I was all set to hate Kim Cattrall’s book Being a Girl. The little I’d seen of her hit TV show Sex and the City left me disgusted, and the fact that Cattrall’s photographs are on almost every page here didn’t help. Shameless self-promotion, I thought.

And then I read the book.

Being a Girl is a well-expressed, thoughtful guide to sailing through the teen years. Cattrall, with the help of Briamonte, addresses most of the important concerns, from getting along with your family and friends to deciding when to have sex. All the way through, the tone is surprisingly sensible and mature, realistically describing teen challenges while suggesting practical ways to meet them. Cattrall also consistently stresses personal responsibility, making it clear that teenage girls must learn to “pilot” their own lives, and can’t blame parents, friends, teachers, or society at large for the way their lives turn out.

Ransacking her own life for examples, Cattrall contends that while we cannot control external factors in our lives, we can control how we react to them. Her “ingredients” for what “big girls are made of” are eminently sound: connection with others, mastery (being capable), assertiveness (standing up for your beliefs), flexibility, self-control, and compassion.

Cattrall also confronts the issue of body image very rationally, but her message is contradicted by the pictures that adorn every page. She tells teens to eat healthily and exercise regularly, and then accept their body, but she displays herself looking perfect in almost every photo.

Martha Richler’s illustrations, while lively and charming, almost invariably depict pretty, stick-insect women. How will this build self-esteem in insecure girls?