Book Description
Adding honor as a factor in raising kids …and parent-child relationships.
Dr. Scott Turansky and Joanne Miller offer a thorough program for establishing honor as a basis of family life — not just children honoring parents, but parents respecting children and children honoring each other. Even if honor seems a long way off in your household, you will find practical suggestions here to bring that goal a little closer — suggestions for kids of all ages. Honor is the biblical value that will bring about good behavior. It’s more than just changing what kids do; it’s changing the deeper issues of the heart that triggered the behavior.
Customer Reviews:
A Must Read for Any Parent.......2007-05-15
A breakthrough for familial relating, this book points to the heart directing our actions. What motivates us when interacting with one another? It should be honor: a desire to treat someone as special, to go above and beyond, all with a good attitude. Applying the principles in this book will dramatically affect any family and work to eliminate the bad attitudes in all of us.
great suggestions and direction with christian insight.......2006-03-14
many idenifying stories and great, helpful suggestions. Really helped me with my two daughters 10 -12 years old. Honor, a lost concept in our world today. But a key concept to self esteem and esteeming others properly.
GREAT parenting book!.......2005-08-24
I heard about this book through my church Sunday School class. It is GREAT! Offers wonderful and practical advice on how to parent to the "heart" of the child. Teaches parents the difference between a child "respecting" his parents and a child "honoring" her parents. I've read MANY parenting books but this one really opened my eyes up. Am I disciplining just to get the right response and just to "look" like a good parent? Or am I truly teaching my children the right behavior through the right attitude? Most helpful book. You won't be disappointed! PS - Our church also used teaching video made to accompany book (sold seperately)..it was *okay*...the book is MUCH more useful.)
Wow! An actual answer to many of my parenting questions!.......2004-02-03
The authors conducted a parenting seminar at my church a couple of years ago. I thoroughly enjoyed it and felt like I got a lot out of their presentation, but decided not to buy their book since I'd taken detailed notes. After several weeks, I found myself asking questions about some of the practical applications of their "honor-based" method of parenting. Eventually, I stopped doing it and went back to my previous free-form ideas and style. One day my two older children had been picking on each other mercilessly and whining beyond belief. I decided to buy a copy of Turansky and Miller's book to see if it would make a difference having the book itself handy for reference and taking notes. Much to my surprise, after reading the book and taking notes about the practicals details of teaching my children about "showing honor" to other family members, I noticed a difference in our family dynamics the first day! It's been quite awhile now that we've been implementing these ideas, and this weekend I had a group of middle school youth at church comment to me about how my children actually like their siblings and treat each other with kindness and respect. Evidently the kids who were talking to me thought this was really, REALLY unusual ... brothers and sisters who actually like each other? Who make an effort to be nice and speak kindly to each other (and about each other)? Wow ... what a concept. It was so encouraging to realize that the fruit of "honor" in our family was evident to others, too. I highly recommend this book!
Great Practical book.......2002-11-26
I found that many books can tell you what you should be doing but unless they have practical advice on how to do it then it doesn't help. This book does. It also was very helpful to have actual examples in each chapter.
Book Description
BAD agent Sydney Westbrook must find the perfect assassin for a risky counter-terrorism mission. J.D. Steele, a military sniper whose attitude problem landed him in prison, seems a good candidate. But as they're dragged into a secret world of freelance killers, Sydney begins to discover the man of honor and passion beneath Steele's arrogant façade. It's a man even Steele didn't know he could be -- and a man whose mission will risk the life of the only woman he's ever loved....
Download Description
"BAD agent Sydney Westbrook must find the perfect sniper for a risky counter-terrorism mission. J.D. Steele, a military sniper whose attitude problem landed him in prison, seems a good candidate. But as they're dragged into a secret world of freelance killers, Sydney begins to discover the man of honor and passion beneath Steele's arrogant façade. It's a man even Steele didn't know he could be -- and a man whose mission will risk the life of the only woman he's ever loved... "
Customer Reviews:
Not too bad!.......2007-03-06
Like all of Sherrilyn Kenyon's books, this new series starts out with a bang. Steele is strong and gorgeous, Sydney is her typical female character, not stunningly beautiful (even though she looks like Angeline Jolie but heavier). The plot was good, the main and secondary characters are always fun to read about. My only problem with the book and hence only 4 stars, was I found the ending a little anti-climatic. I was expecting a big finish and it seemed to wimper and fizzle out. But all in all, it was a fast and good read. I would definitely recommend it if you are one of her fans, which I am.
Bad is defintely good.......2006-11-17
Sydney Westbrook is an agent for the Bureau of American Defense (BAD). She must find an assassin to foil the plot to kill the President of Uhbukistan. If the President is killed the consequences could lead to a grave terrorist attack.
Josh Steele a military sniper is in prison for shooting at his senior after his friend and collegue was killed in battle due to a bad command. He is offered a deal to be free of prison if he agrees to be BAD's assassin to stop the President of Uhbukistan being killed. Josh agrees to gain his freedom and is teamed up with Sydney.
This book is hot and Josh is drop dead gorgeous. The chemistry between Sydney and Josh sizzles off the pages. Together they save the day and get hot and bothered involved with each other on the way. Miss Kenyon delivers a fast paced thriller with hot steamy sex between the two main antagonists.
Lea Ling Tsang
good 'n bad.......2006-11-03
As with all of Sherrilyn Kenyon's books "Bad Attitufe" was a great read. I love her characters. The story keeps your interest from the first page to the last, leaving you with a sense of almost loss when finished. I keep looking around for another of her books immediately after I am done reading one.
Loved it!.......2006-10-08
I love the way she turns characters you love to hate, to characaters you just love. Lots of fun interplay from T and Joe as well.
Sniper and BAD girl make a sensuous duo.......2006-08-18
Hot headed sniper Josh Steele is serving a 25 year sentence for shooting his commanding officer after his best friend is killed in Iraq. Needing him for a counterterrorism mission, he gets an offer he cannot refuse from the Bureau of American Defense (BAD) - if he becomes a government assassin, he gets a get out of jail free pass. The assignment is made all the more enticing when he is paired with sexy special agent Sydney Westbrook as his partner.
Sydney is a by-the-book agent lost in a boy's club, and her attractive looks mean she won't get taken seriously by the boys. She takes this assignment hoping to make a name for herself once for all, and despite her many intimacy issues, finds herself drawn to the sexy sniper. Josh is a loner on the edge - expendable if you will - in Sydney, he finds a reason to return from his mission.
As always with Kenyon, it is sex, sex, and more sex. Thank God she can also plot out a storyline, because she brings what could have been one-dimensional characters alive and keeps the reader completely enmeshed as the sensuous adrenaline-filled story unfolds.
Book Description
Rudeness, laziness, apathy, backtalk, and self-centeredness....this description fits many teens, pre-teens, and younger children, but these behaviors may be helped or even halted by diet in as little as one week. Dr. Audrey Ricker, author of the bestseller Backtalk and Whining, realized that families fight over these issues, resulting in acrimony and doctors bills, when many foods and supplements can cure rudeness. Bad Attitude also includes strategies to help kids understand and accept these diet changes. Research studies support all the recommendations given by the authors, and Dr. Brian Cabin, a practicing pediatrician, shows clinical proof that kids can become the great youngsters you used to know once again. Getting your child to behave doesnt have to be a battle.
Customer Reviews:
Gives Managers the Tools!.......2002-08-15
I found this book to be extremely helpful for diagnosing problematic behavior and sound advice as to methods of correcting it. I have shared this book with many of my managers and they are converts!
A great book for people who manage people........1999-03-08
Chambers shows ways that managers can identify underlying employee behavior problems and the steps to take and skills needed to make positive changes. The book includes a self-assessment for rating management style and organizational environment, twelve key questions for analyzing causes of problems, and many more very applied guidelines. This is a highly useful-recommended. A great book for people who manage people.
This is a wonderful book for positive work change!.......1999-01-25
This book is well organized with specific suggestions to initiate and maintain positive change in the workplace. It is hopeful; it speaks of respect. It holds many, many ideas for improvement of relationships and work productivity . I very highly recommend its reading.
Book Description
At twenty-three, Wendy Shalit punctured conventional wisdom with A Return to Modesty, arguing that our hope for true lasting love is not a problem to be fixed but rather a wonderful instinct that forms the basis for civilization. Now, in Girls Gone Mild, the brilliantly outspoken author investigates an emerging new movement. Despite nearly-naked teen models posing seductively to sell us practically everything, and the proliferation of homemade sex tapes as star-making vehicles, a youth-led rebellion is already changing course.
In Seattle and Pittsburgh, teenage girls protest against companies that sell sleazy clothing. Online, a nineteen-year-old describes her struggles with her mother, who she feels is pressuring her to lose her virginity. In a small town outside Philadelphia, an eleventh-grade girl, upset over a “dirty book” read aloud in English class, takes her case to the school board.
These are not your mother’s rebels.
In an age where pornography is mainstream, teen clothing seems stripper-patented, and “experts” recommend that we learn to be emotionally detached about sex, a key (and callously) targeted audience–girls–is fed up.
Drawing on numerous studies and interviews, Shalit makes the case that today’s virulent “bad girl” mindset most truly oppresses young women. Nowadays, as even the youngest teenage girls feel the pressure to become cold sex sirens, put their bodies on public display, and suppress their feelings in order to feel accepted and (temporarily) loved, many young women are realizing that “friends with benefits” are often anything but. And as these girls speak for themselves, we see that what is expected of them turns out to be very different from what is in their own hearts.
Shalit reveals how the media, one’s peers, and even parents can undermine girls’ quests for their authentic selves, details the problems of sex without intimacy, and explains what it means to break from the herd mentality and choose integrity over popularity. Written with sincerity and upbeat humor, Girls Gone Mild rescues the good girl from the realm of mythology and old manners guides to show that today’s version is the real rebel: She is not “people pleasing” or repressed; she is simply reclaiming her individuality. These empowering stories are sure to be an inspiration to teenagers and parents alike.
Reviews:
“Here we are, decades after the feminist revolution, and yet crude self-display -- of a kind that makes the daring of the 1960s seem quaint -- is considered something that a "normal" college girl might eagerly choose to do for a stranger with a camera and a release form. What is going on? "We continually malign the good girl as 'repressed,'" notes Wendy Shalit, "while the bad girl is (wrongly) perceived as intrinsically expressing her individuality and somehow proving her sexuality."
Wall Street Journal, reviewed by Pia Catton
“What makes the [Girls Gone Mild] movement unique, according to Shalit, is that it's the adults who are often pushing sexual boundaries, and the kids who are slamming on the brakes. "Well-meaning experts and parents say that they understand kids' wanting to be 'bad' instead of 'good'," she writes in her book. "Yet this reversal of adults' expectations is often experienced not as a gift of freedom but a new kind of oppression." Which just may prove that rebelling against Mom and Dad is one trend that will never go out of style.”
Newsweek, reviewed by Jennie Yabroff
“The culture has not yet carved out a space for women to indulge their own fantasies rather than to fulfill those of men. Feminism has not finished its job; a version of nonmushy, nonmarital sex that makes women feel good about themselves is still hard to achieve. Yet as a feminist, it's hard for me to concede these things to Shalit. . . .”
The Nation, reviewed by Nona Willis-Aronowitz
"What is the point of casual sex if the sex part isn't any good?" Ms. Shalit asks, quoting former sex columnist Amy Sohn. It's a question many girls are asking. On one sex-ed site, the number one topic for girls is how to refuse a boyfriend's request for sex without losing the boyfriend. ...”
Washington Times, reviewed by Cheryl Miller
“I have little doubt that Girls Gone Mild will make at least as many people as mad as did its predecessor. The puzzling thing about this anger is that Shalit sounds nothing like the baby Savonarola of her critics’ nightmares. Not only is her style even-tempered, sweetly reasonable, and full of pleasing glints of dry wit, but she is no zealot, at least not in the usual sense of the word. ...Girls Gone Mild is not a Roger Kimball-style tour d’horizon of the approaching apocalypse. ...[it is] an intelligent, illuminating, and unexpectedly optimistic book about those young women who have chosen to opt out of the revolution.”
Contentions, reviewed by Terry Teachout
“Girls Gone Mild throws into detailed, sickening relief the actual content the average girl in North America is subjected to from birth onwards in the determination to make her "bad." . . A solid researcher, citing wide-ranging statistical, professional and anecdotal testimony, Shalit builds a persuasive case for promiscuity's harsher toll on women than men.”
The National Post, reviewed by Barbara Kay
“Shalit marshals her evidence with the diligence of a trial lawyer. . . .[she] makes it clear that for girls, the young world is not a safe harbour, but a Darwinian thrash hunt wherein their degradation is the prize. Shalit does not preach; she merely reports on the pockets of girls who are taking back their innocence and insisting it is not naiveté."
The Globe and Mail, reviewed by Elizabeth Nickson
Customer Reviews:
Granddaughter's 13th B'day gift.......2007-09-25
After her mother and I checked the book out and it passed scrutiny, I gave my granddaughter her hard-bound copy. She was delighted with it and read it non-stop over a three day period.
I think it was a timely item of high quality and a valuable aid for those of us who have young, budding, female friends and relatives.
A 'good book'!
Is love really necessary?.......2007-09-16
Does anybody out there remember when Erica Jong, famous feminist and author, came out with the idea of "ziperless sex"? A sex so easy, so natural, that clothes just fly off? With the new, improved, version of females there would be none of that nonsense about inhibition and modesty. Just plenty of raw, raunchy sex.
All that was long ago. Today, Erica Jong's daughter, as Shalit reports
in "Girls Gone Mild", says "When you're twelve, there's nothing funny about your mother's fourth wedding" (p 104).
No kidding. And there's nothing funny about the results in our culture, with Bratz dolls dressed in fishnet stockings and micromini skirts sold to three-year-olds (p 1). Nothing all that funny about not being able to trust other women not to try and sleep with your husband. Or teenage boys urging girls to make out with each other while the boys watch, even though "none of the high school or college women actually enjoyed making out with other women" (p 175).
How can a love develop in today's culture? How can most women find love and marriage in this sex saturated culture? And without a loving marriage how can our children develop safely into good adults? All that's left is bars, drinking too much, hooking up, and herpes.
This makes the Victorian era, warts and all, look like paradise.
Review: Girls Gone Mild: Young Women Reclaim Self-Respect and Find It's Not Bad to Be Good. By Wendy Shalit.......2007-08-26
For American society and culture to be good it must be built on truth. Now there is such a thing as objective truth, for if not, then it was only a difference of opinion that American society had with the National Socialists over whether or not Jews were human beings: "Hitler had his truth, and we had ours," so to speak. The untenability of cultural relativism should be self-evident, to borrow from Thomas Jefferson. Thus it was with a sense of joy and relief that I came across Wendy Shalit's Girls Gone Mild: Young Women Reclaim Self-Respect and Find It's Not Bad to Be Good. Refreshingly, Shalit advocates returning to a single high standard for women and for men; Girls Gone Mild issues a well-documented challenge to contemporary America to take a hard look at the negative effects of a culturally relativist approach to male and female sexuality. She has penned a masterpiece which will no doubt go far in beginning a restoration of a genuine understanding of the truth about sex and the nature of women and men. Girls Gone Mild is on the mark and required reading in an increasingly hedonistic, commercial culture which encourages the exploitation of sexuality (specifically, for females, the disassociating of sex from emotion) to the point of corrupting young girls into allowing their bodies to be used for profit. Shalit also documents how this permissiveness in turn aggravates tendencies toward aggressive male behavior, which does not help in the quest for societal valuing of a girl's feminine dignity!
For women, the truth which emerges from her book is the moral (i.e., human) absolute to value in thought, word and deed the inherent dignity of all women, as stated by one of the girls "gone mild" Shalit spoke with: [For Robin] "....pushing sexualized clothing on younger and younger girls is part of a society that does not value women" to the extent it values the efficiency and productivity of men; "So for Robin, refusing to wear sexy clothing means refusing to be defined in external terms" (p. 150). We can learn much from the young ladies interviewed in the book, such as the following: "With the trashy stuff, you're wanting to show everybody how good your body is, instead of how you are on the inside. I think it's much better to dress modest so you don't distract other people." Distraction here refers to distraction "from their personalities" (pp. 153, 158). One gent from Britain, quoted in the epigraph to chapter 6, was not so distracted:
[As I] walk[ed] around a crowded city shopping area on a hot day last week, it often felt as though glancing anywhere below head-level in any direction was fraught--yet not doing so could clearly result in a twisted ankle. However, amid the plunging necklines and beltlines, piercings and tattoos, one woman stood out. She was wearing a long white summer dress with a red pattern on it, and she stood out because it made her look . . . pretty! Remember pretty? Ah, yes--I'd almost forgotten it, lost among all the hot, hip, raunchy grrrl-wear that has become the unofficial uniform de nos jours.
My experience as an educator exclusively of young women for over three decades has taught me that femininity includes the subtlety, the wisdom, the sensitivity, the gentle healing power of women. It is their strength, so much stronger than sad attempts to imitate men, which often degenerates into absorbing the worst male weaknesses and imperfections, as evidenced in Shalit's account. The good news is that young women are beginning to catch on, as shown in the author's discussion of the Edith Stein Project at Notre Dame. The Project's mission is to "explore a `new feminism' that would stress the dignity of women and `the unique role of women in society,' and to "raise awareness and combat the pressures in society that can negatively impact women as they search for acceptance and fulfillment" (p. 74). As a teacher in an all-girl high school in a major metropolitan area and an eyewitness to the various harmful fruits of the culturally-imposed "sexual revolution" on students down the years, I can attest to the oppression resulting from understanding the body ("the flesh") as what constitutes a person. And Shalit is right too in pointing out that these excesses have devalued both sexes. For girls, these are, for starters, low self-confidence, eating disorders, self-mutilation (from the "pain in being born female," (pp. 163, 270), promiscuous sex in hopes of feeling "loved" and the resulting hurt accompanying rejection by selfish males who use them, the abortions they are often forced to have as "backup contraception", which often leads to depression and in some cases, suicidal thoughts. For boys, Shalit posits ample enough evidence of what is all too dangerous: the objectification of the female, auto-eroticism which, when coupled with fantasaical addiction to pornography greatly imperils mature, healthy young men capable of offering what women really want in a man. Girls Gone Mild is full of expressions of the female sentiment that it is really difficult to get a guy to "fall in love with you." I suggest that we start with the aforementioned male behaviors when looking to discover why this is so. Young men are confused as to the purpose of sex, which is frequently recognized by "mild girls" in the book, as an expression of real (vs. "free") love, as being "about service to others," (p. 70) and "a desire to give; to create a bond and a unit that is more than the sum of its parts" (p. 179). Shalit recounts the experience of a former "player" who has stumbled upon this truth:
Now I only look for a modest woman, but they are nowhere to be found and it only seems to be getting worse. I have gone out on three dates since moving here. Two were good and we really hit it off, but on the second date one girl asked me if we were going to have sex or not. 1 took her to her home, as I lost all attraction for her, and never called her again. The other date was the same thing. So for the past two years I have been bored with all the women whom I have met. It's all the same; they seem more sex-crazed than the men I know and it's rather boorish. . . . I hate that sex is somehow used as a form of validation these days. . . . Don't get me wrong, I like sex. (I am a man, after all!) But knowing that there is a challenge present does two things for me: It makes me feel like the person I am pursuing is worthwhile and has self-respect, and it makes me feel like a man should feel, like he has enough skill and compassion and gentleness to actually attract her. (p. 216).
Upon reflection, after reading Girls Gone Mild it seems we are living in a culture which can be described as a collection of independent humans running around, at times colliding, running in and out of "relationships", getting and consuming whatever they want, when they want it. The guiding principle appears to be protection of the individual's right to his or her total freedom at all costs. Everything is tolerated, so long as it does not interfere with the rights of the individual and dominating concepts such as "privacy", "choice" and "self-realization". But vice, personal tragedies, intense human suffering and much loneliness and unhappiness are the consequences of this attempt to build society on a false understanding of the human person. The social disaster which is developing is largely the fruit of this secularist ideology, examples of which abound in Girls Gone Mild. In the face of this reality, 15-year old Taylor Moore's advice is sagacious: "So all you can do is make sure you stay true to who you are [as a female human being], and then everything will work out in the divine order." (p. 55) Attempts to subvert or deny the distinct nature and role of women leads to both personal disintegration and ultimately to the disintegration of society. Over the years women have taught me that the differences between men and women are natural, not the result of oppressive, sexist, patriarchal, gender socialization. A truly good society is one which safeguards the right of women to be women, against the lie that women can be human only when they imitate men in all things, and against the lie that women must exercise influence in the same way as men do, or they will have no influence at all. There is much, much more wisdom in this wonderful, thoroughly-researched and entertainingly written work which taught me much and opened my eyes even wider; I have linked it and Shalit's blog to my webpage and am recommending Girls Gone Mild to all my students and theirs parents. I close with what deeply touched me, and goes to the heart of the book's basic meaning for me: the author's dedication of the book: "For my husband, who makes being good seem so easy." I'm betting he feels the same about his wife.
Good but not as good as I thought it would be........2007-07-30
I reccomend this book but her first was better. This one looks at a lot of issues in modern culture and how they affect young women. Overall it's good. However I was very disappointed by her negative and unfounded opinion against the Dixie Chicks who in my opinion are doing just what she encourages: standing up for what they beleive in!
A Timely Challenge.......2007-07-27
In 2000, when she was only twenty-three, Wendy Shalit published A Return to Modesty: Discovering the Lost Virtue, a book in which she argued that the sexual revolution may not have been entirely beneficial for women. She decried the lack of modesty this revolution has brought about and, according to TIME defended "compellingly, shame, privacy, gallantry, and sexual reticence." Of course many people, and feminists in particular, were disgusted with the book and ruthlessly mocked her.
In her second book, Girls Gone Mild, she writes about a new trend she has discovered in speaking to thousands of girls and young women in the aftermath of the publication of A Return to Modesty. She draws upon over 100 in-depth interviews and thousands of email exchanges with women from ages twelve to twenty eight, representing diverse racial, religious and economic backgrounds. Some identify as Christians or Jewish, liberals or conservatives, feminists or not. The one thread tying all of these together is a desperation to find new and better role models. Shalit says the book is "about my search for an alternative to our Girls Gone Wild culture. It's about finding a way to acknowledge sexuality without having to share it with strangers. It's about rediscovering our capacity for innocence, for wonder, and for being touched profoundly by others."
Shalit opens by discussing Bratz, those Barbie-like dolls that look "hotter than hot," appearing overtly sexual in slinky clothes. Marketed to pre-teen girls, these dolls encourage even the youngest girls to see themselves as sexual creatures who can use their sexuality to attract others. In a Bratz book even the youngest girls are asked to fill in the blanks: "When I want to look hot for an extra special occasion I'll put on _________." "These days, the way dolls are dressed," Shalit says, comparing Bratz to a beloved Cabbage Patch Doll from her youth, "the question is not so much 'Is my dolly real?' as 'How much does she charge per hour?'" From Bratz and the countless similar products, whether sexy dolls or t-shirts sold to infants emblazoned with sexy slogans or thong underwear for six year olds, we see that being a child is no longer a valid excuse not to be sexualized. And further to this, being publicly sexual has become the most, and possibly the only, acceptable way for girls to express maturity. Thankfully a rebellion is underway, and one that may even represent the dawning of a fourth wave of the feminist movement. This rebellion, girls and young women rising against the sultry status quo, is a reaction to the over-sexualization of nearly everything. The rebellion is the theme of the book. It shares equally the despair of the status quo and the hope for a better future.
Our culture has some things backward. Where it was once the "bad girl" who stood out from the crowd and who was known for her reputation, today the bad girl is the new normal, the new expectation. The "good girls," on the other hand, the ones who refuse to engage in sexual behavior and the ones who refuse to flaunt their bodies, are the ones who face rejection from their peers and, tragically, even from adults. Young people need to be and to act bad just to fit in. And this is exactly what they do. "Consider how girls today need to be thin, available, and always sexy. At the same time they are supposed to have no hopes, no messy feelings, no vulnerability. They must be aggressive, yet somehow inviting. It's complicated, and to rebel against the new bad-girl script takes enormous confidence." But it can be done. Unfortunately it needs to be done with few role models to serve as guides or mentors. Where a group of girls is rising and extolling the benefits of chastity and more traditionally feminine behavior, it is adults who are criticizing this movement and attempting to keep it from gaining ground. Many young people are tiring of the game and are tired of experiencing the consequences of bad girl behavior, but adults continue to push them into it.
Shalit thinks this movement towards chastity, towards feminine virtue, would be far greater and far more powerful were it not for the repression girls experience because of the new normal. Many women stifle their desires for more chaste lifestyles simply because society teaches that casual sex is good and wonderful and healthy. Further, society teaches that it is the weak who delay sex while the strong, those who are uncomfortable with their sexuality, are the ones who hold out. Similarly, the ones who are comfortable with their bodies are glad to exhibit their nakedness in public while only those who are ashamed of their bodies keep them covered.
The book has many stories of hope. The author writes, for example, about "Pure Fashion Divas," girls who hold fashion shows exhibiting clothing that is trendy but not exhibitionist. The way people dress, after all, makes a powerful statement. "Dress can turn a young woman, unwittingly, into walking entertainment for men, or it can do the opposite, and cause people to focus on her internal qualities." A statement that seems shocking only for how old-fashioned it sounds today. Shalit is correct when she shows that today's bad girl is really just a girl who is prone to please others. An overwhelming desire to conform to other people's expectations leads them to surrender their dignity and their sexuality. The costs are high. I was intrigued by a chapter called "Excuse Me, Ma'am, Have You Seen My Friends?" Here Shalit argues that women are fast losing their ability to maintain strong, meaningful friendships. Women today enjoy fewer same-sex friendships because adultery and competition for men is now normal. Women no longer trust other women; they no longer understand what it is to be happy for someone else and to rejoice with those who rejoice. Their relationships are strangled by a sexualized, competitive spirit. Ironically, the liberated woman is increasingly a woman who is alone. The consequences of the new bad girl behavior eventually isolate women from even each other.
I think I can be excused for often thinking, while reading this book, "Isn't this what the Bible has been saying all along?" Shalit is Jewish and conservative in her belief and practice of her faith. And, in fact, faith is a theme throughout the book as Shalit often turns to the Old Testament or to Jewish tradition to show how Scripture provides wisdom that is applicable to this topic. Many of the examples of young women who fight the status quo are Christian girls, fed up with the sexually-charged atmosphere around them. The Bible has been telling us all along that God has created men to be men and women to be women. Men and women are equal in value and worth but separate in function. The feminist movement has been pushing women, exhorting them to become more like men. But this book shows, as have many Christian authors in recent years, that true liberation comes not from pushing aside feminine distinctives but by rediscovering, embracing and celebrating them. What makes this book distinctive, at least among the similar titles I've read, is that it comes from outside the Christian publishing industry. It ties in nicely with titles like Unhooked, Female Chauvinist Pigs and others. It has already been widely reviewed and is sure to generate a great deal of discussion. If Shalit's first book is any indication, it will generate anger, bitterness and outrage. Yet hopefully it will also give young women at least a few role models--pure fashion divas, girls who refuse to give it all away, and perhaps the author herself--who can be role models to a new generation of girls gone mild.
Somewhat ironically, I wrote this review while spending time with my family at the beach. If we are in the midst of a trend towards modesty, I don't think there is much evidence of it here. My wife and I conferred and agreed that swimwear does not seem to be showing much in the way of modesty. Yet I do believe that Shalit's thesis is right. Girls are increasingly fed up with the way they've been told to act. They are the ones who bear the consequences for their behavior and they are the ones who are beginning to agree that enough is enough. As the father of two girls I hope and pray that this movement lives through its infancy and makes an appreciable impact. Few things would be healthier for society than to rediscover some semblance of femininity as defined by the One who created women to be women.
I found Girls Gone Mild a fascinating read and am glad to recommend it to others.
Book Description
In this wickedly funny, irreverent tribute to mythological “bad girl” goddesses from around the world, Trina Robbins tells 20 nasty, bitchy, utterly enjoyable tales. Her goddesses sleep with dwarves, slip drugs into drinks, have catfights with their sisters, kill, get even, and generally raise hell. Readers meet Innanna, the Sumerian goddess who plies the god of wisdom with beer so she can steal his powers; Norse goddess Freya, the original Snow White, who is after a diamond necklace; and Lilith, created by God to be Adam's equal, but hungry for more.
Customer Reviews:
Deliciously irreverant.......2006-11-26
This book is a must-read for all feminists, Goddess-worshippers, and those interested in mythology and ancient history! It's an incredibly hilarious read, with a healthy tongue-in-cheek tone, an often-irreverant style, and fresh contemporary language. Far from espousing and propagating myths about goddesses being, as Ms. Robbins puts it, "the Virgin Mary with crystals," she really brings them to life in all of their not-so-nice glory. These goddesses are empowered women who aren't afraid to do things that many people falsely assume exist only in the domain of the male deities. She divides the book up into sections, giving us stories with themes such as "G.I. Janes," "Bad Girls of the Bible," "Goddesses Who Love Too Much," and "Tramps and Thieves." The goddesses come from a wide variety of cultures, such as Native American, Hawaiian, Scandinavian, Japanese, Indian, and Greek, and they vary in the nature of their badness. For example, some goddesses merely loved the wrong man, or were warriors, or created magick potions, while others did maleficent things such as killing and eating innocent people or drowning an entire city. There are tales such as Osmotar, the Finnish goddess who invented beer, Freya, the Norse goddess who slept with a pack of dwarves to get a beautiful diamond necklace, Inanna, the Sumerian goddess who got her grandfather drunk to get all of his powers, secrets, and servants, Lilith, the woman who according to legend was created before Eve and whose only "crime" was that she was assertive and didn't want to be some meek little submissive housewife to Adam, and Pele, the Hawaiian goddess who killed her favorite sister because she caught her kissing the husband she had, unbeknownest to Pele, brought back to life just for her. I also loved that there was a chapter on Jezebel, since all of the secular research does bear out that she was not the evil woman depicted in the Bible.
Some people, such as historical purists and serious scholars, might not like the contemporary language and anachronisms, but that's part of the fun quality of this book. It's not meant to be a scholarly treatise on goddesses. As Ms. Robbins points out, a lot has been lost in the move to make goddesses seem all nice and sweet, these loving earth mothers who go around casting positive spells and blessing drum circles. It might have been done to make Goddess-worship seem less threatening to outsiders, but it really robbed these women of their personalities and uniqueness. The only downside for me was that I wished there had been a pronunciation guide somewhere, primarily for the Celtic and Hawaiian names.
A New Spin On Women.......2005-07-22
Trina Roberts book is enlightening in many perspectives. It puts the femenist spin on countless stories, my favorites being that of Lilith and Jezebel. The idea of the book is wonderful, to show that Goddess' are not all the happy, helpful, home and hearth, mother types society makes them out to be. It displays the stories in simple and easy to read ways that are amusing and pleasurable. However, the fact that she mixes the literary ability of a twelve year old and sexual themes could cause some controversy. My only possible complaint on this magnificent piece of work is that the vocabulary of many of the Goddess' she portrays as clever and vindictive are rather pathetic. They say such things as, "You are so hot, lets have sex."
Though the vocabulary can be amusing, after awhile it gets irritating.
Overall this book is, as I said, magnificent. The idea of it is absolutely amazing and the spin on the legends never ceases to bring laughter. This is a book for teenage girls of today to read and find a more simplistic and hilarious spin on their favorite myths and legends.
Bad Goddesses,Good Book!.......2005-01-25
This book covers different mythological goddesses and their stories,as well as women in religion claiming that title,
such as Jezebel,who were bad goddesses and not your ever
faithful and loving type.
This book is well written,well told , interesting and fun.
Trina Robbins is a "sharpshooter" of mythological knowledge
and intelligence.
Take A Walk on the Lighter Side!.......2005-01-16
While I'm a technical writer, I'm not a technical reader. I never read a text in college unless the professor took the exam directly from it. If Trina had written my textbooks, I may have read them! Trina Robbins presents solid mythology in an entertaining, humorous way. I laughed my way through the book and also found the little blocks of history dispersed throughout informative. My favorite story is that of Kali and Shiva's reaction to her aggressive dance. Eternally Bad is a must-have for any Goddess library.
Goddesses behaving badly.......2004-02-10
This book is a refreshing antidote to the rather soppily sentimental view of all goddesses as kind, nurturing mother figures. Here you will find stories of goddesses being cruel, vengeful, lustful, greedy and cunning, and enjoying themselves thoroughly. Trina Robbins tells their stories in a brisk, breezy style, and the book is delightfully illustrated. Great fun.
Book Description
"It's a bad day when you have to eat brussel sprouts before you can have dessert." It can be tough to be a kid sometimes—snowmen melt, trees eat airplanes, gum gets stuck in your hair. But it's a lot easier to get through the bad days when you can laugh at yourself.
Mary Ellen Friday and Glin Dibley have teamed up to create a hilariously glib outlook on the trials and tribulations of being a kid. We all have bad days, but hey, tomorrow is a new day. It's a Bad Day just may help you get there faster.
Customer Reviews:
Dibley and Friday and all.......2006-10-16
I run a homeschooler bookgroup containing roughly six to ten kids, all between the ages of eight and twelve. Child bookgroups are funny things too. Through my own I discovered that nine times out of ten, the reason my kids choose one book over another is due in large part to the cover artist. Heck, sometimes when we've run out of things to say about the book the kids will start discussing intently the cover illustrations and whether they correctly described the book inside. And what cover artist has gained more attention to his covers due to his work on books like Deb Gliori's, "Pure Dead Magic" or Wendy Orr's, "Nim's Island"? None other than good old Glin Dibley of Huntington Beach, California. You can imagine my delight then when I discovered that Mr. Dibley had recently illustrated a picture book written by one Mary Ellen Friday entitled, "It's a Bad Day". Taking its cues from that old classic standby, "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day", this is another encapsulation of what can make a day go drab. Credit Dibley then with livening it up in his own particular way.
Open the book and there, staring at you with the resigned expression of a boy who knows his days are numbered, sits a fork-holding kid in front of a plate reading, "It's a Bad Day", the word "bad" made entirely out of squishy green brussels sprouts. The book is, in turn, filled with those moments in a child's life that mean that things are just not going well. For the image accompanying, "It's a bad day ... when you get chicken pox and can't go to the party", a kid with vibrant red dots stares hopelessly at a couple party-hat wearing goofballs yukking it up just next door. "It's a bad day ... when the tattoo you got as a prize comes off in the bath water", shows a kid staring in sudden horror at the rapidly dissolving green imprint on his arm. Twelve bad situations of varying significance pepper the book until at last we are reassured, "It was a bad day ... But hey, I'm okay. And tomorrow is another day." I'm partial to the simplicity of that statement.
There's nothing particularly surprising about the story itself. As mentioned before, it bears some similarities to the Judith Viorst picture book of so many years ago. And I was a little perplexed to see, "It's a bad day ... when you have to eat Brussels sprouts before you can have dessert", since it doesn't really fit in with the rest of the book. I mean, is there ever a situation where a kid gets to eat their sprouts after dessert? Unlike the other situations, this one's less an aberration in a child's day and more the norm. I will say this, though. Not since "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs", have brussels sprouts been reproduced in such disgusting slimy-green wonder. That's what's so great about Mr. Dibley. He goes the extra mile. When we come to the phrase, "It's a bad day ... when the tree eats your airplane", we not only see a kid staring up at a paper airplane in a tree, but one of his shoes (thrown to upend it, I assume) sits perched at the opposite end of the branch. The boy is looking up in his stocking feet as his second shoe is in his hand, mere moments from also thrown and, presumably, lost. Dibley has an eye for details that most illustrators would eschew. When we see the accompanying picture to, "It's a bad day ... when the skateboard gets away", Dibley has effused the underside of the escaping object with this rather beautiful mix of greens, purples, and blues in a kind of almost iridescent pattern. Wallpaper is consistently realistic and suburban-awful, and the artist cleverly distinguishes between his minutely detailed characters and the sometimes merely outlined objects around them.
Love the endpapers, by the way. They're a kind of blue-patterned fabric as you might find on your grandmother's faded couch. Mr. Dibley has taken this simple series of situations and has placed each and every one in the misleading comfort of middle-American suburbia. The result are vignettes that will strike close to home for some and will simply be amusing for others. A fun, colorful book that's an excellent introduction to Glin Dibley for those of you unlucky enough not to have seen his work thus far in your lives.
But a good message still resides in having a bad day, and that's the pleasure of IT'S A BAD DAY.......2006-10-08
It's a bad day when a dog eats a boy's paintings, due tomorrow - and when the tree eats your best paper airplane. In fact, some days are bad days all around. But a good message still resides in having a bad day, and that's the pleasure of IT'S A BAD DAY, illustrated by Glin Dibley with oversized, different drawings.
Average customer rating:
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Teenage Runaways: Broken Hearts and "Bad Attitudes"
Laurie Schaffner
Manufacturer: Haworth Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
 Social Services & Welfare | Poverty | Current Events | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
General | Sociology | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
Marriage & Family | Sociology | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books
Adolescent Psychology | Psychology & Counseling | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books
Dysfunctional Relationships | Family Relationships | Parenting & Families | Subjects | Books
General | Social Issues | Teens | Subjects | Books
Accessories:
-
philosophy hope in a jar daily moisturizer
ASIN: 0789005506 |
Book Description
Teenage Runaways: Broken Hearts and "Bad Attitudes" uncovers the perspectives of actual teenage runaways to help professionals, parents, and youths understand the widespread social problem of "last resort" behavior. You'll learn the real reasons teenagers run away, and you'll hear the anguished voices of the teenage runaways themselves, shattering the myth that only bad kids runaway. Teenage Runaways deflates popular misconceptions that runaways are incorrigible delinquents who want to leave home, that they make impulsive decisions to leave their families, and that they wish to never return. Reporting on a qualitative study of 26 runaways in a shelter in New England, this book reveals that many teenaged runaways leave home in search of safety and freedom from what they consider abusive treatment, whether physical, sexual, or emotional. In Teenage Runaways, you will discover valuable information about who these children are, why they are running away, and what you can do to help. Specifically, you will read about:
-why teenagers say they run away
-running away as "last resort behavior"
-what the experience of running away is like
-hope and desire for reconciliation with parents and family
-running away as a dynamic emotional experience for youths which reflects changes in their social bonds with peers, family, and adults in the educational, legal, and medical systems
-"emotional capital" from a heavily regulated authoritative environment
Teenage Runaways provides you with a new understanding of teens in trouble to assist you in providing services to this needy and vulnerable population. Firsthand accounts reveal the emotional motivations behind decisions to run away, such as 14 years-old Isabel who gives a painful account of what severe physical and sexual abuse feels like to an adolescent victim. Amy, also 14, tells her story of living with a mother who was extremely strict and betrayed her.
Book Description
Motivating the Bad Attitude Kids is a valuable resource for all high school and middle school instructors, including first year teachers, veterans, and everyone who is burned out and sick of dealing with difficult students.
Author Terrill Smith brings thirty-six years experience teaching the most difficult students; the ones who simply 'don't want to be there." In Motivating the Bad Attitude Kids, Smith shares the secret survival tools used by master teachers. Some of the topics covered include:
- * Making your personal work space at school more inviting
- * Ways to make the entire year run as smoothly as the first few days
- * What to do when your class is out of control
- * How to deal with the most difficult types of students, including the Disruptive Jimmy, Tattle-tale Martha, Susan the Drama Queen, Henry the Comedian, Sexy Sally, Jean the cheater, Sneaky Sam, Perfectionistic Paula, and the gang kid.
- * Classroom Survival Forms - Creative ways to keep your work manageable
- * How to fix mistakes made in the classroom, with the administration, with colleagues, with students, and with yourself
According to Smith, when you understand the students and respect them, the feeling is usually reciprocated. It allows a light touch of humor and gamesmanship - powerful tools denied serious teachers who are prime candidates for burnout.
Customer Reviews:
Okay, not fantastic.......2006-11-04
This book boils down to treating the students with respect and asking for good behaviors instead of dwelling on bad ones. It's a good technique to use, but I don't know if you need the whole book to get there.
Great for teachers and parents alike!.......2005-11-05
This author has used her 35 years experience teaching english to challenged kids to create soup to nuts way to manage and motivate those kids that have bad attitudes!
YOU MUST BUY THIS BOOK!
Books:
- Secondhand Bride (McKettrick Cowboys Trilogy #3)
- Secret Weapon (Star Wars: Last of the Jedi, Book 7)
- Shards of Crimson (Crimson City)
- Sister Pelagia and the White Bulldog: A Mystery by the internationally bestselling author of The Winter Queen (Mortalis)
- Sniper: Master of Terrain, Technology, And Timing, He Is A Hunter Of Human Prey And The Military's Most Feared Fighter.
- Someone to Watch over Me
- Stand into Danger (The Bolitho Novels)
- Stop Sitting on Your Assets: How to Safely Leverage the Equity Trapped in Your Home and Transform It Into a Constant Flow of Wealth and Security
- The Adventures of Tintin: The Crab With the Golden Claws / The Shooting Star / The Secret of the Unicorn (3 Complete Adventures in 1 Volume, Vol. 3)
- The Bourne Ultimatum
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