Who is the author and what is the information based on?

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	• Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and Other Realities of ... Rosalind Wiseman Three Rivers Press, 2002 - 352 pages average customer review:based on 94 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Highly recommended

I'm 21 and I read this out of curiosity, to see if someone will finally get it right. Wiseman comes closest. Yes, this book is not perfect, but it reflects my own experience pretty well. The Landmine boxes summarizing wrong approaches are particularly useful - for example, don't tell your daughter that being humiliated by teasing is not a big deal, or that everyone will forget about it tomorrow. Sometimes this is true, but sometimes the "mean girls" can do it for months.

Another reason why I think all the mothers should read this book is that often their own experiences are very different (I know this from talking to my mom) and they simply cannot believe or understand what being a teenage girl is like these days. This book should bridge that gap.

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absorbing

A must-read for anyone with a teenage daughter. Using interviews with multiple subjects, the author takes us inside "Girl World." She analyzes cliques dynamics, what makes someone a bully and another a victim, parenting styles, and even offers a look into "Boy World," from multiple boys' perspective. She gives parents advice on how to handle their often mercurial daughters: i.e. "Never confront her in front of her friends," "Don't use the slang she uses." She frequently quotes from the girls' she interviewed, which provides a supporting viewpoint. I haven't been in high school for over a decade, but the portrait painted both from the author and the interviewees perspective rang true. The stories the teens shared were humorous, perceptive, one-sided and occasionally harrowing. The author also provides a "must see" movies, fiction and nonfiction lists for girls and their parents at the
end.

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Who is the author and what is the information based on?

As a middle school counselor, I was really looking forward to reading this book. I thought I would gain insight into the minds of teenage girls, and get some ideas on how better to help my students. Instead, what I read was biased generalizations based on... what? Research? No, more like informal discussions with non-representative groups of girls. Most likely from schools that could afford to hire Wiseman's consultation - i.e. not the public schools of urban cities. Wiseman's background, I was surprised to learn, is only a B.A. in political science - no graduate degree, no study of psychology, child development, or any field even remotely related to that of which she presumes to be an expert. I've worked with hundreds of teenage girls, and there is absolutely no way that even a small majority of them fall within the distinct categories which Wiseman claims every single girl will fall. She makes such generalizations and axioms which I still don't understand upon what they are based. She presents each idea of hers as an absolute fact, which is beyond accurate and quite misleading. The book does have some interesting ideas, and great intentions. However, I think that if one is going to write such a book, it needs to be based on valid research, as well as not presented as a generalization on every single teenage girl - no research in any field can be applied to everyone.

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Good for promoting civilized behavior

I bought this book for my daughter on her 12th birthday, and she was thrilled to get it (she is a big "Mean Girls" fan). My hope was to encourage her to be sweeter to her friends and to refrain from rumour-spreading and that has happened. She and her friends have all read it and are doing their part to promote civilized behavior!

reviews: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, page 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15

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