Advice guides for tweens are always tricky. They can't talk down to readers, and they can't sound too much like your mom. Every girl wants to see herself somewhere within the pages, and when she recognizes herself, she wants to feel good about the changes that she can make.Marlene Wallach, the President of Wilhelmina Kids & Teens Modeling Agency, along with Grace Norwich, has put together a lifestyle guide that gets it right.
Using a magazine style format, girls can easily read through sections of advice about confidence, fitness and friendship. From the "Ten Commandments of a Better Body Image" (involving advice such as surrounding yourself with supportive friends, the importance of wearing clothes that are comfortable to you, and respecting your body) to fun activities for boosting self esteem (talking positively to yourself in the mirror, doing improv with your friends, and finding activities to do on your own), readers are bound to find something that speaks to them. Quizzes and lists round out the chapters, and I can picture friends breaking this book out during a sleepover and discussing their answers. There are also real girl stories, dealing with an assortment of topics such as being biracial, starting a business, and moving to a new country.
This spiral bound book mixes photographs of girls, with tween friendly cartoons and graphics. Inspiring quotes from famous people ranging from Oprah to Confucius pepper the text.
While the girls shown are of differing races and ethnic groups, it would be nice to see girls of varying body types and sizes in the pages. Since Wallach is the head of a modeling agency, I am assuming most girls featured are models. It is nice to see many smiling faces with braces, since so many tweens are going through the same thing, but a few more differences might be nice!
Overall, this is exactly the kind of book that I recommend to parents when they want to help their daughters out with self esteem and the tween/early teen years. There are 3 additional titles in the series: My Beauty: A Guide to Looking & Feeling Great, My Life: A Guide to Health and Fitness, and My Look: A Guide to Fashion & Style.
2 comments:
Sounds good to me! Sarah is so at that stage right now, and Allison is coming up to it fast.
Look like the perfect books to add to a tween non-fiction collection. Put all four of them on-order at my library.
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