February is the month for love! It has Valentine's Day (14th) and Random Acts of Kindness Day (17th) in it. Yet in this world of ours love can be hard and hurtful. How do we teach our kids about love? Who should they love? Well for one thing they need to love themselves. Today I am sharing a book by teen actress Jenna Ortega. The book is It's All Love: Reflections for Your Heart & Soul. It is a book written for teens and will also be good for people in their 20's.
In this book Jenna writes short reflections having to do with different aspects of love and life. She has them divided into eight sections: Live with Love, Keep the Faith, Appreciate Your Family, Take Chances, Prioritize Yourself, Embrace Your Ambition, Love Yourself, and Believe in Your Power. Each reflection has a short saying beautifully illustrated on one page and then the reflection on the other. The sayings in the book are black and white but this sample has some color.
The reflections share Jenna's personal thoughts and experiences. She opens up in a way that most people can find some relative similarities in their own lives. She shares her happy moments as well as her own failures. This book is about grounding oneself and loving oneself. Jenna shares the message throughout the book that when she started to love and try to be more positive her life changed for the better. She is trying to help other teens do the same. The topics range from loving oneself, loving one's family, to faith and God, as well as sex. Although the reflections share details of Jenna's life and her acting career most teens will see their own life in them.
Jenna Ortega is a Hispanic young woman. She shares her own experiences with diversity and wanting to see people like her in the stories of her youth. She shares how excited she was to work on Elena of Avalor since young Hispanic girls will have a princess that looks like them now. In this book she is honest and open and shares such intimate details with the reader. She shares her own moments of vulnerability and how she recovers from them. It is a book that I know I wish I had when I was living through my teenage years and I am happy to pass on to Hazel. I know it will guide her when she isn't ready to talk about some of those personal feelings with me or anyone else and Jenna's advice is good and similar to what I would share. I hope you will check it out. It is the perfect gift for teens this Valentine's Day!
