There are chapter books that follow Katie Bennett, who is new in town and needs a little help believing in herself and her ability to make friends. Her mom and aunt suggest that she start a club and invite classmates to join. So, the Precious Girls Club is born.
The books do have a religious theme to them, which is both good and bad. We do go to church but we’re not overzealous by any means. I still feel a little uncomfortable mentioning God in day-to-day life. I’m not sure why.
In the first book, A Little Bit of Faith, Katie relies on her guardian angel to help her through difficult times at her new school. She learns that being true to herself and being friendly is the best way to make friends.
M enjoyed reading the book and seemed to like the concept of the guardian angel. That was something we had not introduced before, but I can see benefits to giving her this perceived support. I remember, as a kid, thinking of deceased relatives as guardian angels, so perhaps that’s what M will do as well.
The book had a good message, which is always a good thing.
Besides the book, there is a website that girls can log into to play games and do other activities. It reminds me a little of Webkinz in that you have a character that has a room that you can decorate and that you earn credits by playing games. It’s also a safe way for girls to chat through pre-determined sentences. They click on a button and select things to say to one another like “I just finished my homework,” or “I’m going to go play games.”
I set up M’s account without telling her what I was doing. When she saw the site with the pretty flowers appearing as just the first page was loading she was beside herself with excitement. Every time she saw another girl walking around the online “world” she practically shook with happiness. “Oh my gosh Mom! There’s another girl!”
She was able to play all the games without my help, and that is a major plus in my book. There was a code in the book that we read that offered a free one-month Rainbow membership that was supposed to have added features. However, when M tried to do some of the extra features, they were not yet available. She was disappointed that her Rainbow membership ran out before she could decorate her room or buy more clothes for her person.
The Rainbow membership costs $3.95 a month, which doesn’t sound expensive, but considering you get a year of online membership at Webkinz for $15, the $47.40 yearly dues is too much for this family. We don’t get online to play games even on the Webkinz very often, so if we paid the dues it would most likely be for one or two days a month of play.
Girls can also sign up for a free membership and still play games and chat with other girls on the site, however, the points they earn playing games will do them no good other than the satisfaction of seeing the number go up. The free membership doesn’t let the girls spend their points.
The club is also developing a line of products to go with the books that includes things like stuffed animals, snow globes and jewelry. They sent me some samples to check out, and I’ll be passing some of them on to my readers.
I have 3 copies of the book, A Little Bit of Faith, to give away, as well as some jewelry, a snow globe and a stuffed animal. I haven’t decided how I’m dividing up the prizes yet.
Each item also comes with a code for a free one-month Rainbow membership online.
I also have some codes for free one-month trial memberships that you can email me for if you’re interested and don’t win one of the prizes. (I just have to find what I did with them!)
If you’d like to win one or more of these great products, just leave me a comment and include your email address if you don’t have a blog or if you don’t have an email listed on your blog.
For an extra entry, Twitter about the contest and come back and leave me the link to your tweet.
Entries close December 17th at 8 pm central time. I will draw the winners via random.org or my kids will pick from a hat. Depends on how lazy I am that day.
5 comments:
Anymore would be a great gift.Amma
The books sound interesting. I have yet to talk to Becca about guardian angels either!
The books sounds good, that snow globe looks very pretty too, I will twitter about also, try to get you some more readers to your site!
My little girl has a copy of "A Little Bit of Faith" but she'd love for me to win her the other prizes! I'll tweet this too.
My niece, Cheyenne, is 13 and in need of something like this. She is boy crazy and experiencing those hormonal urges that drive her father up the wall. We have made a point of telling her about her guardian angel since she was little, even naming the angel. I'd like to give this to her as a gift.
Russell D. James
russelldjames@grandecom.net
russelldjames@yahoo.com
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