The Body Scoop for Girls by Jennifer Ashton, MD with Christine Larson

The Body Scoop for Girls by Jennifer Ashton, M.D., Ob-Gyn with Christine Larson
304 pages
Published December 2009 by Penguin Group
Source: the publisher and Lisa with TLC Book Tours

Dr. Ashton, CBS Medical Correspondent, is an ob-gyn specializing in adolescent care. In this book she covers everything girls from preteens to teens need to know about their bodies. She covers everything from the changes the body undergoes to eating disorders to birth control in a candid and frank way that young girls will appreciate.

My nearly 15-year-old daughter and I read this book together, an experience I highly recommend. Dr. Ashton writes in much the way you would imagine she talks to her patients and it immediately put my daughter at ease. We're pretty open in our house but, even so, there were things in this book that I hadn't ever thought to bring up. As a mom, I appreciated Dr. Ashton's "Wait-Till-Eighteen Club" regarding sexual intercourse; she makes some very valid points for the medical value of waiting to have sex until you're at least 18 years old. The book also addresses the issues of body piercings, depression, sexually transmitted infections, and grooming in a way that made my daughter feel like she was having a conversation with someone who really understood what it's like to be her age. I was surprised to find myself learning a thing or two as well.

I had two very minor complaints with the book. Occasionally I felt like Dr. Ashton was pumping up her own practice a bit too much but, to be fair, if it's as great as she makes it sound, I wish she were closer. Also, in an effort to sound "with it," as we old folks like to say, Dr. Ashton uses terms and phrases that sound very appropriate now, such as calling information "the 411," but may sound dated in a few years.

**Warning: again, this is a very frank discussion about body parts and sexual matters which may be uncomfortable for some readers.**

This is a book that will remain on my daughter's bookshelf, one that I imagine she, and I, will reference many times in the coming years. Thanks, Lisa, for bringing this book to my attention.

For other opinions on this book, visit some of the other tour sites:

Date TBD: Feminist Review

Wednesday, January 6th: This Full House

Tuesday, January 12th: Stephanie’s Confessions of a Book-a-holic

Wednesday, January 13th: Lit and Life

Thursday, January 14th: Suko’s Notebook

Friday, January 15th: Shooting Stars Mag

Tuesday, January 19th: You’ve GOTTA Read This!

Wednesday, January 20th: Overstuffed

Thursday, January 21st: The Brain Lair

Friday, January 22nd: The Scholastic Scribe

Monday, January 25th: Juggling Life

Tuesday, January 26th: I’m Booking It

Wednesday, January 27th: World of Weasels

Thursday, January 28th: Raging Bibliomania

Friday, January 29th: A Novel Menagerie

Bloggiesta Wrap Up

I knew going into the weekend that finding even 18 hours over 3 days to devote to Bloggiesta was going to be difficult. Then I suddenly found myself with my mother-in-law come to visit on Saturday into Sunday. Which should have made it more difficult but curiously made it easier for me to sit at my desk for hours. After all, that's where she was camped out. I couldn't very well wander off to clean bathrooms and leave her all by herself, could I? So I got my did manage to get 18 hours of work in after all. So what did I do with all of that time? I started by hitting up some of the mini-challenges. Rebecca at The Book Lady's Blog challenged us to set goals for the coming year which actually helped me to figure out my priorities for the rest of Bloggiesta. Then I grabbed on from the previous Bloggiesta, where Emily, from Emily's Reading Room, taught me how to set up alerts.

While I was checking out the flashback challenges, I noticed Trish's (of Hey Lady! Whatcha' Reading) which talked about favicons and gravatars. I had no idea what favicons and gravatars were so I had to check that out. And now I have a favicon and a gravatar and I know how to change them when I finally hit on the image I want. For now, the book picture I've been using for a lot of other things will work.

I was having so much fun with the old challenges that I checked out how to analyze by blog (and was very surprised and pleased with the result) and took a cue from Rebecca again and cleaned up my feedreader as well as catching up on all of my unread posts.

Then I got back on track with the things I had planned on doing to begin with: I put together a list of ideas for Sunday Salons, a list of books I want to highlight on my Friday Favorites and downloaded the book covers I need for that, I fixed and updated by slide show, put together a list of ideas for future posts and authors to contact and I got my blogging calendar put together. But the big thing I got accomplished, which you'll notice right away if you've been reading this blog, is to switch the blog to a 3-column format. I'm still not sure I'm happy with it but it is a change.

I feel so good about everything I accomplished. Maybe even better, I feel like I'm re-energized about blogging. Thanks to Natasha, of Maw Books, for hosting Bloggiesta!

Sunday Salon - January 10

Now that we're finally on the way back out of the deep freeze, I feel able to make fun of the weather we've been having in Nebraska the past month. We're used to cold here; we're used to snow here. But we aren't used to living in conditions to rival Alaska! More snow in December than any month ever, save one. Temps the past two weeks that have set records for "highs" - high being a relative term since those were the coldest highs ever.

All of this cold and snow got me wondering about what kinds of books people read in the winter. In the summer we have "beach reads." Are there "snow" reads? It turns out that there is no shortage of books with "winter" in the title. Shakespeare gave us The Winter's Tale; Robert Frost gave us Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening. Suzan Colon, Kristin Hannah, and Nevada Barr are among today's authors that have written about winter.













In the summer, it's great to read about beaches. So the question is this: is there ever a time you really want to read about snow? Personally, I'm thinking it's about time to time to pull out a book with a sand pail and shovel on the cover!

Agatha Raisin And The Terrible Tourist #6 by M. C. Beaton

Agatha Raisin and The Terrible Tourist #6 by M. C. Beaton
198 pages
Published July 1998 by St. Martin's Press
Source: my wonderful local library

Agatha Raisin's ex-husband has recently come back into her life only to be murdered. She's managed to solve the case but at the expense of her fiance who has broken off the engagement and fled to Cyprus. Not eager to have her future happiness snatched from her Agatha follows him only to find herself caught up with two sets of obnoxious tourists, as well as her now ex-fiance James. When Agatha insists on solving the murder, she irritates not only James but the local police as well. To make matters with James worse, Agatha is also spending time with old friend Sir Charles. A series of attempts on her life make Agatha more determined than ever.

Because I've done all of my M. C. Beaton "reading" on audiobook, I'm at the mercy of the library as to the order I get to the books in. I did wish that I had read the books in order but it's not necessary. It doesn't take long for the reader to get up to speed on Agatha's background and to get a good feel for her character. And what a character it is! Agatha is a middle-aged woman who has had a successful PR career; she's feisty, no nonsense and not good at making friends.

When I started talking about Beaton's other series, with Hamish MacBeth, several people told me to rush off and get some Agatha Raisin, that I would like her even better. I wish I could say that I did but this book did not make a believer of me. I couldn't understand Agatha's attraction to James, I didn't care for a second story line involving a friend of James', and I thought the plot here was weak.

But just as in the MacBeth series, Beaton always manages to keep things light even as people are being murdered and writes wonderfully funny characters. A bonus in this book are the terrific descriptions of Cyprus; as I listened, I kept looking on the internet to see what the sights really looked like.

Luckily for Agatha, she comes highly recommended so I'll probably give her another chance.

Blogging Goals for 2010

I was all fired up for Bloggiesta. I couldn't wait to get home from work to get started. I had a to-do list ready. I steeped some Chinese Jasmine tea. And then I hit a wall. Where to start? So I headed over to Maw Books to check out the mini-challenges and right off the bat say Rebecca's mini-challenge "Set Goals for 2010" which seemed like as good a place to start as any.

Every January, I make the usual resolutions: lose weight, get more organized, paint a few rooms, etc. And every year, I make it about a month (just like you, I would guess) then I start to taper off. This year I resolved to make fewer resolutions. And I'm going to try to keep my blogging goals to a doable number as well.

1. Work on putting more of my own voice into my reviews. This is something I've been trying to work on for the past few months and I'm getting closer to where I want it to be.

2. Take notes while I'm reading to make writing the reviews easier. I've resisted this. It felt too much like homework. So I think I'll use an index card so I don't get too carried away. I've been wanting to include more quotes and this will help with that as well.

3. Reach out to authors. I'd like to include more guest posts and author Q & A's. Who knows--some of the authors might not even be with us any more!

4. Get back to doing Friday Favorites. There have certainly been plenty of books I've loved over the years.

5. Do Sunday Salons every Sunday--on Sunday!

How to reach the goals? I've already begun working on a blogging calendar for this year to help track some things. I'll plan to work on Friday Favorites and Sunday Salons on any day that I'm not doing a book review. And I'll use this weekend to start reaching out to authors. Thanks Rebecca for encouraging me to do this!