Daughters in Danger, by Elayne Bennett

Daughters in Danger, by Elayne Bennett, is purportedly about how we can protect our daughters from the threats of our culture.

There can be no doubt that the girls of today face serious obstacles to their health and well-being.  When I picked this book up, I was hoping for a book that would address ways to help our daughters through these issues.  However, the author tries to tackle too many issues.  As a result, the book is disjointed and full of such generalized advice that it doesn't really add much about raising children that is not already widely known.

The first third of the book is full of cautionary tales and partisan rhetoric, despite the author's later claim that she does not see this as a political issue.  There were a few red flags for me - beginning with the statement that "California... educators have all but banished the Boy Scouts from public facilities."  As a California educator and a Boy Scout mother, I disagree with this, and it didn't set a good tone for the book.  The author also makes a broad generalization about young adults based on a limited survey of high schoolers in her foundation.  As an M.Ed. myself, this left me questioning the rest of her research.

The latter half of the book has some good advice, but it doesn't flow well because the author tries to cover too many topics.  The  good advice is interspersed far too often with more cautionary tales both from real life and from literature and movies.  The advice is also over-simplified, giving few details that a parent who is truly struggling would find useful.

I appreciate the author's attempt, but there are better books that cover the topic of how to raise Christian children in today's world.  Her writing style is good, and I'd love to see her write a book that doesn't try to cover quite so much ground.

Disclaimer:  I was provided a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Two out of Five Stars