Value wIT: Daring Girls

I was excited to be on the Parent Blogger Network list to review The Daring Book for Girls by Andrea J. Buchanan and Miriam Peskowitz because I own a daring girl and was curious to find out what to do with her!

To give a complete picture of my Daring Girl, when she was three years old, she slipped out of the house one night and walked to the downtown 7-11 to get a Slurpee. The 7-11 employee who brought her home said Daring Girl climbed onto the counter, helped herself to a Slurpee, picked out a Care Bear cookie and brought her items to the register. Noticing that she was in her pajamas, the clerk asked Daring Girl where her mother was. After careful consideration Daring Girl replied, “My mother is probably asleep.” You can see how I was hopeful this book would contain the instructions on how to raise a daring girl.

When the buff and sweaty UPS man knocked on my front door to deliver said book it was my pleasure to open it...the excitement continued as I ripped into the package to find something daring. The book was gorgeous and textbook large! What a shocker. I was expecting a small book, not a large, beautiful book that would make a great gift for a girl.

Seriously, the book is lengthy at 280 pages and reads much like a textbook. The cover says “for every girl with an independent spirit and a nose for trouble, here is the no-boys-allowed guide to adventure.” With claims like that I expected to hear how to toilet paper a house, how to spy on a neighbor, how steal your grandmother’s car or how to cool a six-pack in a stream and keep it hidden for three years. Instead the book is little more wholesome and instructs girls how to make a sit-upon, do back walk-overs, and write appealing thank you letters.

The Daring Book for Girls is a nice sitting-on-the-shelf book and a conversational gift item that will make the recipient’s parents think you are smart and have old-fashioned enviable values. I would certainly buy it (or re-gift it) as a gift for a girl between the ages of 7-10 so that the girl’s parents would think I am socially conscious and talk about me after the birthday party. Reading all 280 pages is daring.