[Poll Book Tally] Girling Up: How to be Strong, Smart and (etc) by Mayim Bialik 2 stars

[Karin]

Another surprise for this one, but after reading it I think it fits and several people have shelved it psychology and similar tags. It certainly covers things like depression, stress and other emotional things that are related to this.

Sure, I am not the target audience for this book, but I not only have 3 kids ages 20-25, I spent 11 years homeschooling between one and three of them at a time (many of them with all 3) so I have looked at many books on health and wellness, etc. and was the first to teach my kids on these topics, but not the last since they moved to public high school later.

First of all, when I read the book blurb I wasn't expecting a laywoman's Health and Wellness class for young girls that includes sex education--at least 2 chapters on that part. After reading it, I put it in the book where I urge parents to read it before giving to their daughters to be sure that their daughters are a. ready for it and b. that it doesn't contradict your family's ideas on what is age appropriate. While she doesn't go into the kind of thing I am going to mention, I was reminded of an article I read in the Wall Street Journal when I was pregnant with my first and we got it at the office (for business reasons, but there were at least three articles that made enough of an impact that I still remember them 26 years later even if I read something them with a pregnancy brain). It was a thoughtful article by a male journalist about how one day is daughter, who was in grade 5 or 6, came home feeling completely violated because of the TMI that Calfornia schools were giving kids at that age. I will state for the record, that Bialik doesn't go as far as that curriculum did (by the way, I met, IRL, teachers who moved to the also liberal state I live in because they were uncomfortable teaching that level of information to middle school aged children), but she goes farther than some, and perhaps many, prepubescent girls are ready for.

But she also writes about diet and nutrition--I am not convinced that a celebrity should be discussing this with kids, either, especially controversial diets that difficult to do well such as veganism, particularly in growing children. Call me old-school, but I still think that veganism is a choice to be made by adults and, ideally, not imposed on children who I firmly believe ought to be more omnivorous but this review is not the place for an indepth discussion of this, nor are the comments, but more information for parents who ought to read this before giving it to their very young daughters.

Personally, I am not a fan of learning all of this from a celebrity, and her Ph.D in science is not in this field, and personally, I think too much permission is given too soon for most kids given that it is addressed to girls who haven't yet reached menarche. A 9 year old who has reached menarche is not the same as a 16 year old who is just reaching menarche, and of course their is a big range in between. Even in my generation I had friends who reached it at 9 (even white ones) and as old as 17, so even if the average age has dropped a bit, for the most part the ages are the same, although there may be more precocial puberty (reaching menarche before age 9, etc)

I didn't give this one star because some of this I liked and thought that were helpful to read from a celebrity--they really do have real life problems like being bullied/teased at school, self esteem issues, and more, and she didn't have a lot of money in her life before her acting career, etc. But she ...