See What You Can Be: Explore Careers That Could Be for You!

As the Executive Director of a mentoring program for elementary school girls, Strong Women, Strong Girls, I made the decision to utilize this book with all of our program participants. See What You Can Be offers girls the opportunity to identify their skills and interests and use those to imagine new possibilities for themselves and their futures. In addition to the girls loving the book, their adult mentors are also realizing that there are a lot of career possibilities that they had never imagined! This is a great book for programs designed to support girls and programs looking for mentor-mentee activities.

As a teacher of young children, I can assure you this book is a hit. Tweens will be inspired to match their interests to unusual careers. The colorful graphics are extremely appealing, and the interactive nature of the book makes it pure fun. See What You Can Be would make any girl dream big dreams, and realize her passions and talents can lead her to a unique and satisfying career.

The layout is systematic and organized, yet has a light fun feel. It asks a series of questions - a modified "personality test" - to help you find some sample careers you might be well suited for, then gives you examples of women in those fields. This should be a manditory handout item for all "Take your daughters to work day" participants. It's great to see a book that gives girls concrete examples of careers they will have a good chance of sucess in, rather than the standby cliche "you can be anything you want to be, dear." This book is now my defacto birthday gift for young girls. It makes a great birthday party or sleepover game too!

I got See What You Can Be for my daughter. She loves the interactive quizzes and activities "to see what she can be". I only wish there had been such a thoughtful and imaginitive book for self-exploration when I was a girl.

It's never to early to start thinking about "what you want to be when you grow up". For girls 8-12, See What You Can Be, is a great find. Unlike traditional books about careers, this title features activities to help girls determine what kind of job is the right fit, profiles of successful women in careers both traditional and untraditional (white water rafting guide, dialect coach, and transit planner to name a few) and mini job descriptions of jobs based on an "If you like..." distribution. For example, if you like math and puzzles you might want to become a cryptographer; if you like food and cooking you might consider becoming a food scientist. The authors have put together a hip, colorful guide that will appeal to middle grade girls. Quizzes, suggested activities and journal prompts result in an interactive experience, one that girls should find irresistible. As an elementary school librarian, I highly recommend this title. It encourages girls to think outside the box about their futures in an age-appropriate, enjoyable way.