Empowering/inspirational book for 16yr old

[waggledancer]

Dd is 16 on Saturday. Being a teenager is rough and i want to get her a book or dvd which will inspire, empower, uplift and generally make her feel life is worth it.

Which film/book do you remember doing this for you?

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There is a book called "Woman: An Intimate Geography" by Natalie Angier (?) which is about female biology. It is fascinating and really empowering, makes you appreciate the body you're in. I think it'd be a great gift for any young girl.

Good cos she doesn't like herself very much at the moment. Will look it up on amazon

for me the 'Alex' books by Tessa Duder. They're about a 15 year old swimmer in New Zealand trying to get to the 1960 Rome olympics. There are 4 of them, published by Penguin, can get them on www.abebooks.co.uk secondhand (couldn't find them new when replacing them recently). She really understands what it's like to be a teenager....

Thanks. Can only get the woman's geography book 2nd hand also, so will buy but not for birthday.

Any more suggestions from the wise and empowered mumsnetters?

Waggledancer, I am evangelical about this book - DO get it for her, secondhand or not! It is incredibly thought-provoking and sounds just what she needs.

This was the around the age I read To Kill a Mockingbird and was utterly captovated - made me go beyond myself and get really passionate and think about things that mattered - just what you're dying for at 16! I remember my bf getting The Beauty Myth at this age and once she got over the title and teenage angst about what her family were trying to tell her (!) she loved it - all that introduction to feminism stuff. HTH

Well i read the Celestine Prophecies when i was early 20's and it made me see everyhting differently and positively.
Nice thought btw Hope she enjoys her Birthday+

Am seriously considering Female Chauvanist Pig, which is about dropping to male behaviour to gain equality. Might be a bit heavy while she has loads of revision.

I remember to kill a mockingbird having a big effect on me too

This is such a lovely question. I think she should have some carry-you-away fiction - I had a wee look at the Virago website but it's not that user-friendly - but I'll make time to look again later & revert. Is she too old for Coram Boy or I Capture the Castle? - the latter being particularly good for cusp of adulthood uncertainties.

In the meantime, the usual (non-fiction) suspects are Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own, and Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique. Both may be a wee bit old for her, though? I read them at about 17, when I first was living away from home.

Oh, meant to say - for a boy (assuming literate sensitivity etc. etc.) of that age I'd say Alain-Fournier, Le Grand Meaulnes, absolute rite-of-passage of adolescence. But might not appeal to a girl?

Me again.
Vera Brittain, Testament of Youth - memoir, though, again, not fiction.

Still trying to find fiction. At that age I think I was doing Chekhov and Gorky and that sort of thing - Russian emotional intensity just the thing when you're 16. Plus Raymond Chandler, so I could dream of being streetwise dry and shrewd.

What about Three Times Table, by Sara Maitland? It's written for adults, although there is also a lovely 14 year old girl in it, and there is some sex in it (and one of the characters has a best friend who is a lesbian, in case that makes you uncomfortable)..it's all about imagination, and womanhood, and to some extent feminism, and I think it's wonderful. I think some novels that give you the idea that adulthood is going to be very fulfilling might be a good idea when you're 16. I was miserable, I remember. I longed, passionately, to be a bohemian intellectual type, although you'd never have guessed it from my general geekiness.

Beauty Myth is a good suggestion - may help her get fashion/appearance pressure into a bit of perspective?

I remember reading the Maya Angelou books as a teenager (I've heard the Caged Bird Sing, was the first) and they're hugely readable and uplifting and full of powerful and inspirational stuff for good teenage minds to grapple with. Also Margaret Atwood's Cats Eye and The Edible Woman are good, strong stuff. What else? I think Virginia Woolf is too heavy-going for a teenager - put her off her for life - how about Colette?

Just to update and to take the opportunity to thank all of you for your suggestions. Have had a lovely, if a little emotionally charged(for me anyway), day with my grown up daughter.

We bought her an anthology of stories all mother/daughter based, To Kill A Mockingbird and a lovely photographic book filled with anthromorphosised animals designed to uplift the spirit (very american pop psychology, but whatever works)

Will be building a library for her, and me, with many of your suggestions. Thanks again