Tag: Kathy Buchanan

A Back-to-School Picnic: Helping Girls Thrive in the Coming School Year

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It was the last picnic before school started. Elena sat munching her burger and daydreaming about decorating her locker. However, her thoughts soon turned to her list of concerns that was almost as long as the list of her school supplies. Eighth grade! Are kids going to tease me like last year? Should I really do advanced math and Spanish club or should I do drama like the cool people? Will the other girls make fun of my hair? What if I do something really embarrassing on the first day and end up with a nickname for the whole year like that one girl last year? It would be totally worse if it happened in front of a cute boy! Will I even have one good friend? She put down her burger and moved her salad around on her plate.

_____

As much of the world is heading back to school, many kids might be excited, but quite a few will be lugging around some weighty worries like Elena’s in their mental backpacks.

Girls in Elena’s shoes need to move to a different picnic blanket and meet a friend like Connie Kendall. In fact, they need to have a laughter-filled, candid conversation with her.

Happy news: Girls anywhere can do just that! In Candid Conversations with Connie, Vol. 2  (by Kathy Buchanan) fictitious-but-much-loved Connie Kendall* shares stories from her own life and gets advice from friends to help girls handle the tricky and sticky situations of growing up – all within the context of a picnic! From making it through melt-into-the-floor moments to facing “frenemies”, evaluating erratic emotions and balancing run-ins with bullies and forming friendships with boys, Connie and the girls on her picnic blanket open their mental backpacks and go through their back-to-school stresses. Connie’s upbeat and understanding tone makes the book a fun read. Questions and quizzes provide moments of refection. Even someone as old as I am found the questions thought provoking! With that in mind, this would be an awesome book for a mother-daughter time or even a junior-high girls’ study.

What’s the best thing about this book? Well, the third best thing is that Connie speaks sensitively to issues that may be different in different families/situations (e.g. dating). The second best thing is that she helps girls figure out who they are. I think this is a huge part of dealing with the negative peer pressures (like disobeying important rules, smoking and drinking alcohol – which are discussed in the book) that happen in public schools, private schools, home schools or boarding schools. Knowing what you’re about is also a vital part of being an agent of positive peer pressure. (There really is such a thing! Just read the book if you doubt it.) But the really best thing? Throughout the book, Connie points the girls to Jesus, the one Friend Who will be right there with them in junior high, high school, college and beyond (Matthew 28:20). That’s right – Elena doesn’t have to worry about not having a single friend after all!

So come on over to Connie’s roomy picnic blanket, grab a sandwich and be ready to think, share, laugh (and maybe even cry) together as the girls learn not only how to survive but also how to thrive in this school year!

Candid Conversations Vol2 pic
*Connie Kendall is a character in the popular radio drama series Adventures in Odyssey. But no worries! A girl doesn’t have to be an Odyssey expert or even a regular listener to enjoy this book.

A Back-to-School Picnic: Helping Girls Thrive in the Coming School Year

Leave a comment

It was the last picnic before school started. Elena sat munching her burger and daydreaming about decorating her locker. However, her thoughts soon turned to her list of concerns that was almost as long as the list of her school supplies. Eighth grade! Are kids going to tease me like last year? Should I really do advanced math and Spanish club or should I do drama like the cool people? Will the other girls make fun of my hair? What if I do something really embarrassing on the first day and end up with a nickname for the whole year like that one girl last year? It would be totally worse if it happened in front of a cute boy! Will I even have one good friend? She put down her burger and moved her salad around on her plate.

_____

As much of the world is heading back to school, many kids might be excited, but quite a few will be lugging around some weighty worries like Elena’s in their mental backpacks.

Girls in Elena’s shoes need to move to a different picnic blanket and meet a friend like Connie Kendall. In fact, they need to have a laughter-filled, candid conversation with her.

Happy news: Girls anywhere can do just that! In Candid Conversations with Connie, Vol. 2  (by Kathy Buchanan) fictitious-but-much-loved Connie Kendall* shares stories from her own life and gets advice from friends to help girls handle the tricky and sticky situations of growing up – all within the context of a picnic! From making it through melt-into-the-floor moments to facing “frenemies”, evaluating erratic emotions and balancing run-ins with bullies and forming friendships with boys, Connie and the girls on her picnic blanket open their mental backpacks and go through their back-to-school stresses. Connie’s upbeat and understanding tone makes the book a fun read. Questions and quizzes provide moments of refection. Even someone as old as I am found the questions thought provoking! With that in mind, this would be an awesome book for a mother-daughter time or even a junior-high girls’ study.

What’s the best thing about this book? Well, the third best thing is that Connie speaks sensitively to issues that may be different in different families/situations (e.g. dating). The second best thing is that she helps girls figure out who they are. I think this is a huge part of dealing with the negative peer pressures (like disobeying important rules, smoking and drinking alcohol – which are discussed in the book) that happen in public schools, private schools, home schools or boarding schools. Knowing what you’re about is also a vital part of being an agent of positive peer pressure. (There really is such a thing! Just read the book if you doubt it.) But the really best thing? Throughout the book, Connie points the girls to Jesus, the one Friend Who will be right there with them in junior high, high school, college and beyond (Matthew 28:20). That’s right – Elena doesn’t have to worry about not having a single friend after all!

So come on over to Connie’s roomy picnic blanket, grab a sandwich and be ready to think, share, laugh (and maybe even cry) together as the girls learn not only how to survive but also how to thrive in this school year!

 

Candid Conversations Vol2 pic
*Connie Kendall is a character in the popular radio drama series Adventures in Odyssey. But no worries! A girl doesn’t have to be an Odyssey expert or even a regular listener to enjoy this book.

When’s Winning Worth It? Camp Games and Greater Goals

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Summer. What does “summer” bring to mind for you? For me, one related word is camp. And when I think of camp, several stories come to mind. While I had some camp adventures of my own that might show up here someday, two of my favorite stories come from other people’s pens.

“That’s just it,” Molly said. “The game sounded like fun when Miss Butternut explained it at dinner. But you should have seen Dorinda at our team’s meeting. As soon as she was chosen captain, she started calling us the Blue Army. And she was so serious! She acted like the general of a real army.” ~Molly Saves the Day  by Valerie Tripp, pg. 14

Molly’s forebodings are validated when she realizes that the camp game of Color War (Capture the Flag) strains her friendship with Linda who is on the Red Team. To what length will Molly go to win? Will the winning be worth it?

Meanwhile, in another part of history (literarily speaking), Connie hopes to leave her troubles at home while she’s at camp. However, she soon finds herself in even more trouble when she competes in a “Prank War” with a mysterious, brainy boy named “Goggles”. When “Goggles” learns Connie’s secrets, will he use them against her to win the war or will he help her out?

Have you ever been in a situation like Molly and Goggles? Whether it’s a game with friends, a team sport, some contest or even a promotion at work, we have to decide, is winning worth it? Sometimes we may see winning as coming out on top of the competition. But what if there’s something bigger going on? What if the real challenge is to do the right thing, even if it means losing the game? Is that a challenge worth winning?

For Molly, winning is worth facing one of her biggest fears…and making Linda face one of hers! Happily, the friends make up at the end and decide that they’d rather not be Reds or Blues anymore. I think Molly wins the most important battle – the battle to forgive, be forgiven and be a good friend. And what about Goggles and Connie? Well, I’d hate to spoil it for you. You can hear the whole story called the “The Champ of the Camp” from the team at Adventures in Odyssey. 

On a much bigger scale, countries have to decide whether winning is worth it, too. At Camp Gowonagin, Molly uses what she knows of the D-Day invasion to help her team capture the flag. Today is the 71st anniversary of D-Day. Wars are complex, but I think I can wholeheartedly say I’m thankful that the WWII Allies’ soldiers thought winning was worth it.