9-Year-Old Girls Can Do Hard Things!: 25 Real-Life Stories About Courage, Confidence, Friendship, and Growing Up

Being nine is full of hard things.Sometimes the hard thing is not making the team after practicing for weeks. Sometimes it is getting a disappointing grade, making a mistake in front of everyone, feeling left out by friends, missing home at camp, or realizing that a friendship has changed.In 9-Year-Old Girls Can Do Hard Things!, Ella faces twenty-five ordinary challenges that can feel very big when you are nine. She learns to speak up when something feels wrong, handle disappointment without giving up, stand up for someone else, work through friendship problems, tell the truth, ask for what she needs, and keep going when things do not turn out the way she hoped.These stories do not pretend that being brave always leads to a perfect ending. Sometimes Ella succeeds. Sometimes she makes mistakes. Sometimes she does the right thing and still feels disappointed. Through it all, she discovers that courage is not about making fear disappear. It is about choosing what to do while the fear, disappointment, or uncertainty is still there.Each story ends with two gentle questions to encourage conversation between girls, parents, caregivers, and other trusted adults.A thoughtful collection for girls around age nine who are learning that growing up does not mean having everything figured out. It means learning, trying again, speaking up, and discovering that hard things can be faced one step at a time.