Review: Orly Katz gives great keys to optimism
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 12 21, 2012
I got started with Orly Katz's Junior High series on volume 3, then read 4, now I'm hooked and catching up by going back to 2 to see what I missed. Her other books are awesome, but I'm really glad to see an entire volume dedicated to keeping a positive attitude. As Zig Ziglar once said, a positive attitude won't do anything, but it will help you do everything better than a negative attitude will. Having volunteered for several summers in a row in summer church camps at the Junior High level, I saw first-hand the tendency in that age group to focus on the negative. The illustrations are the same, great quality as her other volumes and her personal stories make the material extremely relatable. I love the approach she takes toward being able to choose your thoughts so that you can think more positively than negatively. It's great that she explains in age-appropriate terms the difference between optimists and pessimists along with a quiz for the reader to see how optimistic they may be. Perhaps one of the most sensitive issues at Junior High relating to being optimistic has to do with romance. Katz covers this in conjunction with the universal law of attraction and makes it clear that attracting what you want in life covers much more than just a member of the opposite gender. Perhaps the most powerful part of this book are the exercises that help create greater optimism.