Your Moontime Magic: A Girl’s Guide to Getting Your Period and Loving Your Body

While it may no longer be commonly referred to as “the curse,” menstruation is still often at best hush-hush and at worst the subject of demeaning PMS jokes. Instead of honoring this facet of the awesome power to procreate, girls are often embarrassed and confused, their changing bodies a cause not for wonder and pride but worry and self-criticism. Your Moontime Magic ushers in a new day. Author Maureen Theresa Smith, the mother of a daughter, understands the many ways that starting to menstruate rocks a girl’s world. She dispels fear with easy-to-understand biological facts, soothes shame and isolation with stories about other young women around the world, and creates a sense of pride through ways to engage with age-old wisdom connecting women to nature and the cycles of the moon. Smith doesn’t skirt the fact that getting one’s period can involve physical or emotional discomfort and some inconvenience, but she addresses these with lifestyle tips, physical practices, and spiritual techniques that empower. But mostly, Your Moontime Magic is celebratory and fun! Recipes, crafts, journaling prompts, affirmations, aromatherapy, and even beauty treatments redefine “that time of the month” in ways that mothers, grandmothers, and aunties will wish they had had and that they will be thrilled to share with the girls in their lives.