Achieving a healthy self-image has been a struggle for pre-teens for generations. This book takes a lighthearted approach to the difficult, sensitive topic by creating a hands-on manual that children can read, use, and experiment with to discover more about themselves. And let’s face it, not many 11-year-olds need coaxing to engage in a little harmless navel gazing.

Personality tests, a fitness test, handwriting analysis, numerology instructions, and a star chart are a few of the intriguing, interactive components in this book. A Chinese astrology chart lists characteristics common to each animal sign. A “perfect match circle” offers advice on how birth order influences compatibility. Far-fetched? Maybe, but the book stresses having fun with these quizzes and not taking the results too seriously.

Sylvia Funston – a former editor-in-chief of Owl magazine and author of Scary Science and other titles – has expanded a previous work called The Book of You: The Science and Fun of Why You Look, Feel, and Act the Way You Do. Funston’s conversational tone is inviting and the topics she zeros in on are highly appropriate for the ‘tween crowd. The design is busy with numerous sidebars, fonts, illustrations, and photos. Susanna Denti’s illustrations are varied and interesting. Gilbert Duclos’s photographs of squeaky-clean kids feature nifty angles and perspectives, but some images (and clothes) are recycled. The scoring method for the “personal preferences quiz” is cumbersome to calculate, but the others are straightforward.

This book, which truly has something for everyone, offers pre-teens countless reasons to value their special traits, and revs up the fun to be found in the journey of self-discovery.