LWGMS non-fiction and resources
Explore a curated list of non-fiction books and essential LWGMS resources. Find top educational materials and fiction titles to support learning at Lake Washington Girls Middle School.
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Queen Bees and Wannabes
by Rosalind Wiseman
BESTSELLER - BASIS FOR THE POPULAR MOVE "MEAN GIRLS".
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Girl Wars
by Cheryl Dellasega
In this uniquely prescriptive guide, two experts show how to stop adolescent girls from hurting each other with cruel words and insensitive actions, offering parents and other concerned adults a positive program for building self-esteem and forming positive, supportive relationships.
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Odd Girl Out
by Rachel Simmons
Describes female bullying and aggression, examines why it is often overlooked, and makes specific suggestions for curbing the behavior.
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A Smart Girl's Guide to Starting Middle School
by Julie Williams
Knowing what to expect when you go to middle school makes the whole experience seem a little less scary. From teachers to friends, schoolwork to homework, lockers to classrooms, here's the information you need to take your first steps through the halls of middle school -- with confidence. Plus, you'll read letters from other girls who were worried about going to middle school and advice from girls who have been there. Book jacket.
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Boys and Girls Learn Differently!
by Philip Carter
At last, we have the scientific evidence that documents the many biological gender differences that influence learning. For instance, girls talk sooner, develop better vocabularies, read better, and have better fine motor skills. Boys, on the other hand, have better auditory memory, are better at three-dimensional reasoning, are more prone to explore, and achieve greater abstract design ability after puberty. In this profoundly significant book, author Michael Gurian synthesizes the current knowledge and clearly demonstrates how this distinction in hard-wiring and socialized gender differences affects how boys and girls learn. Gurian presents a new way to educate our children based on brain science, neurological development, and chemical and hormonal disparities. The innovations presented in this book were applied in the classroom and proven successful, with dramatic improvements in test scores, during a two-year study that Gurian and his colleagues conducted in six Missouri school districts.
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Ophelia Speaks
by Sara Shandler
At age sixteen, Sara Shandler read Mary Pipher's Reviving Ophelia, the national bestseller that candidly explored the unique issues that challenge girls in their struggle toward womanhood. Moved by Pipher's insight yet driven to hear the unfiltered voices of today's adolescent girls, Shandler yearned to speak for herself, and to provide a forum for other Ophelias to do so as well. A poignant collection of original pieces selected from more than eighthundred contributions, Ophelia Speaks culls writings from the hearts of girls nationwide, of various races, religions, and socioeconomic backgrounds. Ranging in age from twelve to eighteen, the voices here offer a provocative and piercingly real view on issues public and private, from body image to boys, politics to parents, school to sex. Framing each chapter are Shandler's own personal reflections, offering both the comfort of a trusted friend and an honest perspective from within the whirlwind of adolescence. In these pages, you will see your best friend, your daughter, your sister--and yourself. At once filled with heartbreak and hope, in these pages Ophelia speaks.
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Ophelia's Mom
by Nina Shandler
Ophelia's Mom Speaks -- At Last "Why do I hurt so much when she pulls away?" "What did I do wrong?" "Are we ever going to be friends again?" "Why is she friends with that sleaze and dating that fungus?" "I know I'm supposed to let her go, but I don't know how and I'm terrified." From the mother of the author of the bestselling Ophelia Speaks, this is the first book in which mothers of adolescent girls speak out about how the changes in their daughters' lives are prompting cataclysms in their own. Reviving Ophelia and Ophelia Speaks explored the painful challenges faced by teen girls. But where's the support for the mothers of those teen girls? In Ophelia's Mom, Nina Shandler, Ed.D., gives the mothers the chance to speak out about feelings and uncertainties too often considered taboo. Culled from written submissions and interviews with hundreds of women from all walks of life and from every part of the country, the concerns voiced in these pages reflect the universal experience of mothers facing one set of life changes while their daughters are facing another. With humor, pathos, insight, rage, sadness, joy, and ultimately, optimism, these mothers talk candidly about rejection and separation, feminism versus Girl Power, love and sex, friends, school, drugs and alcohol, divorce, menstruation and menopause, the mother-daughter bond, and much more. As these mothers reveal how this life passage has reshaped them as well as their children, you'll realize that you're not crazy, and you're certainly not alone in your frustration, confusion, and exhilaration over raising an adolescent daughter.
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Gutsy Girls
by Tina Schwager
In exciting, inspiring first-person stories, 25 intrepid young women ages 14-24 tell of their daring feats, from extreme sports to history-making achievements. Includes resources, activities, and advice on how readers can build their confidence, set goals, and strive for their personal best.
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Freaks, Geeks, and Cool Kids
by Murray Milner
Freaks, Geeks, and Cool Kids argues that the teenage behaviors that annoy adults do not arise from "hormones," bad parenting, poor teaching, or "the media," but from adolescents' lack of power over the central features of their lives: they must attend school; they have no control over the curriculum; they can't choose who their classmates are. What teenagers do have is the power to create status systems and symbols that not only exasperate adults, but also impede learning and maturing. Ironically, parents, educators, and businesses are inadvertently major contributors to these outcomes.
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Strong, Smart, & Bold
by Carla Fine
The pressures a girl experiences growing up today are more intense than ever before. There are gender stereotypes to buck. Narrow expectations to contend with. Conflicting messages to make sense of. A girl is told that it's important to excel in school and pursue a career but that she should also keep her voice down, watch her weight, and make sure that everyone else around her is happy. Strong, Smart, and Bold shows parents and caregivers how to raise a confident, courageous, and self-sufficient girl. Based on the successful approach of Girls Inc., the nation's leading empowerment organization for girls -- which improves the lives of girls through its programs, research, and advocacy -- the book offers proven techniques and compelling success stories to bring out a girl's spirit as early as possible and to give her the self-assurance she needs to thrive in an increasingly complex and pressured world. Strong, Smart, and Bold presents interactive activities that will help equip a girl with the important knowledge, key life skills, and confidence to accomplish her goals. A recent Girls Inc. survey found that girls experience stereotypes that limit: Their right to be themselves and resist gender stereotypes (60 percent) Their right to accept and appreciate their bodies (62 percent) Their right to express themselves with originality and enthusiasm (52 percent) Their right to take risks, strive freely, and take pride in success (50 percent) Their right to have confidence in themselves and to be safe in the world (54 percent) The Girls Inc. Girls' Bill of Rights, which is the foundation of this book, helps a girl understand that she is entitled to be valued and respected at home, at school, and in her community. A dynamic approach to raising a healthy and assured woman, Strong, Smart, and Bold empowers a girl to be her own best advocate and inspires her to discover, hold on to, and be proud of who she is.
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Lest We Forget
by Velma Maia Thomas
Tells the story of slavery and the struggle for freedom--from the African villages to the boats, from the plantations to the end of the Civil War and "Jubilee," the day of freedom.
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Silent Dancing
by Judith Ortiz Cofer
A collection of writings by the poet, novelist, and essayist recalling her childhood spent shuttling between the land of her birth and the family home in New Jersey.
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Our America
by Lealan Jones
The award-winning creators of National Public Radio's "Ghetto Life 101" and "Remorse: The 14 Stories of Eric Morse" combine talents with a young photographer to show what life is like in one of the country's darkest places: Chicago's Ida B. Wells housing project. Photos.
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Catch a Fish, Throw a Ball, Fly a Kite
by Jeffrey Lee
Knowing how to fold a paper airplane can make you a better parent! Well, maybe not better, but you’ll certainly have more fun with your children, who understandably assume that you know how to do just about everything. If they only knew! Catch a Fish, Throw a Ball, Fly a Kite is for parents who want to teach their children what they really want to learn--even the skills you never mastered or haven't practiced in a few decades. This book contains clear, simple, step-by-step instructions for teaching more than twenty little life skills that every child should know, including how to: • Work a yo-yo • Build a fire • Eat with chopsticks • Skip a stone • Fly a homemade kite • Throw a Frisbee While you teach your children, you get to learn the skills too, or at the very least improve on them. Activities range from practical, like locating the constellations, to completely frivolous fun, like turning a blade of grass into a musical instrument. Some are simple enough for four-year-olds, and others will appeal to the most jaded adolescent. Each skill is illustrated and is rounded out with fascinating trivia (did you know that the world’s largest sand castle measured six stories high?) or funny jokes. Age-appropriate information is given for each skill, but they all have one thing in common: You and your kids can do them together!
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One More River to Cross
by Walter Dean Myers
A photographic history that traces the lives of African-Americans over the course of 150 years, depicting the many roles they have taken and the victories they have achieved.
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100 Books for Girls to Grow On
by Shireen Dodson
An Inspiring Approach to Reading From A Tree Grows in Brooklyn to Ramona the Pest to Wringer, here are 100 great books guaranteed to stir the imagination, spark conversation, and lead the way to adventure. In 100 Books for Girls to Grow On, Shireen Dodson, author of the acclaimed The Mother-Daughter Book Club, offers a selection of both new and classic titles. Each book has been handpicked because it is a joy to read, because it inspires mother-daughter dialogue, and because it encourages creativity beyond the book experience. Included are brief plot summaries for each book, as well as thought-provoking discussion questions, inspired field trip ideas, fun crafts and activities, and biographies of the authors. Let books become a springboard for encouraging your daughter's imagination. Ideas inside include: Design and draw colorful dresses like Wanda Petronski, heroine of Eleanore Estes' The Hundred Dresses. Take your cue from Harriet the Spy and create your own stories from overheard snippets of conversation. While reading Caddie Woodlawn, pull out a map and trace Caddie's mother's journey from Boston to the Wisconsin frontier. You don't need to form a book club to use and enjoy 100 Books for Girls to Grow On. Shireen Dodson offers stimulating ideas that will spark your daughter's creativity and nurture a love for books.
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The Skin that We Speak
by Lisa D. Delpit
A collection that gets to the heart of the relationship between language and power in the classroom.
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A People's History of the United States
by Howard Zinn
Chronicles United States history from a grassroots perspective and provides an analysis of important events from 1492 through the current war on terrorism.
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Word Smart
by Adam Robinson
A revised edition of the phenomenally successful vocabulary-building guide. Originally designed to help students prepare for the SAT, this user-friendly guide has major crossover appeal for adults looking to improve specific skills.
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My Soul Looks Back in Wonder
by Juan Williams
One of the most pivotal moments in American history is brought to light through stirring, thought-provoking eyewitness accounts from people who have played active roles in the civil rights movement over the past 50 years.
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The Eyes on the Prize Civil Rights Reader
by Clayborne Carson
The most comprehensive anthology of primary sources available, spanning the entire history of the American civil rights movement. A record of one of the greatest and most turbulent movements of this century, The Eyes on the Prize Civil Rights Reader is essential for anyone interested in learning how far the American civil rights movements has come and how far it has to go. Included are the Supreme Court's Brown vs Board of Education decision in its entirety; speeches by Martin Luther King, Jr., and his famous "Letter from Birmingham City Jail"; an interview with Rosa Parks; selections from Malcolm X Speaks; Black Panther Bobby Seale's Seize the Time; Ralph Abernathy's controversial And the Walls Came Tumbling Down; a piece by Herman Badillo on the infamous Attica prison uprising; addresses by Harold Washington, Jesse Jackson, Nelson Mandel, and much more. “An important volume for students and professionals who wish to grasp the basic nature of the civil rights movement and how it changed America in fundamental ways.” —Aldon Morris, Northwestern University