Working with the Girls’
Brownie Quest Book
WORKING WITH THE GIRLS’ BROWNIE QUEST BOOK
FOR FUN
AND
MEMORIES
T
he girls’ book is divided into two trails, the Trail of the ELF Adventure
and the Trail of the Three Keys. The first trail features “The ELF
Adventure,” a story of three Brownie friends, their encounter with
an elf, and their effort to save a family of trees. Each chapter of the story is
accompanied by activities the girls can enjoy on their own or with friends and
family. Encourage the girls to explore this trail whenever they like.
The Trail of the Three Keys is the trail you and the girls will follow whenever
you gather. In the girls’ book, this trail also offers activities and stories, and has
space for adding mementos and jotting down reflections and ideas.
A Brownie Story and a Helpful Elf
Don’t feel you need
to give the Brownies
“homework” to fill in all
the pages of their Quest
book. The activities
are for girls who want
to continue the fun
and thinking between
In the story “The ELF Adventure,” three fictional friends (Campbell, Jamila,
and Alejandra), their families, and the community of Green Falls all deepen
the Brownies’ understanding of Girl Scouting as a global sisterhood of girls and
women who are improving the world. Along the Quest, the Brownies also explore
stories of real girls taking action around the globe.
Team meetings. You’ll
find it helpful, though,
to encourage each
Brownie to have her
own Quest book on
hand at each session.
It’s something she and
her family will look back
on as a rich keepsake of
her Girl Scout Brownie
experience.
The Brownie tree house makes the idea of belonging to this global network real and
tangible to the girls. The idea of a Brownie Team is used, too, mostly to emphasize
how the Girl Scout Brownies cooperate along the Quest. After Chapter 1 of “The
ELF Adventure,” for example, the girls’ book features a “Friendship Game” with
questions to answer and activities to try with friends. These are options that the
girls can enjoy on their own or with you and their full Brownie Team.
Two other “friends”—Juliette Gordon Low and a fictional elf—are also important
to the Quest. The Brownies uncover how Low, the founder of the Girl Scout
Movement, discovered, connected, and took action as an early-20th-century leader.
As for the elf, Girl Scout Brownie stories have always featured a magical elf with
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From Brownie Quest (Brownie), page 6
especially if they work together. The tradition of the Brownie elf dates back to old
English tales of Brownies who literally were elves: tiny creatures who did good
deeds and helpful work. (The name “Brownies” was first given to the little sisters
of Girl Guides in 1915, by Lord Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of Scouting.)
Throughout the Quest, an elf continues to play the historic helper role as the real
Brownies move forward to uncover a whole new meaning for “ELF”: Explore, Link
Arms, and Fly into Action.
From Brownie Quest (Brownie), page 7
WORKING WITH THE GIRLS’ BROWNIE QUEST BOOK
one very big job: making girls see that they are capable of remarkable things,
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