Shelley Noonan and Kimberly Zach have put together a treasure of a book, The Companion Guide to Beautiful Girlhood/32 Character Training Lessons. It is based on the book Beautiful Girlhood, revised edition by Karen Andreola. (The original book was written by Mabel Hale in the 1940's.) All of these titles are available from Pumpkin Seed Press.

This book encourages us as mothers, to help lead our daughters down the path to Godly womanhood. This book is suggested for use with our 9-14 year old daughters. There are 32 chapters in The Companion Guide that correspond with the book, Beautiful Girlhood. Each lesson contains discussion questions to answer and discuss, together, a Bible Study with life application, activities, verses, quotes, and even a page for journaling. The Companion Guide will become a cherished keepsake!

Topics covered include character traits such as: obedience, modesty, and truthfulness as well as foundational truths such as the importance of prayer, repentance, and trusting in our Lord, and Savior, Jesus Christ. You will discuss together, friendships, her changing body, your biblical values, the importance of good books, choosing one's life work, dreams, and anything else that sparks into the conversations. This guide is loaded with discussion starters concerning a wide range of topics that correlate with the chapters in both books. Some of the chapters are: Character-Building, The Strength of Obedience, A Sunny Disposition, The Beauty of Truthfulness, Sincerity, Ambition, Friendships, Home Life, A Conversation on Dress, A Christian Life, A Pure Heart--and many more!

The Companion Guide was created to bring mothers and daughters even closer, and create special, meaningful times together. This is a wonderful study to share together. It will build precious memories of our times spent together. My 7 and 4 year old girls and I usually gather daily, snuggled up on the couch or in mom's big bed, for some quiet time of reading and talking together, (usually with a tea cup of chocolate milk). I have taken some of the lessons (A Sunny Disposition, A Christian Life, Making Friends of Books--this could be done with a lot of the lessons) and simplified them for us to use now!! I look so forward to doing the more in depth study of this book when my daughters are older, as well.

Beautiful Girlhood, revised edition by Karen Andreola is a classic!! 205 pages of encouragement for mothers and daughters to share!! Karen has revised the language a bit to make it easier to read, and this version differs from the original Mabel Hale version, after chapter 32. Chapter 34 of Mabel's original appears in the revised edition as Chapter 33 and Mabel's original Chapter 33 was eliminated altogether. Both versions are wonderful. This book exhorts young girls to maintain high standards of character. Each of the short chapters (33 total) focuses in on a virtue, such as obedience, responsibility, sincerity, and godly character each correlates with The Companion Guide to Beautiful Girlhood, well, beautifully! The book also gives real-life examples of situations that may be encountered along the path, from beautiful childhood to beautiful womanhood, and uses Scripture to show us how God wants us to live! How we as mothers can help guide them along the way. If you have daughters, I highly, highly recommend these books! Time spent together in these books will not only encourage strong, godly character, but cherished memories of your times spent together, and PRECIOUS memories of sharing your faith!

Check out Pumpkin Seed Press' website for more wonderful books to encourage our relationships with our daughters, (look on our website for the a review of the 'sequel' to these books, Winsome Womanhood, by Shelly Noonan) and beautiful accessories such as tea sets, wicker gift baskets with special tea cups for your mother-daughter time, and much more. They would make a really special gift, to celebrate this time together, or for a young girls hope chest!



--Product Review by: Lisa Barthuly & Family, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine