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The Daring Book for Girls : Daring Enough for Lil Latinas?

09:00 H | Topics: Literature

Books are always a great holiday gift, especially for children who will certainly be overwhelmed with toys. One book that cold be prefect for a nena in your life is The Daring Book for Girls. The sparkly blue book was a hit with my 10 year old daughter who said, "It's like they got into my head, telling me about things I want to know about."

The book is a response to last year’s popular The Dangerous Book for Boys. While I take issue with the implied notion that boys can always be dangerous while girls can be daring, in a one off sort of way, the book provides songs, activities, and lessons including female heroes in history (note none are Latina although there are a few Spaniards), secret note-passing skills, science projects, friendship bracelets, double dutch, cats cradle, the perfect cartwheel or how to be a spy (espionage is cool I guess).

The book is being touted as "The perfect book for any girl with an eye for adventure and a nose for trouble". From the book's website:

The Daring Book For Girls features a checklist of essentials for braving any adventure (including patience!); Five powerhouse karate moves and the ultimate yoga routine: the sun salutation; Cool tricks—with a basketball and with math calculations; Three classic silly pranks and a primer for telling scary ghost stories; Tips for mastering two twists on jumping rope: Chinese and Double Dutch; Inspiration and guidelines for cultivating a secret garden; Profiles of queens of the ancient world and today’s real-life princesses; How to paddle a canoe, perfect a cartwheel, and negotiate a salary; Staples for every girl’s toolbox and blueprints for making a handlebar scooter; Twenty books every girl should read, for pleasure and life-changing potential.

The book is geared primarily for white little girls. All references to non-white culture seem to be presented as one off's and for their novelty factor. This has the potential to teach little girls to engage in cultural appropriation, for example, learning how to tie a sari. As a conscious mother of color, these are things that I noticed about the book. My 10 year old daughter noticed nothing wrong with the book and loved it's massive size. She even took notes from the book!

If you want more information on The Daring Book for Girls check out it's website.

If you would like to purchase the book you can via Amazon and all other major booksellers.

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