The Daring Book For Girls

As a rule, I try to avoid gender stereotyping in books and toys. A friend, who was a daring girl herself as a child and never outgrew it (which is a large part of why I love her), had picked up The Dangerous Book For Boys for her son, and the things she was telling me about reading in it had me drooling. This was a book I would have loved to read as a child. Heck, I wanted to read it now. But my oldest is a girl, and I hated to give her the idea such adventures and knowledge were just "for boys."

When I got the chance to get a review copy of The Daring Book For Girls, I went for it, hoping it would be as cool as the one my friend described. Oh, boy - it was perfect.

In it I found over a hundred fascinating articles and activities for independent, spirited, daring girls. It feeds their minds and imaginations with a balance of indoor and outdoor activities, important women in history, things to craft, and knowledge of how to take care of themselves. The sections are concise, excellent for short reading and then getting right into the fun of doing.

I appreciate the inclusiveness. A section on "The Three Sisters" talks about the Iroquois way of growing squash, beans, and corn. There are sections on karate and yoga. When they speak of "Princesses Today" they focus not only on princesses around the world, but their good works and accomplishments, whether service-oriented, academic, or physical.

The overall tone encourages qualities all too often missing in our society today: kindness, self reliance, responsibility. Yet they do it without sounding preachy. The authors come across as intelligent, friendly (grown-up) daring girls, and know how to talk to their audience without talking down or over our heads.

It's a fun, engaging, informative book that I know my daughter, when her reading level hits the right range, will adore. She already likes looking at it and having me tell her about the topics.

"The world is bigger than you can imagine,
and it's yours for exploring -
if you dare."