Questions and Answers about Nancy's Non-Fiction Books

Everybody Tells Me To Be Myself, But I Don’t Know Who I Am is for any girl who has ever felt awkward, weird, out of place, or just plain different – and who hasn’t? If you have ever been told to just be yourself and you wanted to shout, “But I don’t know who I am!”, this book is for you.

Beauty Lab is all about looking your best real-self. It has all kinds of tips about hair, clothes, and nails, but it’s also designed to help with the more important kind of beauty that shines from inside you. Yeah, yeah, you’ve heard that before, but this book will show you that it is SO true.

Girl Politics is for EVERY tween girl, because it explores the world of friends, cliques, and really mean chicks that most 8- to 12-year-old girls live in. It will show you what a healthy friendship looks like – and what it doesn’t look like – help you cope when you don’t have friends or your old friends disappear – and show you how to deal with bullies. Best of all, it will guide you in helping your generation be the one that stops bullying for good.

Body Talk explores all the sometimes-embarrassing, sometimes-exciting things that happen to your body as you grow up. It has everything from help with moods to explanations for pimples, pit hair, and puberty. You’ll come away from this book feeling pretty good about this whole becoming-a-woman thing. It is, after all, a God-thing.

I wrote each of the four Faithgirlz! nonfiction books because I wished there had been a book like that for me when I was a tween. Seriously.

- I needed Beauty Lab because I was gawky and awkward and hairy and I was too embarrassed to ask how to shave my legs or what to do about the pimples that started appearing when I was only 11! When I look back at pictures of myself at that age, I see now that I was kind of cute, but I didn’t feel cute, and that made all the difference. I want you to know that you are beautiful and special.

-I needed Everybody Tells Me to Be Myself… because I heard it all the time: just be yourself. And I didn’t have a clue who I was. I tried to do what everybody else was doing, but it didn’t fit me. Other girls were all giggly about boys, and I still wanted to play with dolls and make up stories and read for hours at a time. Other girls hated school and I loved learning new stuff, singing in the chorus, doing science projects and writing reports. I usually went into any new situation scared to death that no one would like me, and so I would be funny and crazy and that seemed to work, but sometimes I felt so phony inside. I didn’t start to really be myself until about my senior year in high school, and I’ve enjoyed figuring me out ever since. I just wish I could have started sooner.

- I needed Girl Politics, too. I had a bully in my life in sixth grade, and friend drama in fifth, and suffered the stings of rumor and gossip in seventh. I learned tons that I wanted to share with you.

- And Body Talk – are you kidding? My mother put a little pamphlet about puberty on my dresser when I was ten and that was the only information I had. Imagine my surprise when all kinds of changes started happening to my body that I didn’t expect. It wasn’t the fun, exciting, marvelously girly time for me that it could have been, the way I tried to let it be for my daughter. Again, I just wanted something more delightful for you.

I would be delighted that she was interested in the changes happening in her body, and I would see it as a chance for us to explore the wonders of her blossoming womanhood together. I’d read the book all the way through first, and then I’d have her read a chapter at a time to herself and ask if she wanted to talk about anything in it. I would not invade her privacy by looking at her answers to the quizzes unless she wanted me to, and I would participate in the celebrations in the book, even if I really needed to clean the bathtubs or change the litter box. I would want to savor this time, because it only comes once in a young woman’s life.

I was never a part of a clique. They seemed to be for the “popular” kids, and although they were always nice to me and we were in classes and activities together, I didn’t belong in their circle. It didn’t bother me that much after 8th grade, though, because by then I had my own group, a great bunch of friends who liked the same kinds of things and had similar values. When I got to college, I was part of the group who were leaders and were socially active, but we were never exclusive, which is what defines a clique. We didn’t have “rules” for how we had to behave and how we had to dress, and we didn’t leave out anyone who wanted to join in. But, you see, that was college. The cliques in middle school and late elementary did have “rules,’ and I was secretly glad I didn’t belong to them because that didn’t seem right to me.

There was one girl who bullied me. Her name was Linda and she was a master at it. She would invite me to a sleepover and say she wanted my sleeping bag next to hers and promise to share her M&Ms after everyone else was asleep. Then I’d get there, and she would totally ignore me, and in fact whisper to the other girls about me and laugh behind her hand. Hello! She’d be all buddy-buddy with me in school, and then I’d see a note she’d written about me, saying I was “a real pill” (not a good thing). She started a “slam book” which had a page for everyone in our class and had people write their comments about each person. Hers about me were so rude I was stinging for days. I hate to admit that I let that go on for three years – three years! – before I figured out she wasn’t really my friend and I didn’t need that kind of action in my life. I was kind of a slow learner . . .

I totally loved the clothes section, because I adore great clothes. What you wear is such a great way to express your true self, and I had a fabulous time giving suggestions on how to do exactly that. I got to think about colors, personalities, body shapes – and it was a blast imagining how you’re going to take all that and create a wardrobe that is exactly perfect for you. I grinned through the whole thing!

I’m still finding myself! I think the best part of learning to be authentic is discovering that it’s a life-long journey. I started that journey when I began to choose the activities I wanted to participate in, rather than doing what everybody else was doing. Then I started saying flat out “No” to things I thought were wrong, instead of making up an excuse not to have to deal with them. When I discovered that people still liked me even when I did that, being me was a whole lot simpler. But it isn’t always easy, so I still work on it. That’s how I know that journaling and making collages and creating rooms that are totally me and being expressive in my appearance and only hanging out with people I really, really like and respect – all those things work in our discovery of ourselves. But the most important path to finding me was God. When I was twelve, I made my commitment to really follow our Lord, and when I began to pray honestly, as if God were real and close, who God made me to be became more and more clear.

Ya think? Sometimes when a lot of people are telling me I’m wonderful because I’ve written so many books and make myself available to girls, I start thinking I’m all that. And if the people I’m with start gossiping and it’s really interesting, I can get right into the thick of its deliciousness. That’s not so much a matter of forgetting who I am as it is forgetting who’s in charge, who makes me who I truly am –and that, of course, is God. God is really good at getting my attention when I wander off like that. It’s a good thing God is so forgiving, because I need that mercy on a regular basis. The best way I’ve found to stay true to myself is to remember, it isn’t all about me. It’s all about God. I love that!