This is the ideal daily devotion featuring updated four color art and content for young readers to either read or for parents to read to their children.

Award-winning author Jeanne Marie Laskas has charmed and delighted readers with her heartwarming and hilarious tales of life on Sweetwater Farm. Now she offers her most personal and most deeply felt memoir yet as she embarks on her greatest, most terrifying, most rewarding endeavor of all…. A good mother, writes Jeanne Marie Laskas in her latest report from Sweetwater Farm, would have bought a house in the suburbs with a cul-de-sac for her kids to ride bikes around instead of a ramshackle house in the middle of nowhere with a rooster. With the wryly observed self-doubt all mothers and mothers-to-be will instantly recognize, Laskas offers a poignant and laugh-out-loud-funny meditation on that greatest–and most impossible–of all life’s journeys: motherhood. What is it, she muses, that’s so exhausting about being a mom? You’d think raising two little girls would be a breeze compared to dealing with the barely controlled anarchy of “attack” roosters, feuding neighbors, and a scheme to turn sheep into lawn mowers on the fifty-acre farm she runs with her bemused husband Alex. But, as any mother knows, you’d be wrong. From struggling with the issues of race and identity as she raises two children adopted from China to taking her daughters to the mall for their first manicures, Jeanne Marie captures those magic moments that make motherhood the most important and rewarding job in the world–even if it’s never been done right. For, as she concludes in one of her three a.m. worry sessions, feeling like a bad mother is the only way to know you’re doing your job. Whether confronting Sasha’s language delay, reflecting on Anna’s devotion to a creepy backwards-running chicken, feeling outclassed by the fabulous homeroom moms, or describing the rich, secret language each family shares, these candid observations from the front lines of parenthood are filled with love and laughter–and radiant with the tough, tender, and timeless wisdom only raising kids can teach us.

“Mackoff’s strategies for enhancing girls’ self-esteem and creating equal opportunity are clear, practical, and most important, achievable.”—Peggy Orenstein, author of School Girls: Young Women, Self-Esteem, and the Confidence Gap “IS THAT YOUR DAUGHTER? ISN’T SHE PRETTY?” Like parents of girls everywhere, psychologist Barbara Mackoff often heard her young daughter Hannah dismissed with those words. So often that she started to reply: “And she’s smart too.” Hoping to counter the culture that she feared would stereotype her daughter and diminish her confidence, Dr. Mackoff spent three years searching for strategies to nurture Hannah’s growing sense of self. The result is Growing a Girl. Offering hundreds of specific suggestions and tools for fostering a daughter’s independence and individuality, Growing a Girl encourages parents to act now by exploring seven practical paths. Based on clinical research and Dr. Mackoff’s highly acclaimed Growing a Girl workshop, this extraordinary book offers parents the skills to shatter stereotypes that can stunt a daughter’s growth while giving her the tools to nourish her strength, spirit, and capacity to care. YOU WILL DISCOVER: • How gender stereotyping starts at birth—and how you can prevent it • Why she can wear a velvet dress to the ballet and still climb to the treetops • What to do about Barbie dolls and traditional fairy tales—without spoiling your daughter’s fun • How to discover and honor her feelings • How to counteract our culture’s emphasis on physical beauty • How to bring home heroines—in books, magazines, movies, and in her community • How to recognize and strengthen your daughter’s learning style—and build on her natural interesting science and math • And more.

In the early years of the twentieth century, Americans began to recognize adolescence as a developmental phase distinct from both childhood and adulthood. This awareness, however, came fraught with anxiety about the debilitating effects of modern life on adolescents of both sexes. For boys, competitive sports as well as "primitive" outdoor activities offered by fledging organizations such as the Boy Scouts would enable them to combat the effeminacy of an overly civilized society. But for girls, the remedy wasn't quite so clear. Surprisingly, the "girl problem"?a crisis caused by the transition from a sheltered, family-centered Victorian childhood to modern adolescence where self-control and a strong democratic spirit were required of reliable citizens?was also solved by way of traditionally masculine, adventurous, outdoor activities, as practiced by the Girl Scouts, the Camp Fire Girls, and many other similar organizations. Susan A. Miller explores these girls' organizations that sprung up in the first half of the twentieth century from a socio-historical perspective, showing how the notions of uniform identity, civic duty, "primitive domesticity," and fitness shaped the formation of the modern girl.

This is the ideal daily devotion featuring updated four color art and content for young readers to either read or for parents to read to their children.

The must-have parenting book for parents with daughters. After the huge success of Growing Great Boys comes this companion title focusing on girls. There are many issues today to challenge girls and their parents. This book gives support and advice to parents in the same way that Growing Great Boys has done. It includes some general chapters on the nature of girls; girls and mothers; girls and fathers; solo parenting; preschool girls; middle years, and teen girls. Throughout the text Ian and Mary also address these topics: the delightful side of girl-culture as well as the negative side; the special challenges of our current culture - the rise of the brainless bimbo; girls and success - those things which impact a girl's likelihood of success; girls and friendships; girls and self-esteem - character is more important than curves; fun and communication - girl-style; preparing for puberty; building blocks for a meaningful life; mentoring a girl; and lots more.