femininity – Leah E. Good

Pure and Bright in a World of Darkness.

As you are beginning this book, commit yourself to wanting God’s best in your life–God’s best in your future marriage. Maybe this seems obvious to you. Maybe you’re thinking, “Of course I desire the best in my marriage.” But when it comes right down to it, are you truly willing to make the required sacrifices and to wait for the best?

Many, if not most, girls dream of romance; of meeting their prince charming, being wooed and won, and walking down the aisle. All too often, however, those dreams occupy a disproportionate amount of a young woman’s thought life and distract her from enjoying God’s plan for her before marriage. Before You Meet Prince Charming offers practical and scriptural advice for serving God as a single young woman and preparing for marriage without living in a fantasy world concocted in our dreams.

When I realized that my non-fiction theme would overlap with Valentines Day, I knew I wanted to celebrate with this book. Before You Meet Prince Charming holds a firm place on my favorites list. It is my go-to book (after the Bible!) for encouragement and wisdom in the areas of serving God and delighting in Him during my single years and honoring my future husband now, before I even know him. I also appreciate Sarah’s discretion in avoiding topics that would not be beneficial for young readers. For both tween girls who are just maturing into this season of life and older teens like me, this book is one to treasure and re-read many times over.

Author: Sarah Mally
Audience: Tween to Young Adult
Genre: Inspiration Non-Fiction/Christian Purity
Pages: 259
Publisher: Tomorrow’s Forefathers

Thanks to Aubrey Hansen’s suggestion I will be reviewing an extra book in at least two of our free Wednesdays. Today, I picked Beautiful Girlhood.

Girlhood is the opening flower of womanhood. It has charms all its own. The wonderful blossoming of young, healthy girlhood, will ever be God’s great miracle in life’s garden. Girlhood is like a half-open rose. We are charmed, both by the beauty of the bud and by the wonderful coloring of the rose. We behold the familiar traits of childhood that have always charmed us and held our affections, but blended with these in ever changing variety are the graces and powers of womanhood.

This book offers good, old-fashioned advice based on the Bible. It emphasizes lessons like the importance of being careful about what we say, how to behave like a lady, and the joy of being cheerful. As the back cover says, “What can be more beautiful than the budding and blossoming of girlhood? Those years of transition from childhood to womanhood are filled with wonderful interest and promise. But young feet that travel this way may be unsteady and unsure. Each could use guidance, a helping hand along the way. To encourage our girls to a nobler life and truer ideals is the task of this book.”

This book is admittedly old-fashioned, yet it was one of the shaping forces of my tween years. I could never bring myself to sit down and read the book cover-to-cover, but I returned to it many times over. When I was little, my parents teasingly called me a ragamuffin because I loved my old clothes and hated brushing my hair. This book is what made me start caring about the way my hair and clothes looked. Every time I opened it, I would put it down determined to work on my home-keeping skills or be a better friend. A very few of the minor points expressed in Beautiful Girlhood are too old-fashioned to be carried out today, but most of the content is timeless advice that every girl should be aware of as she grows up.

Author: Mabel Hale, revised and expanded by Karen Andreola
Audience: Middle-Grade to Teen Girls
Genre: Inspirational Non-Fiction
Pages: 205
Publisher: Great Expectations Book Co.