I wanted to like this and have a book about which I could say that I wish I had written or read when I was a teen, however my honest opinion does not grant me my wish.

On the positive side, many of the tips compiled in this book are indeed helpful and accurate, and the objective to empower children is well-intended.
The illustrations are 5/5 stars.

Though, I expected lesser touched on, more specific and interesting skills and tips, and the more common ones to be more specific - still concise and child-friendly, age-appropriate - but more comprehensive and nuanced.

The inclusion of mental health tips and budgeting skills were great.

The lunch bag ideas felt unoriginal. Not entirely healthy either - in a more detailed list, I would have accepted pizza, especially home-made pizza with more nutritious ingredients.

Overall I found it on-the-nose, unoriginal and lacking in depth and scope.

As a parent, I found Lisa Quirk Weinman's Essential Life Skills for Girls to be an invaluable resource for my daughter. The book covers a wide range of essential skills that every young woman should know, from household chores and financial management to social etiquette and stress management.

Weinman's clear and concise writing makes the book easy for young readers to understand and apply. The comprehensive approach ensures that girls are prepared to handle various life situations, fostering independence, confidence, and success.

I highly recommend Essential Life Skills for Girls to any parent looking to equip their daughter with the tools she needs to thrive in today's world.

This book is educational guide for girls from 10 to 14 years old. In a very inspiring way educated everything from how to clean the home, how to prepare the meal, how to be effective at studying, how to safe the money, how to be good yourself and with your family and friends. And how to take care for your health and hygiene. This book is a great gift for birthday with one flower or chocolate! I strongly recommend it to read this and make sure that girls will be more confident and happy with all new knowledge from it! I will buy one book for my kids in family!
Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book and to make recommendations for this great book for girls!

"Essential Life Skills for Girls" immediately grabs your attention with its relevant premise. Authored by a pair of experienced middle school teachers, the book offers a clear understanding of the challenges and triumphs faced by this age group.

This book shines with its wealth of practical knowledge. From the well-organized and user-friendly layout to the engaging writing style, "Essential Life Skills for Girls" makes learning enjoyable. The authors avoid complex vocabulary, ensuring every concept is easy to grasp. Impressively comprehensive, the book covers a vast array of skills many might not even consider, empowering girls to become self-sufficient young women. The emphasis on fostering independence is particularly valuable, as it builds confidence during this critical developmental stage.

While the text is easy to follow, the occasional absence of visuals can make some sections feel lengthy. There really needs to be an addition of images and digrams to break things up a bit. Additionally, there are a few questionable recommendations, such as favoring pizza over quesadillas for protein in lunches. The food section is particularly concerning, as the target audience is at such an impressionable age. Overall, however, these are minor drawbacks in an otherwise exceptional resource.

"Essential Life Skills for Girls" is an informative and engaging read for young women. Its clear structure, practical advice, and encouraging tone make it a valuable addition to any girl's bookshelf.

Thank you, NetGalley, for an ARC copy of this book!

Great book for young girls. It’s an introduction of various skills. It gives enough to spark a conversation. I would definitely get this for my nieces.

I'm glad to have gotten this one and previewed it. My tween definitely needs to read it but I like that it's written for her - not for me. It's a great resource for things that she won't listen to from mom but are still great things to know.

#netgalley
#essentiallifeskillsforgirls

A book that gives instructions on how to do the most basic tasks such as washing clothes, changing batteries, cooking, etc. Most are very simple so children might already know them but it would still be useful for children to read the book because there might be important things to learn like how to safely cut while cooking.

Appreciated this opportunity to review Essential Life Skills for Girls by Lisa Quirk Weinman and Megan Monaghan. There were certainly a good number of life skills, but I question if these are really life skills *for girls*… the gendering of some of the skills/tasks referenced made this book a touch questionable for this reader. Thanks to NetGalley, the authors, and publisher for the opportunity to review this ARC.

Good information and well thought out. Thorough. But there is literally no need to say it’s “for girls.” And in 2024, the implication will likely be off-putting for most in the target demographic. It was off-putting generally.

I loved this, just wish it was renamed maybe "for Middle School Girls" as I don't see a lot of my freshies picking this up. However, the language is kind and I love that it explains the use of I-Statements and even has informative sections on school and academics. A few years ago, we had a program come into our schools for our girls that was meant to help them peer-facilitate hard conversations, and I remember a girl asking, "well what happens when it's an adult?" and the program person not understanding. Bravo for Weinman and Monaghan for including these types of scenarios to manage student-adult difficult conversations, like how to address homework or being asked to not talk as much etc.

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Very well done! Everything a 10-14 year old needs to know!!!! If I can get mine to read it, it will be so helpful. Thank you forwriting this!

This is a fun and playful guidebook for tweens, with lots of helpful tips in a variety of categories. As the mom of a teen and a tween, some of the tips seemed incredibly simple, but I'm sure I would have found it very helpful when I was younger and had to figure out many things on my own (or with the help of a book). I know my girls will probably read through it once or twice and learn something new!

Essential Life Skills for Girls could easily be titled "Essential Life Skills for Everybody". It was a quick-paced, easy to read, guide to becoming a functioning adult. As an adult, I found myself reading through the list-like text, nodding my head, and realizing that I need to buy this book to have in the library, as well as for my own teenage daughters. I also found myself realizing that I could also learn from this book.
This book was very easy to read, with just enough illustrations to break up the text into bite size pieces. Does it have everything we want our children to know going out in the world? Of course not; but, it is a very good addition to the skills we try to instill in our teenagers/young adults.
As always, it can be difficult to entice the target audience to read a book on the subject of life skills, but this book is engaging enough to keep one reading it, once it is picked up. It is also organized in a way that it can be put down and picked up later, or read by chapter of interest and one will still walk away knowing more than before they picked it up.
Definitely recommend libraries to put this on their shelves.

'Essential Life Skills for Girls' is something I think all girls 10-14 could use to learn things and become independent and confident in their skills. That being said, while many of these things could be one based on these instructions, I think some more pictures would have been useful. For example, the instructions for operating manual and electric can openers are thorough, but if a child doesn't know what they look like because they're not used to seeing it, they're not going to be able to find it. I do love that the authors included emergency skills such as putting out a kitchen fire and practicing first aid. I wish these kinds of books were around when I was younger. We plan to use these types of books, including this one, for my family as our daughters grow so they can become confident in skill-building and in becoming independent.

I am giving this 4 stars based on some of the content. I felt the first part with cleaning tips are things many kids, boys and girls, know. I did like the self help part - screwing something back together, using a plunger and clothes cleaning is always helpful. I would have rather seen tips for emergencies, such as a water leak (where to turn the water off) or power. What if there is a weird smell like rotten eggs. These are important and everyone should know how to deal with emergencies. I did like most the other parts dealing with social media, peer pressure, how to self advocate. Young girls need guidance on this area as they can become passive. Overall, this title did have many useful tips, but I wasn’t keen on all the cleaning parts I also would have liked to see more cooking information. How to read a recipe and maybe some easy recipes to do.

I would like to thank #netgalley #zeitgeist for the opportunity to review this title.

I think this is a great book for girls that don't have the adult guidance in their life. It helps to explain how to do things in a simple way and also the skills that are essential in getting through life. My girls are growing up on a farm with a butcher shop so a lot of these skills they are already have but being in the school system, I can see a lot of girls with no moms and broken families that could really appreciate this book and the guidance it gives!

This is a nice concise guide to make sure your daughter or another tween in your life is prepared for teen- and adulthood. The sections make it easy to use as a quick guide in areas in which they can improve. Or they can read cover to cover to find areas they might not be as strong in, and shore up ones they know well.

This guide will be a welcome addition at my library, where women are not always taught to be savvy or independent.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

This book is really great. It’s laid out so it’s very easy to understand. It gives fantastic detailed information of actual skills that we need to know. The illustrations are cute too.
I appreciate how the life skills given are first focused on taking care of yourself and then goes into cleaning, clothing care and cooking before moving on to safety then ending with sound body and mind.
I will be purchasing this for a few girls I know once it’s released.


Thanks to NetGalley, the publisher and especially the authors for the opportunity to read this advanced reader copy.

I downloaded this book under the guise of reading it to potentially give to my 11 year old niece, but actually ended up finding it helpful for myself! I'm 43 and learned a few things from this book, so I am in full support of tweens and preteens and teenagers reading it to get prepared for life. And while moat of it does gear towards girls, I think kids of all genders can benefit from this.

A great guide for girls 10-14. Wish I'd had this when I was growing up! Easy to read and packed with actionable tips and wisdom to help girls prepare for real life. A gem!