The Drama Years

Real Girls Talk About Surviving Middle School -- Bullies, Brands, Body Image, and More

By: Haley Kilpatrick, Whitney Joiner

Narrated by: Rose Hannah Maté

Today’s middle school girls have it rough. In those few short years, girls go through an incredible number of biological and emotional changes, making it the most formative - and risky - time in their lives. Groups form and turn on each other, childhood friends can reveal trusted secrets just by sending a text message or updating a Facebook status, and deciding where to sit in the cafeteria can be a daily struggle. As any tween will tell you, life for a middle school girl can be summed up in one word: drama.

Haley Kilpatrick’s own turbulent middle school experience inspired Girl Talk, a nonprofit organization in which high school mentors offer a “just been there” perspective to tween girls, helping them build self-esteem and develop leadership skills. Here, Haley delivers the definitive guidebook for parents, teachers and anyone who works with middle school girls. Written from the trenches, The Drama Years is packed with anecdotes from real girls around the country, who offer their insight into:

• Why her friends’ approval is suddenly vitally important
• What drives her obsession with name brands
• Why she feels pressured to be perfect
• Why she’s no longer telling you everything
• And what three vital things adults can offer to the girls in their lives to downplay the drama.

Filled with practical strategies from tweens and teen mentors to help adults understand what girls today are facing, The Drama Years is a must for anyone struggling to help girls navigate the often difficult transition into adolescence.

©2012 Haley Kilpatrick (P)2012 Post Hypnotic Press Inc.

Critic reviews

“ The Drama Years is a great overall primer for anyone with a young teen girl in her life. And the girls will love reading it too! I will highly recommend it to the parents, teachers, and girls I work with.” (Rosalind Wiseman, author of Queen Bees and Wannabes)

“ The Drama Years is a wonderful, compassionate, and extremely helpful book. It is a must for any parent with a middle-school-age daughter. Haley Kilpatrick tells it exactly - word for word - as it is. She understands what they are going through, and she gives truly helpful and specific advice. The book is upbeat while at the same time it deals with all of the toughest issues that young teenage girls must face. All parents of young teen girls will love it.” (Anthony E. Wolf, Ph.D., author of Get Out of My Life, But First Could You Drive Me and Cheryl to the Mall?)

“Even the closest of parent-child relationships can benefit from this book. The more we listen, the more we help to raise a generation of self-empowered, confident women.” (Lucy Danziger, SELF magazine editor-in-chief and author of The Drop 10 Diet and The Nine Rooms of Happiness)