For a girl to grow up strong and happy in today’s world she needs all the assistance she can get. Hopefully, she will have good parents who love her and are devoted to her care. Hopefully, she will have a chance to receive a good education. She will also need good health care, a safe place to live, clean water and good food, lots of loving relatives and good neighbors. Of course, she will also need friends that don’t bully and opportunities that cater to her particular talents, interests and potential.

This does sound like a lot, and I guess that is why they say ‘it takes a whole village to raise a child’.

Thankfully, lots of us do manage to grown up to be grown-ups in pretty good shape. Sometimes it is almost a mircle.

But one thing that really helps the process are good books to read that help a girl grow socially, emotionally and intellectually. There are many.

As a positive psychologist I did feel though that we are lacking in books written to help girls grow up feeling strong, happy and sure of themselves. Books that could really take a girl in and let her identify with another girl who manages to conquer all the negatives in her life and stay whole. Books written by a psychologist!

I decided to fill that gap, at least in part, with The Truth Series. In these books, The Truth (I’m a girl, I’m smart and I know everything) and Secrets (You tell me yours and I’ll tell you mine…maybe), we get to know a girl, inside out.