Title: How to Get Your Grown Woman On: A Guide Through Preteen and Teenage Female Adolescence
Author: Dr. Crystal Morris-Newsom
Publisher: XlibrisUS
ISBN: 978-1-9845-6104-6
Pages: 109
Genre: Self-Help
Reviewed by: Allison Walker
Pacific Book Review
Adolescence is a confusing time for any teenager, but author Crystal Morris-Newsom hopes to ease the journey through puberty for young ladies. Her book, How to Get Your Grown Woman On: A Guide Through Preteen and Teenage Female Adolescence, tackles subjects about the physical and emotional challenges preteen and teenage girls must face. With Morris-Newsom’s guide in hand, young ladies can learn how to take care of their changing bodies, deflect cruel gossip at school, and create meaningful familiar and romantic relationships.
Morris-Newsom has an empowering message, “You are amazing and blessed!” she writes to her young readers. Her own position as a mother and role model to two daughters shines through the pages, and her book is full of heartfelt advice and concern for the turbulent times ahead. Morris-Newsom’s advice is all good advice, and it all comes from a place of love and care. Where Morris-Newsom really shines is her chapter “Gossip,” in which she relates her own experience being verbally bullied by fellow students and even teachers at her school. Writing about her experience as a teenage girl, an experience which transcends the generation gap, Morris-Newsom is relatable and reliable.
There’s a lot to think about when a girl is growing into a woman, and Morris-Newsom does her best to cover it all. Her chapters attempt to find the fine line between disclosing all possible topics, and not over-discussing them. Her chapters keep the book moving at a lively clip, but in this instance, her advice could be too brief. For example, the chapter on personal hygiene covers starting your period, personal grooming, sexually transmitted diseases, urinary tract infections and yeast infections. By the end of it, you know a little about a lot of subjects, and are more than a little afraid of all the terrible diseases that can infect your new, maturing vagina. Morris-Newsom has a lot of room to develop her topics more, and her easy to follow writing style will ensure girls don’t get lost in the pages.
“How to Get Your Grown Woman On” has one other trick besides the lively pace to keep young readers engaged. Morris-Newsom encourages her readers at the end of each chapter to write a journal entry in the pages. Her journal prompts emphasize understanding your body, being in control of it, and influencing your world around you. It can be superficial to tell a young lady that she is beautiful, but teaching her to act on it, even in this small way, helps her make her beautiful body a reality.
“How to Get Your Grown Woman On” has some room for growth itself, but altogether Morris-Newsom’s book is a viable stepping stone to helping a preteen or teenage girl navigate puberty. With her adamant encouragement, Morris-Newsom makes the scary and the strange seem doable. As an author she doesn’t flinch away from topics that parents might be intimidated to pursue, and any parent who does catch their daughter reading from this book can rest assured knowing the advice between its pages is wholesome and healthy. This is a must-read for anyone who knows and loves a young girl, and will be the perfect gift for any emerging teenager for years to come.
