Reviewer: Erika Sorocco from Menifee, CA : This was truly an excellent book for any teen who is gifted. I've been gifted since I was very young and I've never fit in with any of the other kids. I've always been much more mature and on a much higher level than the rest of the kids my age. This book showed me that I should be proud about being gifted, and shouldn't worry about fitting in. This is a must read for any gifted teen.
  ~ ~

Written with help from hundreds of gifted teenagers, this big book is the ultimate guide to surviving and thriving in a world that doesn't always value, support, or understand high ability.

Teens learn the facts about giftedness, IQ, tests, and testing; how to take charge of their lives (including expectations, perfectionism, time management, and stress); how to take charge of their education (knowing their rights as students, exploring their options, choosing a college); how to build healthy relationships; and much more. Featuring insightful essays by gifted young people. ... [publisher summary]

Wenyi, a highly accomplished young woman we know, went to a traditional high school in Illinois. The school offered numerous AP classes and humanities electives, but Wenyi still felt she had outgrown the place by her junior year.

The curriculum didn’t challenge her. The school didn’t value intellectual talents like it could have. Once, an assembly intended to honor many student accomplishments became a rally for the football team, which had narrowly missed winning the state championship. Wenyi had just won a national science award. The principal forgot to bring her plaque.

> excerpt from geniusdenied.com

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Everyday Creative : 30 Ways to Wake Up Your 
Inner Artist - by Eric Maisel, PhD

Everyday Creative provides 30 ways to awaken the artist within. Each card helps build a more creative life: undertake new creative projects, live life more authentically, and manifest a true artistic nature. 

Cards invite readers to acquire new confidence, allow for fortunate accidents, embrace mystery, reduce anxiety, and more. ... Grow creative through passionate desire.

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Everyday Smart : 30 Ways to Spark Your 
Inner Genius - by Eric Maisel, PhD

Readers learn to manifest their native intelligence, intuitive abilities, and critical-thinking skills. Cards show how to nurture ideas, embrace solitude, cultivate thoughtfulness, sleep-think solutions to problems, and more. 

Thoughtfulness is an attitude. Without it, intelligence is mere potential. Honor your pensive, thoughtful nature. Grow smart by cultivating a thoughtful attitude. Think BIG! Let the immensity of you come out.

"The computer world is like an intellectual Wild West, in which you can shoot anyone you wish with your ideas, if you're willing to risk the consequences. "

Why do kids who can't master high school end up as some of the most powerful people in the world?

from author site paulgraham.com

Reviewer: Center for Talent Development: 
This publication of the National Association for Gifted Children compiles 24 chapters written by leading researchers of the social-emotional development of gifted children. Chapters explore subjects including perfectionism, underachievement, depression, delinquency, risk and resilience, peer pressure and social acceptance among gifted students. ... 

Categories include the special concerns of girls, of boys, students with learning disabilities or AD/HD, the creatively gifted, and gifted children who are gay, lesbian, or bisexual. ... This book is a comprehensive resource, appropriate for both parents and educators.

Through Blue Jean Online, I, like many girls, am still able to express what is going on in my world, as well as learn about what is going on in other people's lives. 

Dr. Arnett, a professor at the University of Maryland and the editor of Journal of Adolescent Research, argues that a new stage of life has been created in recent decades, lasting from about age 18 through the mid-twenties for most people, that is distinct from either the adolescence that precedes it or the young adulthood that follows it.

This new stage of emerging adulthood has five key features: it is the age of identity explorations; the age of instability; the self-focused age; the age of feeling in-between; and the age of possibilities. Drawing on over 300 interviews, Dr. Arnett describes diverse aspects of emerging adults’ lives, including relationships with parents, love and sex, marriage hopes and fears, college experiences, the search for meaningful work, religious beliefs (or lack of them), and perceptions of what it means to be an adult. > from author site jeffreyarnett.com

Sheffer's book looks at the lack of a "crisis of confidence" in homeschooled adolescent girls, compared with other girls in more traditional school settings. ... Sheffer's findings that homeschooled adolescent girls retain their confidence while conventionally schooled girls appear to lose confidence in the teenage years call into question some of Gilligan's findings about girls' development. Homeschooling families of profoundly gifted children of both genders will find this book fascinating to read, hopeful in its conclusions, and thought-provoking. [from Davidson Institute for Talent Development review]

Are you looking for a way to empower the gifted girl in your household? Do you wish you could find something to help boost your talented daughter's self-esteem? Do you want her to take control of the wealth of potential you see in her? ...

Dr. Sylvia Rimm and her daughters surveyed over 1,000 successful women to find out the events and choices that sculpted who they are today. Rimm then wrote See Jane Win and How Jane Won, two books that have influenced the parenting of young girls. Now she has taken the information gathered from her interviews and composed a self-help book for the girls themselves.  [from Davidson Institute for Talent Development review]

Los Angeles Times reporter Miles Corwin chronicles Toni Little's advanced-placement students at Crenshaw High School... Having grown weary of writing about gang violence, drive-by shootings, and drug arrests, Corwin wanted "to find a way to write about the other children of South-Central, the students who avoid the temptations of the street, who strive for success, who, against all odds, in one of America's most impoverished, crime-ridden neighborhoods, manage to endure, to prevail, to succeed." [Amazon.com review]

This year, relationships are getting a lot more meaningful. Last year, (Jeff and I) went out and we didn't know each other that well. But this year, we were like best friends. When you've got a serious relationship with a guy at thirteen, it means you can really, really relate to him.  -
Hannah [left] age 13  < more quotes on: relationships

A person like me, who's skinny all over, was not looked at as having a very attractive figure [in African-American society]. In fact, they made fun of people like that. ... But at UCLA, I'm told all the time, "Oh, you have the perfect body." - Nkechi, age 18 < more on: body image

Depression - that is, the illness that is often called "clinical depression" - is not the same as a bad mood, or a feeling of unhappiness. It is a disease. Although there are some theories about it, no one knows what causes depression in teenagers (or in anyone else, for that matter), but we do know that it is not caused by poor parenting, and that it cannot be cured by good parenting. ... 

A "change in attitude" or a willingness.. to "straighten up and fly right" will not relieve the terrible symptoms of depression. It.. requires the attention of experienced professionals, using both medical and psychological treatments, methods scientifically established as valuable in relieving the symptoms.. and allowing a teenager to lead a normal life.

The research that resulted in this book involved a group of 208 outstanding students, each of whom was nominated by her or his teachers as having the promise of exceptional talent in one of five areas: art, athletics, mathematics, music, and science. 

We followed them from the first to last year of high school. Our task was, first, to determine in what ways they differed from students whose talents were more ordinary. Second and most important, we wanted to find out what made some of these students improve on their native gifts and others "waste" theirs.

Why do gifted and talented girls so often fail to realize their potential as they reach adolescence and adulthood? This outstanding book summarizes research on gifted girls, presents biographies of eminent women and examines the current educational and family milieu. 

From this, Dr. Kerr gives practical advice to parents, teachers and policy-makers about ways to help gifted girls reach their potential. Bright women who read this book will see themselves and their issues and will find it very helpful. This is the third edition of Dr. Kerr's powerful book. [publisher summary]

Ideals of masculinity that stress physical agility over intelligence compel smart boys and men "to ignore the urgings of their intellect and creative selves in order to fulfill socially ordained masculine roles," according to psychologists Kerr and Cohn. Kerr authored Smart Girls, Gifted Women and follows up by focusing on the particular challenges facing smart boys, given changes in sex roles and increased attention to the needs of girls. 

The book cites research and case studies showing that many gifted boys don't live up to their potential and suffer social isolation, having to choose between excellence and "normality." [Booklist review]

"While it is true that you cannot control every aspect of your life, you are not powerless, and you are not trapped. You can influence major parts of your life much more than you can ever imagine. You can get more freedom and more control... 

"If all you want to do is bitch and whine about how lousy your life can be, then there's no need to read my books. If you want to believe you already know everything that you need to know, stop reading. If you want to continue to ignore what power and influence is at your fingertips, then give my books away. 

"Or you can let me save you a lot of time and trouble. I want to show you how you can take responsibility and make your life what you want it to be."***Jay McGraw - from jaymcgraw.com

Esther Obert is a fighter pilot. Maria Fernandez is a special agent for the F.B.I. Kathy Mangum is an Imagineer with the Walt Disney Company. Rebecca Taylor is a fashion designer. Nancy Parker trains dolphins. ... In this book, 19 women and three musical sisters (the Ahn Trio) tell about their work, how they got started, what they do, and why they love it. ...
Part 2 is filled with ideas, inspiration, and information readers can use to plan and pursue their own "hot jobs." They learn about goal setting, mentors, and internships, consider ways to build courage and confidence, and discover more about themselves through activities and journaling exercises. [publisher summary]

"..a clever response to Mary Pipher's bestselling Reviving Ophelia. Shandler reveals telling portraits of teenage girls in this book, a compilation of essays, poems, and true-grit commentary from a cross section of teenage girls (or Ophelias), throughout the country. The book succeeds because it gives voice to their deepest concerns and their too-often frenzied lives. 

"Because she's a college student, Shandler considers herself a peer of these adolescent girls, able to tap into their collective consciousness.  ... The topics covered run the gamut, but they include parental expectations, racial relations, and faith, among others. Sadly, eating disorders are an all-too-popular topic. The good news is that Shandler's contributors offer up some real insight for their peers." [Amazon.com review by Peg Melnick]

Based on his father's bestselling The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Sean Covey applies the same principles to teens, using a vivacious, entertaining style. To keep it fun, Covey writes, he "stuffed it full of cartoons, clever ideas, great quotes, and incredible stories about real teens from all over the world... along with a few other surprises." 

Did he ever! Flip open to any page and become instantly absorbed in real-life stories of teens who have overcome obstacles to succeed, and step-by-step guides to shifting paradigms, building equity in "relationship bank accounts," creating action plans, and much more. [Amazon.com review]

Girl Press continues its mission to publish "slightly dangerous books for girl mavericks" with this volume geared toward the teen market. Aiming to instill self-reliance and self-esteem, their latest offering serves as a handy if slight guidebook for prospective filmmakers, regardless of gender.

It features zippy design and advice from directors like Allison Anders and Gillian Armstrong. A chapter on pioneering film women rapidly segues into practical information. Chapters briefly touch on such topics as funding, screenwriting, storyboards, set design, framing, editing, animation, and distribution. A resource guide and a small bibliography complete the contents. [Library Journal review]

Bloom's study helps those seriously interested in understanding the differences between different kinds of talent and how it can be nurtured. The study describes how the nurturance of gifted athletes and musicians takes a different path than that of intellectually gifted young people. 

It points out that the families do not choose between the intellectual and athletic areas but follow the talents manifested by their children. ... The types of personalities vary by talent area and the book gives excellent case study examples. [review by Deborah Ruf, Ph.D.]