Mirrors and Maps: A Girl's Guide to Becoming a Teen by Melissa Trevathan, Sissy Goff

From the Publisher

Pop Quiz:

• Have you ever woken up and felt bad about yourself for no reason whatsoever?
• Have you spent time trying to figure out how to get into the popular group at school?
• Have you ever been embarrassed by your dad singing in the car with your friends?
• Have you noticed that things are starting to feel different than ever before?
• Do you change your opinion—or even your personality around different friends?
• Do you get overwhelmed with all of the thoughts and feelings bouncing around inside of you?

If you answered yes to even one of these questions, you passed the quiz. That means you’re a normal girl, who is going through the confusing changes of growing up! Sometimes it might feel like you woke up in a whole new world—kind of like Dorothy, in the Wizard of Oz. The good news is, you’re not alone.

Melissa and Sissy, the authors of this book, think they can help you figure out some of the big questions in your life. Even if you haven’t asked them out loud, chances are you’ve started to wonder:
• Who am I?
• What do I want?
• What should I do?
• Who do I want to be?

While they’re no longer teenagers, Melissa and Sissy remember a bit about what it was like to be 11 or 12—almost a teenager. But more than that, they talk with girls who are a lot like you every day—girls who are feeling confused or overwhelmed, who are feeling like they’re changing in ways they don’t understand—physically, emotionally, and spiritually—and they feel like their lives are out of their own control.

In this book, Melissa and Sissy, along with girls your age, will share some insight into what’s going on in your life. You’ll find that you’re not going crazy—you’re just growing up and becoming the person God has created you to be.

Product Details

• Table of Contents
• Read a Sample Chapter

Table of Contents

Read a Sample Chapter

You've probably seen-or at least heard of-The Wizard of Oz. So you know the deal: Dorothy, a girl about your age, is trying to escape a tornado and a crazy, witchy woman who wants to take her cute little dog, Toto. She runs into her room to hide and gets hit on the head and knocked out. When she wakes up, she opens the door to walk outside and finds the world has changed. Everything on her aunt and uncle's farm had been dreary, gray, and dusty-viewers see that part of Dorothy's life in black and white. But the world she enters is sunny and bright-almost too bright. Munchkins are coming out of enormous flowers, and a beautiful witch is floating down from the sky in a pink bubble.

As you can imagine, Dorothy is a little thrown. She turns to her dog and says, "Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore." And she's right.

These years of your life are a lot like Dorothy's waking up in Munchkinland. You're going along, minding your own business, playing with your dog, trying to stay out of trouble-when all of a sudden, you wake up and everything is different.

You used to like to go to movies with your parents; now it's embarrassing. You used to want to hang out in the family room; now you'd rather be in your own room with the door shut. The computer is more fun than your bike or Barbies, and friends are more important than just about anything else. The world has gone from black and white to color-and it's very confusing.

I (Sissy) was talking to a friend of mine who just started the fifth grade. I asked her how fifth grade was different from fourth. She said, "It's totally different. I don't know why, but all of a sudden, your friends are really important. Everyone hugs each other when they see each other at school like we haven't seen each other in years. You used to like your friends and want to play with them, but not like this. What they think really matters-especially what they think about you. And you want to talk to each other and be together all the time. It's really weird."

It is really weird, or at least really different from how you felt and acted just a few years-or even a few months-ago. But those of us who've gone through this stage already would say it's really normal. And it all has to do with your development.

Development: The Door to Oz

Up until now your development has been something that just kind of happened. But now you're probably starting to notice the ways you're changing. And you're noticing the ways people around you are changing, too. So while you haven't given much thought to your development, you've likely thought about how some girls are getting meaner and some boys are getting cuter. You've thought about how different you feel on the inside-and look on the outside. And like our friend said, you've thought a lot about what other people think about you. All of this is part of living in the land of development.

The years between ages 11 and 14 bring on all kinds of changes. Some changes are physical-you'll look pretty different at 14 than you did at 11. Other changes happen inside, in your emotions and your spiritual life. All this change can sometimes be hard to understand. And that's where we think we can help.

Change is a natural part of growing up-believe it or not, most of what you're experiencing is part of God's design for you. That means none of these changes are random. There are physical reasons you wake up feeling bad about yourself sometimes. There are emotional reasons friends are so important. And there are spiritual reasons your thoughts about God and about life don't make sense quite the way they used to.

So we're going to talk a little bit about all of this development business. And we're going to talk specifically about what happens for a lot of girls between the ages of 11 and 14.

Your experiences might be a bit different from the experiences we'll talk about in this book. Some of the things that happen to 11-year-olds might've happened to you when you were nine or may not happen until you're 16. That's normal. God designed every girl to be different. So there's nothing wrong with you if you start your period when you're 10 or you don't really care much about boys until you're 16. It just means all of these changes are happening at the speed God wired into you.

But I Kind of Like Kansas

You might read all of this and think you want God's timing for you to grow up to be-never. Maybe you have a teenage sister who fights with your parents all the time, and you don't want to be like that. Maybe you really like playing with your dolls and stuffed animals and are afraid you'll have to give that up. Or maybe you're anxious about starting your period or wearing a bra or all of the other body changes you know are coming.

Well, we have good news. No, you can't put off becoming a teenager or skip over the hard parts. But a lot about being a teenager is great, too. This is the time in your life when you're becoming more of who God made you to be. You're discovering you have thoughts and feelings of your own, not just echoes of your friends' or parents' ideas. You're finding out what you're good at and what gets you excited. You're getting more independent, more responsible, and more grown-up. And while it can be a little scary to think about shifting from being a little girl to being a teenager and, eventually, an adult, the really great news is-you don't have to let go of all the fun parts of being young. After all, Sissy gets excited about her Nintendo Wii, and Melissa loves to ride her bike. Growing up doesn't mean turning into someone else. It means figuring out how the girl you've been will become the grown-up God created you to be.

So even though leaving Kansas may sound a little scary-and will be at times-you have so much to look forward to as you step into Oz. Dorothy's journey took her past trees that grabbed her and monkeys that attacked her. But she also found friends who loved her and courage she didn't know she had.

Your developmental journey will look a lot like Dorothy's. You may be battling mean girls instead of monkeys (although they can seem pretty similar) and your own insecurities instead of trees, but you'll make it through. With good friends, courage, and a little help from us, we think you'll finish the ride with more confidence and a better sense of yourself than when you started.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Mirrors and Maps by Melissa Trevathan Sissy Goff
Copyright © 2008 by Melissa Trevathan and Sissy Goff. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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