Title: Grow Yourself Beautiful: A Smart Girl’s Guide to Following Her Heart and Focusing on Her Inner Joy
Author: Sharon Caldwell Peddie
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 9781532057342
Pages: 154
Genre: Young adult non-fiction
Reviewed by: Lisa Brown-Gilbert

Read Book Review

Grow Yourself Beautiful: A Smart Girl’s Guide to Following Her Heart and Focusing on Her Inner Joy is an impassioned narrative written by a lovingly concerned mother looking not only to encourage and influence her own daughters’ positive growth, but also seeks to encourage all young ladies through the hectic maze of this largely depthless, one-dimensional world, where society gives sanction to unreasonable standards of beauty and behavior for women. Author Sharon Caldwell Peddie’s debut narrative Grow Yourself Beautiful works. Powered not only by the experiences of being a mother to three daughters, but also her over twenty years of experience of working with young women through multiple arenas including leadership development, community service, as well as cultural awareness.

Instantly, author Peddie solidifies a heartwarming connecting with readers with her encouraging poem entitled the same as the book, Grow Yourself Beautiful. Both reassuring and inspirational this poem addresses the considerable angst that young ladies will encounter in today’s world and very much set the tone for the whole narrative which is one of practical guidance and supportive encouragement.

Moreover, the book is comprised like an acrostic poem, with each of the letters in the word-beautiful broken down letter by letter into chapters which artfully expands on developing inner fortitude and growing the beauty inside instead of focusing on the superficial exterior. Each chapter focuses on pertinent conventional notions that are simple but highly effective when duly employed; such as kindness, gratitude, thankfulness, education, being authentic, resilience and more. My personal favorite is chapter four; U is for Unplugging where she encourages leaving the electronics alone and taking an introspective journey into yourself in order to get to know yourself and foment the most important relationship you will ever experience in life – and that is with yourself. In particular, this is very important advice for this technologically submerged world, and not only do young females need to do this, as well, there are many adults that should heed this advice as well, as society would be a lot better off.

Author Sharon Caldwell Peddie’s passion for the development of healthy young women shines through her work in this book. Entirely an enjoyable and beneficial read, I found this book to be an invaluable guide, both empowering and encouraging for female readers of all ages. Also, as a mother of four girls myself, I could easily relate to the necessity for a book like this in a world full of sexist paradigms that barrage young ladies and discourage female independence while battering self-esteem. Our daughters need to know that they are great and have phenomenal potential, of which Grow Yourself Beautiful accomplishes with an endearing quality and comes across as more than just a guide to growing up female, it is a lovingly earnest tribute to all daughters and the devoted mother-daughter bond. An additional perk to the book is the inclusion of ten journaling pages and links to websites with more information.