Guided Tarot for Teens: A Beginner’s Guide to Card Meanings, Spreads, and Trust in Your Intuition 

• Author: Stefanie Caponi
• Genre: New Age
• Publication Date: July 26, 2022
• Publisher: Zeitgeist Young Adult

Thank you to NetGalley and Zeitgeist Young Adult for providing me with an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Adapted from the best seller Guided Tarot with over 2400 reviews, this essential guide is a must-have for teens ready to embrace the wisdom of their inner voice through understanding tarot cards.

With tarot, you have the power to unlock wisdom beyond your years. A tool for cultivating intuition, it allows you to celebrate your truth and release resistance, fear, or doubt. For beginner tarot readers, learning the cards–all 78 of them–and understanding how to use spreads may seem daunting. Tarot expert Stefanie Caponi explains that interpreting the cards is a blend of knowing the card meanings, listening to your heart, and trusting your inner knowing. In this fully-illustrated book, Guided Tarot for Teens, she offers easy exercises to nurture and grow your intuition, not only to understand the cards’ universal meanings, but to channel your own meanings. This comprehensive guide also shows you how to attune your energy to the deck for more accurate readings. With this book as a companion to your deck, you’ll learn more about yourself, get divine guidance with life decisions, and overcome obstacles in your relationships–all while celebrating your unique gifts and honoring your higher self.

Guided Tarot for Teens features:

Guided exercises to strengthen your intuition and tarot interpretation skills

Illustrated tarot card profiles with astrological, numerological, and elemental combinations, guidance for career, love, and spiritual life, and key upright and reversed meanings

Beginner’s tools offering step-by-step advice to prepare for readings, such as attuning your energy to the deck

Introductory spreads for different types of inquiries, including a deconstruction of the Celtic Cross to help beginners practice it with ease

Quick reference chart with all the card images and meanings

I have to admit, I’ve been fascinated by tarot cards since I was in my own teen years, but didn’t know anything about how they worked, and didn’t really have anyone to ask. It all seemed so complicated, and eventually I just kind of gave up on ever being able to learn about tarot cards. Fast forward, and I found myself as an adult with some extra time on my hands and I wound up with a tarot deck in my possession, and access to this ARC. 

I’m far from being a teenager, but I’ve always been the kind of learner who does best when I keep things simple and get the basics down firmly. And I figured this book might be the best way to do that, especially after seeing that it is specifically geared towards beginners. 

This book is definitely designed for people who have no experience with tarot cards. I appreciated that it approaches the variety in decks, offering input on how many different kinds of decks that are available, and encouraging readers to find one that they connect with, whether it is the traditional deck, a more diverse or inclusive deck, or an abstract deck that reflects their own identity and preferences. There is also a resource list at the back of the book that provides contact information for small businesses.

After you’ve chosen a deck, the author reviews how to clear energy from a deck. There are several techniques offered, and these are to be used before the deck is used for the first time as well as before and after readings. It also talks about ways to store your deck properly. And the biggest message that I took away from this is that there isn’t one single right way to do anything when it comes to your deck. You have to find a way that works for you specifically, something that feels right, like it fits for you personally.

Once a deck is ready to be used, the author explains the different types of spreads that can be used, both when doing a reading for yourself or for someone else. She starts with the easiest spreads and slowly works up to the more difficult ones, explaining everything in an easy, natural way that flows and makes sense.

Finally, she discussed each of the Major Arcana and Minor Arcana cards, explaining what they symbolize, how their meaning can be interpreted in a reading generally, in regards to social or romantic relationships, career or financial situations, and your personal or spiritual needs, as well as what a reversed card might indicate. However, throughout the entire book, you are encouraged to rely on your intuition and trust what it is telling you. 

The writing felt more like it was a conversation between the author and the readers, making it a comfortable and familiar-feeling read. Despite the fact that this was geared towards teenagers, she never dumbed down her writing or language, and never made it sound like she was talking down to the readers. It resonated just as deeply with me, an adult unfamiliar with tarot, as it could with a teenager who is new to tarot, and I felt like we could both get just as much out of this book. I finished this with a lot of highlights in my ebook, and I can already tell that this is one that I’m going to refer back to a lot until I’m no longer a newbie (and maybe even after that too). One thing I did find, however, is that it was really helpful to me to have my own version of the cards handy so that I could see what my cards looked like as the author discussed the traditional cards and what the images symbolized, allowing me to compare mine with the ones pictured in the book. This book is definitely a keeper.