Book: For Girls Only! Devotions

Some of you may justifiably ask just what some guy moving on through middle age is doing writing a review of a book whose title starts For Girls Only! And that was indeed my reaction when I first saw the book in an e-mail from Tyndale House.  Indeed, I had just about deleted the e-mail before I thought, “You know, this particular middle aged guy has two granddaughters, and it’s just possible this might be interesting to them.

So there are contributions from at least three girls to this review:  My wife Jody, my daughter Janet, and my eldest granddaughter Anna.

Two things my wife mentioned after only a few minutes working with the book.  It’s a small, ordinary looking book.  If you expected a large, glossy, children’s book, then you’ll be disappointed.  Second, it was not quite suited to Anna’s age, and in fact she is about a year younger than the lowest age, eight, indicated on the cover.  I thought it might be useful to her, however.

And it turned out to be.  While Janet had to select some of the readings she used, there were many that were applicable.  She sent me this note about the book:

I have found that For Girls Only! Devotions is a really great book if you just want a few moments with your daughter everyday to spend together discussing topics that she may or may not be facing. This book gives a great platform to open talks with her about other things. It’s great for getting the two of you to just sit and talk! Keeping the lines of communication open during this age is crucial!

One thing I don’t like about the book is that there us no way of knowing the subject matter of each devotion before reading the whole thing. If you would like to find one that maybe your child is going through at the moment, you would not be able to find it without reading each one.

I liked the idea of have short devotionals complete with exercises that a parent can do with a child.  Janet also mentioned to me that many of the devotionals deal with issues one might encounter at school, so those devotionals were less relevant to Anna, who is being homeschooled.  At the same time, however, I believe this would be a feature for parents whose children are in public school.

(I received a free copy of this book as part of the Tyndale Bloggers Network for which I want to thank them.)