the heartbreak, the negotiations and the confusion involved in being an adolescent whose hormones are just getting kick started.

That’s where today’s glut of young adult fiction can play a role. Fiction is full of characters young people can relate to who are facing things they’re facing, or opening their minds up to things others may be going through.

As Virginia Euwer Wolff writes in True Believer, a coming of age story of 15-year-old girl that, “In the sex class we have to take by school law where they showed condoms and scared us about AIDS, they said sexuality is the most confusing thing about being a teenager.

“I am sure this is correct because I strained my ears to hear over the racket of kids making a joke of the class waving condoms on their fingers hooting. And also because the sex teacher said it four times.”

In her book Two Moons in August, Canadian author Martha Brooks grapples with the tangled emotions of a young girl coming to terms with her mother’s death one summer, and falling for a boy who moves into her neighbourhood but who already has a girlfriend.

And Diana Weiler is one of the few authors who writes books aimed specifically at teenage boys, a group not exactly known for it’s voracious reading habits. But if there’s anything that’s going to get a young guy to turn off the TV or the video game and pick up a book instead, a book that deals with sex is probably a good bet. If it’s one that deals with some of the confusing emotions and issues he’s currently facing, all the better.

The other brilliant thing about young adult fiction is that it offers another tool for plenty of parents, most of whom, quite frankly, would rather have root canal surgery than talk to their kids about sex.

And let’s face it, how many teens really want to talk to their parents about this stuff anyway? That doesn’t mean you can leave a pile of books beside your son or daughter’s bed and tell them to have a good life. But a good book, offers the opportunity to open the discussion, and to broach some of the issues that might not otherwise come up.

Josey Vogels is a sex and relationship columnist and author of five books on the subjects. For more info, visit joseyvogels.com.