Becoming You for Girls: Everything You Wanted to Know About Growing Up!

This biblically-based guide is designed to help girls ages 8–12 navigate the physical, emotional, and spiritual changes of growing up.  

Becoming You for Girls is a Christ_centered guidebook designed to help preteen girls understand, navigate, and grow through puberty—physically, emotionally, socially, and spiritually. Written in an accessible, warm, and encouraging tone, the book explains biological changes, emotional development, friendships, identity, safety, wisdom, technology, and faith, all while grounding each topic in biblical truth. 

Counselor Darby A. Strickland offers a trustworthy, gospel-shaped vision of growing up that goes beyond body changes to help children grow in wisdom, love, and godliness. Awkward or sensitive topics are handled with gentleness, dignity, and appropriate humor, helping girls feel safe, curious, and confident rather than embarrassed or afraid. 

• Encourages girls to embrace their identity in Christ, so they can learn not just what is happening but why God made them this way.  
• Can be read independently or with parents and is a valuable tool to foster communication about important topics like personal safety and body image. 
• Includes an appendix for parents with conversation starters for talking to your daughter about her changing body and emotions and tips for when questions become uncomfortable. 

Darby A. Strickland, MDiv, is a faculty member and seasoned counselor at the Christian Counseling & Education Foundation (CCEF). She has written books for adults and kids on walking with God through both everyday life and hard times. She is the author of the Comfort for Children in Hard Times series, Becoming You for Girls, and Becoming You for Boys. She loves helping families grow in God’s wisdom and care for one another. Darby and her husband, John, have three children.