Customer Reviews

Chicken Soup for the Girl's Soul: Real Stories by Real Girls About Real Stuff (Chicken Soup for the Soul)

5 star:		(23)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I have never once reviewed a product on Amazon or anywhere else, but like the other ADULT reviewers, felt parents/teachers should be warned about this book. This book definitly should NOT say 8 and up. My 9 year old picked this up at her school's book fair and I didn't think twice about it. I just went up to tuck her in, she was reading it and was very upset and confused about all the stories she has read. Let's see, some of these stories include: the girl whose best friend was killed in a horrible accident, self mutilation, molestation by male babysitter, anorexia/bulemia issues, suicide, girls who are relentlessly bullied and boy chasing. These are topics that are very real and some are quite graphic, if it was a movie it would be rated R, why is it OK to market this book to 8 year olds? She is a mature 9, but is not at all ready to handle most of these issues. If I have to recommend this book, it would be for at least 13 and up, or at the very least read it yourself before handing it to a child thinking it's an 'uplifting' book for girls. I consider myself fairly liberal and easy-going, but will be discussing the sale of this book with the school librarian (k-4) before the next book fair. I really feel like a bit of my daughter's childhood was just swept away in 30 minutes, as corny as that sounds. I blame myself, I should've read it first or at least skimmed it instead of assuming it would be about girls rescuing puppies, lending a hand to a handicapped friend or the pressure of selling girl scout cookies!

I also made the mistake of judging a book by its cover and buying this book for my fourth grade daughter at the Scholastic Bookfair.
Do you want your daughter to read about a girl whose parents divorced when she was ten and writes "my method for dealing with depression was a razor blade and a locked bedroom door". This story called "Sleep-Away Camp" deals with self-mutilation.
Your child can read about a four-year old girl and her sister getting felt "in places that aren't meant to be seen by other people." How about a suicide story? How about a mother with flesh-eating disease? Or the deaths of best friends, fathers, or the death of a mother by mixed meds? It is all in this book. Of course, the authors also include anorexia and a mixed bag of other dysfunctional behaviors. Not quite so heart-warming as it is disturbing. I definitely feel I was misled by the title and cover presentation. This book needs a "young adult" rating.

I noticed that some parents didn't like all the stuff it talked about like bullying; bulliamain; body changing; bra; dating; ect... But as an 11 year old girl, I found this book most interesting. It talks about the stuff that growing girls really want to know about. It talks about the major things that girls need to know about when they get older.

Not all the stories were bad, in fact, I liked a lot of them! I liked the dating ones because they made me laugh at some of the things that happened to girls and their crushes! I also liked the friendship ones and the Free To Be Me's. They were good!

Some parents should be careful and cautionious about what their young girls (8, 9, and maybe 10) read about. It might scare them and leave them wondering about "stuff.' To me the right age group should be 11- 16.

It's good - a few stories!

In this book girls write about embarasing moements, deaths and times when the girls or their friends had mental problems. Some of the stories scared me a few mad me giggle and the others mad me fell bad. I learned that you arre not the only one who makes mistakes or is going through hard times. The age range for this book should be 9-16

Like other mothers here, I unsuspectingly ordered this from my 8-yr-old's Scholastic catalog (which contains, among other things, "Corduroy" and "Junie B. Jones," to give an idea of the other offerings). I never thought anything so age-inappropriate would be offered there. I am certain this book is excellent reading for *middle-school* students, who are more emotionally mature and more world-wise and more ready to handle it. An 8-yr-old, however, is not yet ready for the horrors of these real-life stories. I'd suggest its target age range is maybe 12-15.

This book was wonderful. Different short stories about troubles, special moments, death, depression, friendship and popularity, crushes, everything a lot of girls go through in their teenage and preteen years.
I laughed, I cried, I smiled, and I was inspired by the stories in this book. I think every girl should read this.

This was a very good book though the age range should have been more like 11 to 16 because of some of the issues that is talks about. This book has real stories by real girls about real issues that girls go through. It is very comforting to know that you are not the only one going through these things.

This book is a very amazingly fun and interesting book to read! once you start you wont want ot put it down! This book is made up of many short stories written by different people, some of very young agaes. What i mainly like about this book is that there are many options to it. Like you can read about different subjects such as love, growing up, family and more also there are many books written for different types of people so you can pick the one that you think is right for you.This means you will probably enjoy what you are reading and if you dont you could get another one that you might enjoy a bit more.
I personally love reading these types of books. The sections i mostly enjoy reading are about love, and friendship because they relate to issues i might be going through myself.

I work with children of all ages and they are always looking to understand themselves better. Some of the preteen girls I work with really like this book because they relate to some of the stories personally. They also seem drawn to the rest of the stories because, while the events may be unfamiliar, the emotions expressed by the authors are easily recognized. A warning though, the book contains stories that express the challenges of growing up and do not depict an idealistic childhood some may think they are exposing their children to when they purchase it.

I enjoyed this book and found it comforting to see what other girl's my age were going through, and that I am not alone. I know that thousands of other girls who read that book felt that way too. Many of the topics are everyday topics that every girl goes through, but some of the topics may be too mature for some girls. There are stories of body changes, suicide, death, cutting, and drinking. I didn't find these stories too shocking because I know these things go on in the world. But do be aware, girls under the age of 8 DEFINITELY shouldn't read this book. Girls ages 9 through 11 who don't know about these issues shouldn't read this book because it might frighten them. All in all this book is very good but parents with girls younger than 12 should see if their girl(s) is/are fammiliar with these topics and even then should think about letting their child read this book.