Wow! If you have a girl in your life, you need to check this book out! It is a step by step guide for everything a girl should know. I loved it because the things in this book are fun activities, many of them that are being quickly forgotten in our overly plugged in world. You don’t need tons of money or the latest gear- you need imagination and patience and it will teach you skills like how to play 4-square, how to press flowers, how to do 5 Karate moves & how to tie your hair up with a pencil. It also had section on dealing with tough friend situations, finances and a great one page section on boys that basically said be yourself- you’re good enough. The whole book was old school fun for the new age girl- focused on balance, growth, confidence and happiness. I loved that the book also included a lot of feminist facts and pointed out some of the remarkable women of our time.

The book was also very gender balanced. One might worry that a book with the words “for girls” in the title that it is going to be all lipstick and sparkles, but it isn’t. The book includes the periodic table of elements. It includes how to make a volcano, which is something I loved to do when I was a girl. It teaches weather patterns and clouds and how to build a campfire- all things that I remember learning when I was a girl, but which might easily be forgotten and passed over in today’s world.

We need kids who get to be kids. I want mine outside in the mud being imaginative and figuring out how things work. I want mine to understand how to use today’s technology, but not to be so encumbered by it that they miss out on the simple pleasures of this world. It frightens me that children are so easy to placate and pacify with a screen in front of them. I see video games like Guitar Hero and can’t help but wonder why in the world a parent would buy that rather than a real guitar and a few lessons. Our kids need to be building real skill. They need to be trying things out, seeing where they fit and what makes them tick. This book is loaded with ideas at a level a girl could understand, and should be in the library of every parent who ever needed a cure for boredom.