Product Description

Friendships can be difficult in middle school - but they don't have to be! Your girlfriend knows everything about you...she'd never tell your secrets...she's your biggest fan. Who doesn't want a friend like that? True friendship is a gift...but it can be hard to find. Whether you're stuck in a fading friendship, caught in the popularity trap, or dealing with mean girls, this book breaks down the solutions to friendship problems step by step. Best of all, you'll learn how to free yourself from poisonous friendships forever and be the best friend you can be. Soon, you'll be meeting new people and making friends who truly respect and understand you...because you deserve first-rate friendships.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #396473 in Books
• Published on: 2007-10-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .36" h x 6.56" w x 8.04" l, .40 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 112 pages

Review
It's a small book with lots of graphics, exclamation points, and quizzes. Ever the skeptic on anything marketing towards pre-teen girls, I approached this book with caution. The Fab Girls Guide to Friendship Hardship totally won me over though. I wished I had been able to use it as a resource when I hit middle school with all the grace and finesse of a 300 pound ice skater. My stepdaughter has entered middle school far more gracefully than I did. She is in the sixth grade and told me that cliques are starting to form, but they aren t completely closed yet. I thought that even being able to realize that was pretty insightful for someone her age. The examples they used were realistic, and she said that she liked the two characters that serve as the guides through this series were pretty cool. She also said that it was good that it showed multiple perspectives, meaning the book explained how to break up with a poisonous friend, but it also explained how to handle having a friend break up with you as well. Both she and I agree that this is a really good book with valuable information on changing relationships as one moves into adolescence. She probably won t be very surprised to find the other three books under the Christmas tree from me this year. --propsandpans.com

About the Author
Discovery Girls, an award winning magazine aimed at tween girls, has produced books packed with real-world practical advice. The books deliver their best strategies so girls can successfully deal with friendship troubles, embarrassing moments, life's toughest problems (like death and divorce) body issues, crushes on boys, school pressures and more.

Customer Reviews

Part of a great book series for middle-school girls
Published by "Discovery Girls" magazine, "Fab Girls Guide to Friendship Hardship," by Phoebe Kitanidis, is filled with great information for middle-school girls, such as how to tell the difference between good and bad friends, how to be the best friend you can be, how to meet new people, and how to find the friendships you truly deserve. Creative quizzes and sidebars make for fun and easy reading so that girls feel like they're chatting with a friend, not reading a lecture. This book and the other "Fab Girls Guides" are great resources for middle-school girls and their parents.

The Must-Have Friendship Guide
What do you do when your friendship is at stake? The first step is to consult this book. By the creators of the awesome Discovery Girls magazine, this book tells it all. From the quizzes to the tips this book is an awesome guide. It even has the A-Z on friendship! The quizzes rate how you are as a friend, how your friends treat you and much more! If you haven't already got this book, it is a must!

Positive Influences
Discovery Girls magazine is a publication for girls ages 7 to 12. At first glance, it appears to be a typical preteen magazine, but looking a little further reveals the cover girls are not flawless supermodels. They are real preteen girls, loyal readers even. The articles within address such topics as "Do Ads for Beauty Products Make Girls Feel Good About Themselves, or Bad?" "Living in Someone's Shadow," and "My Stepdad Doesn't Love Me Anymore." Don't doubt the magazines contain more frivolous content. There are no shortages of clothing ads, music and movie plugs, and more stereotypical girlish concerns such as "Should I Tell My Crush I Like Him?" But where Discovery Girls takes the high road is that its main focus is on the authentic, everyday girl next door. That focus is not to make the average girl feel inadequate and conscientious like most magazines aimed at adolescents tend to accomplish. Discovery Girls hones in on the qualities that make each person unique and special, and those qualities are not having the perfect body, cliques of friends and scores of adoring boyfriends. Intelligence, independence, individuality, responsibility, and kindness are all emphasized.

Discovery Girls has taken this positive message one step further in a series of books tackling tough problems that preteens typically face. Meet Carmen and Dallas, twin sisters who are polar opposites, but respect each other's differences and the qualities of everyone around them. Carmen and Dallas are prepared to walk the young reader through common concerns such as "mean girls and frenemies," the content of the edition I had the pleasure of reviewing. The title Friendship Hardship sums up the issues contained well. From cliques to backstabbers to being the best friend possible, this informative book offers an arm of comfort to girls who may not be sure how they should handle a particular situation and guides them to the best choices. The book is written from Carmen and Dallas' perspective, as if the sisters were addressing the reader directly, teen to teen. Quizzes, tips, and advice on friendship ailments prompt readers to look inwardly and make choices that preserve the value of friendship as well as autonomy.

With the negative influences drowning our youth today, Discovery Girls magazine and this new series of books is a positive reminder for girls that appearances aren't everything and materialism isn't the ultimate ambition. If only there were more influences such as this in adult medi