The One Year Be-Tween You and God by Sandra Byrd

Book Description:

This One Year book is a diary-style devotional for tween girls (9 to 14) that emphasizes their growing, special relationship with God. Each devotion begins with a statement, thought, or question to God. Every girl is likely to make these statements and ask such questions . . . many of which they may not want to share with other people.

The book emphasizes that tween girls can have a relationship with God and that they can share their intimate thoughts, fears, insecurities, joys, etc. It lets girls know: it’s between you and God. Questions/topics include the following: “I know I’m supposed to be close to you (God), but I don’t really feel like it now. How can I change that?” “Everyone talks about how I’m supposed to have faith, which is fine, except I don’t really understand what faith actually is.” Each devotion gives biblically based insight into the subject.

About the Author:

Best-selling author Sandra Byrd has published nearly three dozen books in the Christian market, including her latest series, French Twist, which includes the Christy finalist Let Them Eat Cake (2007) and its sequel, Bon Appétit (2008). Many of her acclaimed fiction and nonfiction books target the tween and young adult market. She has also published a book for new moms entitled Heartbeats. Several of Sandra’s shorter works appear in periodical markets such as Relevant, Clubhouse, Pockets, Decision, and Guideposts. For the past seven years, she has shared her secrets with the many students she mentors through the Christian Writers Guild. Before turning to full-time writing, Sandra was an acquisitions editor in the ABA market. She lives in the Seattle, Washington, area with her husband and two children.

Book Details:

• Binding: LeatherLike, 384 pages
• ISBN:978-1-4143-6245-8
• List Price:$16.99
• Reading level: Ages 9 and up
• Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers (October 1, 2012)
• Trim Size:5 x 7

My Thoughts:

The One Year Be-Tween You and God Devotions for Girls is a beautiful devotional book, and it immediately captured my daughter’s attention. The teal leather-like material makes it look and feel more grown-up than many other devotionals for young girls. It’s well made, and the pages are sturdy so they won’t tear easily. The small attached yellow ribbon bookmark is a nice contrast to the teal cover. It’s a perfect fit for a young lady who is transitioning from a little girl to a young women.

The devotional itself is set up in a format which allows the tween girl to read one devotional a day for the entire year. The devotionals are each one page in length and feature a “Dear God” question, the devotional, a scripture passage about what God says about the topic, and a “How About You?” question. The questions are ones that many tween girls will ask during this time of their life such as:

• Sometimes I feel to unimportant to do anything special for you. I mean, what can I actually do?
• Sometimes I am unhappy with the way you made me. I am so tall, the boys in choir call me Godzilla. It’s embarrassing. Can anything be done?
• Why does everyone have to be so prejudiced?
• Telling others about you is kind of hard to do. Will it even make a difference?
• I’d really like to trust you more. How can I do that?

The devotionals then go into answering the questions. Normally, the scripture passage includes a single verse or a couple of verses that have been written out, so the tween does not have to use a Bible for the devotional. This is one area where I feel the devotional book fell short. I would have liked to see additional verses, scripture passages so the girls could dig deeper into what the scripture says about the topic. Some of the devotionals felt a bit shallow (my daughter agreed), and I believe the additional reading would have helped overcome this.

The questions at the end allow the girls to think a little more on the subject and make it applicable to their lives. I have found that these type of questions work great for mother/daughter talks as talking these types of questions through with me helps my daughter develop her thought process more than if she would to do it on her own. Since these are meant to be personal devotionals, it might be nice if their were a little note here and there about talking something over with your parents.

Overall, from the devotionals that we read, I believe it’s a good personal devotional book for this age group, and I think it will appeal to the target audience.

I received a copy of the above mentioned book as a member of the Tyndale Blog Network to help facilitate the writing of a frank and honest review. A positive review is not guaranteed, and all opinions are my own.