The Truth: I'm a Girl, I'm Smart and I Know EverythingRave reviews for this book! As a positive psychologist and a school psychologist for over 25 years, I know too well how girls can suffer and feel alone and misunderstood during early crushes. In fact, I consider this issue so important, that it is one of my major themes that the girl in my new book for girls, The Truth, I'm a girl, I'm smart and I know everything, has to deal with. She expresses her deepest feeling to her diary but her own mother and her best friend don't really understand. If only she had had this book! It might have helped. What I love about this book is that feelings are shared and explained as wholesome, and also examples of how to talk to your mom, etc. are given. This book is a great companion book to my book. I can see the author and myself giving a talk where we share the different ways we entered a serious problem, one book nonfiction, one fiction. But we are all trying to help girls feel comfortable with their feelings and feel good about who they are. Wait a minute. I have a radio show, Kids, Tweens and Teens, a Positive Psychologist Looks at all Three. I think I'll invite her to be my guest. Stay tuned!

The Truth: I'm a Girl, I'm Smart and I Know EverythingRave reviews for this book! As a positive psychologist and a school psychologist for over 25 years, I know too well how girls can suffer and feel alone and misunderstood during early crushes. In fact, I consider this issue so important, that it is one of my major themes that the girl in my new book for girls, The Truth, I'm a girl, I'm smart and I know everything, has to deal with. She expresses her deepest feeling to her diary but her own mother and her best friend don't really understand. If only she had had this book! It might have helped. What I love about this book is that feelings are shared and explained as wholesome, and also examples of how to talk to your mom, etc. are given. This book is a great companion book to my book. I can see the author and myself giving a talk where we share the different ways we entered a serious problem, one book nonfiction, one fiction. But we are all trying to help girls feel comfortable with their feelings and feel good about who they are. Wait a minute. I have a radio show, Kids, Tweens and Teens, a Positive Psychologist Looks at all Three. I think I'll invite her to be my guest. Stay tuned!

This book is a must for the young lady getting ready to enter Junior High. Wisely answers many of those troublesome questions regarding boy-girl and girl-girl relationships that create angst for the young lady. Gives young girls a smoother transition to this world of expanded relationships.

I would not suggest this book for a Christian family. The premise is commendable, but the content contradicts how we are trying to raise our daughter. For example, the book offers tips for a first kiss to girls as young as ten, and insinuates that such behavior is normal and acceptable. I have worked with children in this age group, and I know it is possible to balance hormonal changes and desires without experimenting with romantic or physical relationships prematurely. This may work for some families, but Christian parents should use a more biblically sound text, as well as scripture and common sense, to address these issues with their children.

We all know that being a pre-teen girl is not easy. This book provides a matter of fact response and is at their age level so they can understand it. There isn't any lecturing but some common sense advice.
I wish this book were around when I was growing up.

My then 10 year old daughter wanted this book long before I felt she was old enough. I allowed my sister to purchase the book from the American Girl Chicago store since she was visiting the city and give it to my daughter for her 11th birthday. It has good information to keep my daughter happy without too much information. American Girl has a good way of addressing issues for girls without giving information that is best coming from parents. Another great AG publication. I think we have them all!

This book tells u EVERYTHING about boys. It really helped me,so it will help u. The wording is perfect,so it is easy 4 girls any age 2 understand.

I really liked this book because it helped me understand relationships with boys and answered a lot of questions that I had.

I really liked this book because it helped me understand relationships with boys and answered a lot of questions that I had.

Good book bought it for my daughter she really enjoyed reading it. A+++++++++

Good book bought it for my daughter she really enjoyed reading it. A+++++++++

I wasn't going to get this title for my nine year old. I thought she was too young. But she REALLY wanted it, telling me, "Mom, I've had tons of crushes already!" I bought it and read it first. While I still think she's a little young for some of the information (especially the "going together" section toward the end), a lot of it was very age appropriate. Rather than just give it to her, we are reading it together. (Thankfully I have a very open and trusting daughter who doesn't get embarrassed by "growing up" issues.) I explained to her that reading about these things does not give her permission to do them.

I strongly disagree with the review on July 13, 2006. I feel that this is an empowering book for girls. It (like most of the books in this series) aids in building self esteem. I found it full of great advice, reinforcing my values and beliefs.

And, for this age group, I appreciate that it doesn't go into sexual relationships. There is a time and place for those books. I am relieved to be able to give her a book about the feelings and situations with boys that come BEFORE intimate relationships.

Ummm to the lady who said not to buy this I have a question for you; why do u care how its worded? This is a book for girls to be comfortable with, not something from a psychology book! consider that! and your knitpicking! U must have no life to complain about wording. Anyway the book is awesome! It helped my daughter become comfortable enough to talk to me about her crushes! She is totally ready!~

This is a poorly worded and confusing book. This is a good way to get them to be shallow, dumb them down, get them into hellish relationships, and send them running to therapists who themselves need therapy. Giving this to them as a gift is also a good way to insult their intelligence.

Examples of a poorly worded sentence and bad reasoning:

On page 9 "A crush lets you try on all kinds of new feelings..." What the? What does that even mean?

On page 13 the author implies that normalcy is something good. It also used the wrong word for what he or she was talking about. Rather than saying something like, "You might find yourself acting anything other than normal around a boy you like" it should have said, "You might find yourself not acting like you usually do". Am I knitpicking? Yes, but for good reason, because what is normal is not always good, and doing what is "normal" gets a lot of kids killed.

It then compounds the problem more by misusing the word "weird" and says certain behaviors are "weird" and even rates them. But "weirdness" isn't bad in itself either and doing something out of the ordinary can actually save people's lives and does all the time. Rather than weird the authors should have said "crazy" or "bad judgment".

The whole book is poorly worded like that.

It's useful however in that it shows what behaviors are likely to get you made fun of and isolated, and can be helpful for parents too, but definitely do not give this to a newly saved Christian as a gift and not explain what's wrong with it or you may end up leading them astray.

This is a poorly worded and confusing book. This is a good way to get them to be shallow, dumb them down, get them into hellish relationships, and send them running to therapists who themselves need therapy. Giving this to them as a gift is also a good way to insult their intelligence.

Examples of a poorly worded sentence and bad reasoning:

On page 9 "A crush lets you try on all kinds of new feelings..." What the? What does that even mean?

On page 13 the author implies that normalcy is something good. It also used the wrong word for what he or she was talking about. Rather than saying something like, "You might find yourself acting anything other than normal around a boy you like" it should have said, "You might find yourself not acting like you usually do". Am I knitpicking? Yes, but for good reason, because what is normal is not always good, and doing what is "normal" gets a lot of kids killed.

It then compounds the problem more by misusing the word "weird" and says certain behaviors are "weird" and even rates them. But "weirdness" isn't bad in itself either and doing something out of the ordinary can actually save people's lives and does all the time. Rather than weird the authors should have said "crazy" or "bad judgment".

The whole book is poorly worded like that.

It's useful however in that it shows what behaviors are likely to get you made fun of and isolated, and can be helpful for parents too, but definitely do not give this to a newly saved Christian as a gift and not explain what's wrong with it or you may end up leading them astray.

I am twelve years old, and I don't really want a boyfriend, but I bought the book anyway just because it was made by American Girl and I have over thirteen American Girl books... Anyway, this book does have really funny drawings and quizzes (And a Weird-O-Metter, which is really funny). But this book dosen't really have helpful things.

I found this book at the library and it looked interesting, so I started reading it. What I found was basically a girl's guide to everything boy-related. Figuring out whether a boy likes you, turning down a boy who asks you out, surviving crushes, going to dances, being dumped, and much more are included. The illustrations accompanying the text are pretty funny, and many quizzes are also included such as "Are You Boy-Crazy?"

While the advice is pretty good and helpful, I wouldn't recommend this to anybody who actually has boy experience. If you are a first-timer who is just starting to have crushes and such, you would probably find this to be helpful and imformative. If you have boy experience, you probably would know everything that is covered in this book.

This book will give you a lot of helpful tips when to comes to boys!!! I would recomend it for a girl who is just starting to like boys. This book gives you very little explaining though. Sometimes You don`t get what the heck is going on in the comic like pictures. But, still this book is GREAT!! Combines teen magazine with safe and real!

I'm 12 and i think this is a great book for ages 10 and up. (Some say 7 and up, but I don't think 7 year-old's crushes are that "intense" and they don't really have boyfriends.) But anyway, I'm just telling what age group this book should really be.

My Mom got this book for me and it really helped me alot. In my opinion,this book is appropriate for girls 7 and up. I'm 12 and it even helped me. BUY THIS BOOK!!!!!!!!!!

This book is great for us young girls because it talks about relationships with boys, and everything in that book helped me a lot! I think that it's great about telling really young girls about 9-12, about puberty etc.