For Girls Only! Devotions

For Girls Only! Devotions
Written by Carolyn Larsen
Published at Tyndale

About the book
This devotional will help girls’ ages 8-12 apply biblical concepts to their daily lives. Each devotion is written and designed with today’s tween and her issues in mind. Using a Scripture as the theme, each devotion includes a modern-day story and several interactive exercises, including a To-Do list, a quiz, related Scriptures, and quotations that reinforce the lesson. Filled with whimsical and girl-centric art, this fun devotional will be hard for young girls to put down!

Fighting your fears!
Feeling like you don’t measure up!
Dealing with gossip!

For Girls Only! Devotions talks about the issues you face.

Many devotion books tell you what the Bible says; this one does that . . . and more! It also helps you live out what the Bible says. Each devotion includes a story about a real issue, a self-quiz for you to check out how you’re doing, some tips on living out the message, and quotes and Scriptures to reinforce the lesson. It’s a fun way to learn more about living out your faith in real life.

Who is Carolyn Larsen?
Carolyn Larsen has written more than 40 books for children and adults. She is best known as the author of the Little Girls Bible Storybook line of products, which have collectively sold more than one million units. In addition, Carolyn is a speaker who has taught and spoken extensively in the United States and overseas. She is the cofounder of the performing group Flashpoints, which is comprised of five women who share a God-ignited passion to encourage women and girls to know God better through drama, creative movement, signing, and humor. Carolyn is the mother of three and lives with her husband in Glen Ellyn, Illinois.

My Thoughts
My girl is a bit too young to use this book yet – after she will be turning two this month! But I am the type of woman who loves to plan in advance... and I wanted this book for the future. I think the cover page is so cute though – don’t you think?

This devotional for girls is interesting. First of all, everything in the book is written of drawn in purple. Literally! Each devotion start with a verse and a story about an issue that your tween could face wherever she might be. The images accompanying the story are beautifully drawn and humoristic at times. And I sure love the doodles that you find here and there throughout the book. Before I wrote this review, I read quite a number of these devotions and their subsequent pages. The story included in this book can be well understood from the young girls who will read it. And if your daughter have siblings she will related to the ones who are about relationships between siblings.

Once your daughter has read the story, comes a checkup time with a quiz. The idea is for the tween to evaluate herself on a scale of 1 to 5 on specific situations. Then with her answers she can discover her result. First I find it pathetic that the answer key is similar from one devotion to another... which makes it easy for a young lady to twist the answers and make it look better. Also, the answer key is located on the same page as the questionnaire which beats the purpose between you and me. Finally, I am not too fond of these type of questionnaire (which are very popular in tweens and teens magazines) and I am not too impressed to see something like this in a devotional book for girls. I mean, why not include questions with answers lines so that the young lady can write her own thoughts. It would have been more constructive for herself I think.

The next page contains two sections and some famous quotes. The things to do suggest the girls to act on some of the lesson learned during the devotion. Again, I would have liked to see some lines for the young ladies to write some prayer to God about the lesson or to simply answer questions that might be found there. The Things to remember contains scriptures related to the subject of the devotion. Taken from the Old and New Testaments, these scriptures are a good reminder that God has indeed written some specific guidelines on how to live our life. And then there are quotes... and I like the idea of introducing a young person into reading quotes from people from the past.

Bottom line, apart from the fact that I disagree with the self-test section, I think this devotion book can be an excellent tool for young girls. It can be used to introduced them a deeper side of devotions that includes more than just reading something. The thinking process is necessary to grow closer to God.

This review was possible because I received a copy of For Girls Only! Devotions from Tyndale.

For Girls Only! Devotions is available everywhere even at amazon.ca, indigo.ca and christianbook.com.