"Teenage Girls"

written by Ginny Olson

Reviewed by Murray Brown

Subtitled "Exploring Issues Adolescent Girls Face and Strategies to Help Them", this book interested me both as a youth worker and as a dad. It has much to commend it.

Each chapter covers one aspect of adolescent development specifically as it relates to girls. It covers developmental issues related to the physical, sexual, emotional, intellectual and spiritual dimensions of girls as well as dealing with matters related to identity, dating, self-harm, friendships, families. Chapters are well researched and the author supplies numerous facts and figures along with the occasional anecdote. Because of this the book's strength is primarily as a "textbook" for the youth leader wanting to study the adolescent development of girls. That is not to say it is a dry, intellectual read although their are other books around that are more readable both for youth worker and parent. Yet there are few that deal solely with adolescent development from a female perspective and it is enlightening especially for the male youth leader.

In some sections there was little that was new although I particularly enjoyed the section on friendships which contained some insightful explanations on what occurs within girls' social networks. The chapters on the family and brain development were also very good.

Each chapter concluded with a section on "The Youth Worker's Role" which contained some useful pointers but was in my opinion too brief. Nevertheless this book is worth having as a reference book in understanding what makes the girls in our youth ministries tick.