Welcome, you're never too young to take photos.
The real reason I am posting isn't to say exactly what everyone else has said, but to bring up something you said. You mentioned the camera you are looking at has "all the fancy optical and digital zoom..." Just a heads up, you dont really want digital zoom. When I had my point and shoot I actually turned it off. it really isn't a zoom at all, it just crops your picture tighter to make it appear there is better zoom, usually at the expense of resolution.
In fact if you are really trying to get into the "artsy" types of photos you see here, that camera lacks the two main things you are going to want to have: Aperture and shutter priority. It does have manual mode so you can still get the effect of aperture and shutter priority but you'll have to change both, which takes a little longer to do.
It does have everything you'll need to get started like white balance and the available manual mode as well as exposure compensation.
http://reviews.cnet.com/Samsung_Digimax_S600_Silver/4505-6501_7-31833357.html
This review claims that the white balance presets for the camera are not very good, that in auto mode tungsten lighting (your normal lightbulb) was too yellow, and when put on tungsten mode it over corrected the problem, causing the picture to have a blue hue.
Another thing they mention is that the LCD can get washed out in bright sunlight, and since there is no view finder it doesn't leave you with many other options aside from shading the screen.
Philip Ryan from CNET review of S600 said:
Given that Samsung has shown that it is capable of making cameras that capture pleasing images, such as the
Digimax L85 and the
Digimax L60, there's little excuse for its S-series cameras turning in pictures that are plagued by artifacts and other noise. So, while the Samsung Digimax S600 certainly has a feature set that looks solid, you're better off spending a little more on one of Samsung's better-performing cameras or looking at an other brand altogether.
and I looked at the other two he mentions and they are both plauged with fringing.
Not trying to rain on your parade, I just dont want you to spend money on something that isn't the best bang for the buck.
If you definitely cant afford anything more, the Samsung is a decent choice. it is one of the cheapest manual control cameras you can get (point and shoot format). If however you can afford to spend a little more, the canon powershot A540 was CNET's highest ranked camera in the sub 200 US dollar price range. It costs about 190USD, so that may be a little steep, but it offers better picture quality, aperture and shutter priority modes, white balance, quicker burst shooting, 3 metering modes (evaluative, ceter weighted and spot), it has exposure compensation in 1/3 increments instead of 1/2, and of course, you can get teleconverters, wide angle converters, and just about any 52mm filter to work on the A540. That means polarizers and neutral density filters can be used to expand your creative abilities. Oh and the Canon has a larger zoom ranging from 35mm on the wide side (the same as the samsung) to 140mm telephoto (as opposed to samsungs 105mm)
http://reviews.cnet.com/Canon_PowerShot_A540/4505-6501_7-31740579.html?tag=pdtl-list
check it out and see if you think it will be worth the extra money. I personally would get that over the samsung without even thinking, but I'm not the one buying it here.
Good luck with your purchase, and sorry for the information overload (I was just sitting around so I decided to research cheap P&S cameras for you).:lmao:
) - and she will only turn 14 in April of next year. And I don't feel she's too young to start out taking photos, either, actually, also she had the FisherPrice camera when she was 3 or 4! 
