The Care & Keeping of You: The Body Book for Girls (American Girl Library)

Appropriate for preteens

The book coveres a lot of self care like teeth brushing, showering, and the basics. The last part of this book is about menstruation and body hair. There is no sex talk like some other puberty books.

Sensible, honest, open communication approach.

My oldest daughter is approaching the pre-teen years, and I knew I'd have to get her a book that explains all the stuff I learned in 'sex ed', but I didn't want to give her all the psycho-babble that came with my class.

I like this book because it is simply a how-to of body care. The approach is, "you've got a body, and you're growing up, and you're going to have to take more responsibility for taking care of your body. Now, since you're growing up, there are some things that will change about caring for your body..."

The book covers such innocuous topics as brushing your teeth and taking care of your hair. But it explains also about braces, and how to prevent head lice, and how often to shower. How to handle body odor and what to do when hair starts growing in new and unusual places. Nutrition, exercise and athletes feet are addressed.

Of course, there is plenty of data on how to find a bra that fits. What happens when a girl menstruates, and how to practice good hygiene. There is a brief discussion about body image, and it's all very positively handled in the book.

The only part that I thought wasn't totally correct was the bit on nutrition. It assumes that the "food pyramid" is a correct diet for everyone and it says that a person should eat all these grains every day. (When in reality, a huge number of people are allergic to grains, and most people can survive better on just vegetables, fruit and protein. Of course, the cereal companies gave the government educational system lots of money to promote the massive grain consumption, so there you go. It's now part of our "education". I do feel this was a little slip in this book. They bought into the government-pushed propaganda, and I didn't like that. Other than this, though, the book is just excellent.

I highly recommend this book for anyone with a pre-teen daughter. Very useful, and positive.

Terrific book for Pre-Teens

Awesome! Perfect for parents, like me, too shy to discuss it