adolescence

Parachuting

mandy — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 20:00:00 +0000

Those who are avid readers often fondly remember the books that seemed to have changed our lives. Many of the books that have stuck with me, I read during my teenage years. Adolescence is a time in life when people struggle with identity and seek to be understood. The books we connect with at this time can be an extremely powerful influence—sometimes as powerful as a friend, a counselor, or a family member.

Not much time has passed since I was a teen, but young adult books seem a lot different to me now. More appear open and honest about the struggles actual kids go through, and Parachuting by Leora Freedman is this kind of book. It doesn't shy away from delving into the realistic challenges of the main character, sixteen-year-old Zoe Diamond. There is no sugarcoating in this book, thankfully!

Parachuting is Freedman's second novel, a follow up to Ivory Pomegranate, which won several awards in Israel. This book is a coming of age novel in which Zoe struggles with a suicidal best friend, a confusing crush on her Hebrew School teacher, and asking big questions about life and identity. She has sex, cuts class, and smokes pot—all things I imagine would make her more relatable to teenage readers.

Freedman is spot-on in writing a believably self-absorbed teenager. So, given that I was reading Parachuting as an adult, it was sometimes annoying to be immersed back in that phase of life. But the feelings explored throughout the book—confusion, anger, depression—are ones we can all understand.

It would have been interesting to delve deeper into some of the issues touched only on the surface in the book, like the state of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in 1973 or the race relations at Zoe's school. Hannah Senesh, the real-life Israeli parachuter whom Zoe admires, has a very fascinating biography, and it would have been neat to hear more about her in the story. A strong female role model in a YA book is always a good thing!

It was refreshing to read a young adult novel that deals with the important themes of queerness and trauma. Freedman treats her readers with respect, wrestling with the true challenges of being a teenager rather then pretending high school is the best time of our lives.

Written by: Lesley Kartali, April 2nd 2011

Letter to My Daughter

admin — Mon, 24 May 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By George Bishop

Random House

I admit that I am influenced by book titles in my choice of books to read. In that sense, Letter to My Daughter was somewhat off putting for me. I was expecting a somewhat predictable story of a mother writing a letter to her daughter. Fortunately, I overcame my reticence, and upon reading the first couple of paragraphs I found myself immersed in a riveting story.

The novel begins in present day Baton Rouge, Louisiana; a mother (Laura) has started writing a letter to her daughter Elizabeth to alleviate her anxiety and worry. Her teenage daughter has just left the house after yet another argument with her mother In her letter, Laura has decided to tell her daughter about her own troubled adolescent years and share secrets about her past she had previously been unable to confide.

As we read Laura's letter, we travel back in time to the late '60s. Laura’s parents are conservative Southern Baptists who don’t approve of her relationship with Tim, a Cajun boy from the other side of town. Laura continues to see Tim against her parents wishes until one fateful day when Laura’s life is changed irrevocably. At the risk of giving too much of the plot away, the novel touches on themes of prejudice, young love and sexuality, the Vietnam War, mother-daughter relationships, and the challenges of being both a teenager and a parent in an increasingly complex world.

You don’t have to be a parent or a teenager to relate to this story. Once I started reading Letter to My Daughter, I found it difficult to put it down and ended up reading it in just two sittings. Don’t be put off by the title of this book as I was; the author has created an unforgettable story that will stay with you for days after you turn the last page.

Written by: Gita Tewari, May 24th 2010

Justice for Girls?: Stability and Change in the Youth Justice Systems of the United States and Canada

admin — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 00:01:00 +0000

By Jane B. Sprott, Anthony N. Doob

University of Chicago Press

In Justice for Girls?, Canadian researchers Jane B. Sprott and Anthony N. Doob provide a comprehensive and concise overview on girls and juvenile delinquency in these two North American countries. Sprott and Doob address the misconception, fueled by media reports and newspaper articles circulating in the U.S. and Canada, that girls are committing more crimes, and more violent crimes. The book asserts that contrary to popular belief, “the violent girl crime wave that people have been waiting for since the early 1900s...has simply not happened.”

In uncovering the hype behind sensationalized reports on girls and violence, the authors view juvenile delinquency as a social construction. In researching the number of violent girl crimes throughout the twentieth century, they assert that girls are less likely to commit violent crimes than boys. However, they note that girls make up a large percentage of juvenile delinquents and custody cases due to status offenses, so-called crimes in which girls can be arrested and tried for non-criminal behavior, such as sexual immorality.

Connecting the courts' motivations behind status offenses to women’s political movements, the authors make a convincing argument that girls have often born the brunt of a sociopolitical backlash as a parallel when women's movements are afoot.At these pivotal moments in history, juvenile court systems have tightened their surveillance of girls’ behaviors and criminalized girls’ sexual expression. As a result, Sprott and Doob argue, girls have historically been punished, and continue to be punished, for behavior and actions considered normal and acceptable for boys.

The authors discuss the limitations of their research, acknowledging the absences in their data with regards to race and class. Another absence in the book is a discussion of queer girls as well as trans girls and boys. Since sexual immortality—one of the most common status offenses girls are cited for—is not discussed at length, it is unclear if any of the girls convicted of this offense were/are queer or trans, and how their sexuality and/or gender identity influenced a court’s decision. Moreover, besides examining one case study, the authors do not offer girls’ own voices or their stories. Instead, they allow statistical evidence to speak for the injustices girls face in juvenile justice systems.

As a feminist scholar interested in the intersection of girls’ studies and media studies, I would argue that Sprott's and Doob’s work could benefit any researcher addressing the current hype surrounding girls and violence in contemporary Western societies.

Written by: Kristen Lambert, March 20th 2010

Revenge of the Mooncake Vixen

admin — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 00:54:00 +0000

By Marilyn Chin

W.W. Norton

Forget fairytales and fables that threaten rape and violence to women who go off the beaten path, deny their parents, or refuse to marry. Marilyn Chin's novel, Revenge of the Mooncake Vixen, doesn't lock away its female protagonists into a tower so a prince can climb up their hair and doesn't ask the women to honor and obey their parents. Instead, Chin's twin protagonists are riot grrrls of the immigrant set: they take on everything from gender and sexuality to Chinese mythology and the immigrant experience.

Duality is a central component to the book: the sisters at the heart of the stories are like night and day. It's no coincidence that the sisters – Moonie and Mei Ling – are known as "double happiness." There is the hypersexualized sister, and there is the asexual sister: each is as wild as they are rebellious. Mei Lin throws herself into fling after fling as she makes deliveries for her family’s restaurant while her sister rips her away from too-willing American men again and again. Here, the contradictions of stereotypes are thrown into the face of the reader. The Madonna/Whore dichotomy was never so smartly articulated.

Chin is not unaware of what is at stake for her protagonists. Their boldness is spoken of when Chin writes of Mei Lin's reckless promiscuity: "It could ultimately mean the death of your tribe and your people." The children of immigrants often have high expectations to fulfill. They must honor their cultures and succeed in a new world. The tongue-in-cheek statement certainly has some levity behind it: Failure is not an option for the first generation child.

Chin drives the stake through the heart of the matter when describing the twins' reaction to a fellow first generation immigrant, Donny Romero: "Now he's on the East Coast studying art at Yale. How spoiled is that? First-generation immigrant and he gets to study art." While the girls rage and rebel against this expectation, they do indeed fall into it. They become the Ivy League successes predicted by their family and by the world around them.

The collection's only misstep is that the narrators, and consequently Chin, sometimes seem too pleased with themselves. Chin knows what she's doing, and like the adventurous Mei Ling, she seemingly has so much pushing the envelope that the message of the pieces is sometimes drowned out by the volume of the sexual escapades and wink-wink criticism of assimilation. For example, "Wiping One's ass with the Sutras" would be more than fine, but when coupled again and again with sexually explicit language, the rebellion at the heart of the collection is dulled because the nail is hit one too many times. The profanity is meant to jolt the reader, but without some relief from the jolting, the risk is desensitization.

The growing pains of the Chinese immigrant experience are bursting at the seams. These twins do not reject their heritage; they simply poke holes through its hypocrisies. These sisters do not blindly accept American culture, and mock its excesses. These are the new stories of the immigrant nation. It's no accident that the restaurant owned by the twins' family is called Double Happiness. Here, making one's way means working hard, sacrificing, and forging a path to the Ivy League schools, something the twins expect as much as the mooncakes they deliver. These vixens rebel and buck and crow against expectations: this "double happiness" of living in a new land with old world expectations. The twins make their own path without rejecting the history, expectations, and hopes of their family.

Chin does not offer a happily-ever-after-type ending nor does she offer a tragedy. Instead, the twins play in murky water and shed new light on old struggles.

Written by: Lisa Bower, January 17th 2010

The Secret Lives of Boys: Inside the Raw Emotional World of Male Teens

admin — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 17:35:00 +0000

By Malina Saval

Basic Books

The Secret Lives of Boys is exactly the kind of book I love to read. It is a collection of well-written case studies that give the reader a snapshot of teenage boys that most adults today don’t see. Although I’m no longer a teenager, and I’m not male, I do have a younger brother—someone just heading out of his teenage years—and I found myself identifying in some way with each of the ten boys Saval highlights.

Each chapter is one boy’s story—from “The Mini-Adult” to “The Teenage Dad” to “The Sheltered One”—and they are all as compelling (and surprising) as they are heart wrenching. Whether “The Troublemaker” or “The Rich Kid,” all of these boys have stories with common themes: lackadaisical views on religion and their part in it, the belief that they are smarter and more mature than their peers (which some experts call narcissistic and some say is under-estimation by adults), and a desperate desire to be understood and have a close friend with whom they can share their lives. They all had (and have) struggles unique to their respective situations.

Saval writes, “There is a general consensus that American culture has failed our boys, and they have failed us.” The book is a direct attempt to disprove that. We look at boys today, she says, and see Columbine and absentee teenage fathers—boys who are emotionless and, at the same time, on the verge of exploding. The boys in this book truly help us see their secret lives—they are not emotionless or about to explode, and they know about as much of life as the rest of us do, which is to say, very little. I think the book’s premise succeeds; Saval’s fact-dropping is backed up by solid research and her dialogue with the ten featured boys seems fair-minded and, at the same time, conversational.

I thought it was interesting to note that Saval allowed her subjects to title their respective chapters for themselves. She says, “These titles also reflect archetypes or genres of adolescent male youth. Some are self-reflective…whereas others reflect how they feel society views them. In coining their own terms, these boys are making is clear that they, not we, get to decide who they are.”

I will be giving The Secret Lives of Boys to my father as a gift. I want him to read it and discover that maybe my younger brother is more than only college degree potential. I hope that everyone with a teenage boy in his or her life (or a boy about to be a teenager, or a young man who’s just finished his teen years)—or who is a teen boy, for that matter—will read this book and see that boys are just as human as the rest of us.

All boys have secrets to tell us, if we will just listen.

Written by: Viannah Duncan, July 3rd 2009

Scrapbook of My Years as a Zealot

admin — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 22:43:00 +0000

By Nicole Markotić

Arsenal Pulp Press

Previous portrayals of Mormonism in popular media have been widely negative, expressed primitively through cheap jokes about polygamy. Recently, with the emergence of the HBO show Big Love, a positive light has been shown on the teachings of Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saints movement. We find ourselves rooting for the Mormon family in the show, which fights to keep together despite the banning of polygamy by the Church of Latter Day Saints over 100 years ago. Informative to some extent yet largely based on shock value, I wanted to learn more of the cultural elements of Mormonism than Big Love provides. Nicole Markotić’s new novel, Scrapbook of My Years as a Zealot, offers the reader a closer look into the tenets of Mormonism through the fictional narrative of an adolescent girl.

Growing up in Western Canada, the anonymous female narrator navigates the reader through a non-linear story of her time as a member of the Mormon Church. The daughter of European immigrants, she struggles to maintain a relationship with her atheist Croatian mother while also coping with her ailing German father’s sudden conversion to parenting. At such an impressionable age in junior high school, she gravitates towards Mormonism through her best friend Vera. She uses Mormonism as a way to isolate herself from her stifling family and immerse herself in a uniquely North American culture. Starting with her wardrobe and trickling down into her daily diet, she adheres to a rigid following of the religion in order to create stability within her life.

The novel shifts back and forth between adolescence and adulthood, when she ultimately leaves the Mormon Church. As an adult, the narrator begins working with delinquent children, and becomes involved with a “Jack” Mormon named Darius who, like her, was once apart of the church and knows what it is like to leave. Their vapid relationship, due to Darius’s sexual guilt leftover from his involvement with the church, Vera’s return into her life, and the constant scrutiny she receives for once being involved with Mormonism, only furthers her self-discovery while also pushing her closer to her family.

Upon first hearing about Scrapbook of My Years as a Zealot I was led to believe that it would be a nonfiction narrative of a young girl’s journey through joining the LDS church. While initially disappointed to learn that the book was fiction, I was quickly drawn into the relationships between characters and the use of Mormonism as a means to figure out ones adolescence. While it may not have been the most forthcoming writing on Mormonism, Scrapbook of My Years as a Zealot is definitely an entertaining read for one looking to skim the surface of the controversial religion.

Written by: Cynthia Schemmer, April 30th 2009

Red: Teenage Girls in America Write On What Fires Up Their Lives Today

admin — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 11:17:00 +0000

Edited by Amy Goldwasser

Plume

My teenage years have always seemed to be something that I’ve wanted to forget: awkwardness, feeling clueless about life, not feeling comfortable in my body, navigating love and friendships, hating my family, loving my family, not knowing who my family really was, and knowing that there must be something more to life than what I was doing. Ugh, high school.

Now that I’m past my teens and well on to other decades of my life, I haven’t taken the time to look back and consider all of those big Life Questions I once had. Amy Goldwasser’s anthology, Red: Teenage Girls in America Write On What Fires Up Their Lives Today, helped me to both reconsider my past wonderments and understand what teenage life is like for a whole new generation of young women.

If it were just fresh voices that evolved out of this anthology, Red would be an amazing and worth-your-while read. If Red were just about life as a teenage woman in America, it would still be a great anthology. But the unique articulation of each writer, the diverse experiences represented, the range of topics presented, the brutal honesty and uncertainties revealed in each essay, and the fierce tenacity to understand life that each writer brings to the page makes_Red_ not only phenomenal, but a feminist staple for every reader’s library. The anthology is composed not of adults editing and filtering the words of teenage girls, but the words of the young women themselves—with all of their incomplete thoughts and blunt renderings of life.

The topics covered in Red range from what you would expect from an anthology of teenage girls’ writings (i.e., body image, friendships, and family life) to groundbreaking essays by young women on politics, PTSD, pop culture, and war. This isn’t to say that the essays about body image, friendships, and family are not groundbreaking. In fact, these pieces challenge the reader to think about, reconsider, and understand the complexity of young women’s lives in America just as much as the essays on the larger world do. Whether the writers’ voices come across as determined and strong or hesitant and ambiguous each essay invokes the varied challenges of growing up as a woman in America.

I believe that the intended audience for Red is you. Whoever you are. You could be a young teenage woman living in America and obviously connect with Red, or you could be from a different generation and gender than the contributors and still find every essay meaningful. While phrases such as, “we exchanged screen names” definitely point to the youth of the authors represented in_Red_, when one of the contributors states, “I want to reach out so that someone somewhere will breath more easily because I have lived,” you begin to understand that these fresh voices speak their words with an awareness of the world around them, and the impact that these words might have on others—something that our society does not believe young women are capable of today. Red proves this notion wrong in brilliant and wonderful ways.

Written by: Chelsey Clammer, February 20th 2009

Throw like a Girl

admin — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 11:55:00 +0000

By Jean Thompson

Simon and Schuster

After being asked what she wanted for her readers to take away from Throw Like a Girl, Jean Thompson answered that she hoped they appreciate the “transforming power of literature, how can it remove us from the everyday world and let us see with new eyes.” And this book does just that: it takes us away from the everyday world and then painfully drops us back with the suspicion that this fiction is actually very real.

The horrors of normalcy and the tedium of a common life are the forces that drive the majority of the characters in these twelve stories; our “heroines” are far from the romantic or ladylike ilk, but instead more like tough, strong and violent. On the opposite side stand the men in these accounts, mostly unsuccessful and lost, they portray what nobody wants and what most end up getting.

In “The Brat,” a spooky but familiar story about teenage anger Iris, the twelve year old outcast main character that is not “pretty or smart or nicey-nice,” hates everybody and everything, and we hate her; we hate her and we understand her because we have been there. This character, as most in this collection, is like we were, are or will be. All of these women have the urge to live, to act on their thoughts and to get what they really want, and we know that getting what you really want is a trap. We know that if we go for the cheese it will cut our heads off, and we do it anyways. Jean Thompson is the story teller of our own collective story.

Lust and boredom force Mel in “A Normal Life” to leave her children and husband to marry the man she was having a hot and heavy affair with just to go around in the circle of dissatisfaction, where she ceases being a "sexy siren" and instead becomes “just another nagging, squawking wife.”

“The Family Barcus” analyzes the life of a perfect American family, with an obsessively optimistic father who eventually gives up on life. It’s told in a first-person velvety prose that slips into the brain and tightly wraps it for a long time.

The wit and black humor of the title are splendidly sinister. Throw Like a Girl is a phenomenal account, and when you read it, you’ll understand why it bears the title of the collection.

Written by: Laura Koffler, September 6th 2007

Growing Girls: The Natural Origins of Girls’ Organizations in America

admin — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 19:54:00 +0000

By Susan A. Miller

Rutgers University Press

As a former Girl Scout, I have vivid memories of my first trip to Camp Hoffman where my troop and I listened to the history of the organization. I particularly remember an awful amount of fanfare when my leader discussed Juliette Gordon Low, the fearless founder of the Girl Scouts. After reading Susan A. Miller’s Growing Girls, I feel a little jaded about my 2nd grade introduction to the Girl Scouts. This book, which particularly focuses on the creation and growth of the Girl Scouts and the Campfire Girls during the early 20th century, is equally pertinent to today’s camping and scouting opportunities for girls.

Typical of the time period, scouting programs for girls were originally created to solve the “problems” of Victorian girls—namely their evolution away from the domestic sphere and towards modernism, fashion, and popular culture. Scout leaders claimed to be experts on adolescent girls, yet over the course of the few decades covered in this book, both the Girl Scouts and the Campfire Girls continuously shifted the focus of their programming in an effort to strike just the right balance. Miller’s research shows the finely gendered line between offering programming that taught independence, survival skills and discipline, without the threat of being perceived as too masculine. Unfortunately, scouting programs during this time period included too many gender-related rules and regulations that left girls mostly observing nature instead of participating in it. Later programming focused heavily on equally ridiculous tasks such as charting one’s weight and the fun of washing dishes in the outdoors.

From the founding of their organizations, both the Girl Scouts and Campfire Girls recruited thousands of girls by using two important tools — summer camp, now a multi-million dollar part of American culture, and purchasable items. I was amazed to read about the attention that leaders put into their organization’s badges, uniforms, supplies and endless publications, such as the Woodcraft Manual for Girls and Kettles and Campfires.

It is very obvious that Miller conducted a tremendous amount of research for this book, which makes Growing Girls a valuable resource about the history of scouting, as well as gender relations in the early 20th century United States. A few points are a little dry, but overall I think that this text deserves a spot next other important books about adolescent girls such as Joan Jacobs Brumberg’s The Body Project _and Peggy Orenstein’s _SchoolGirls.

Written by: Kerri Kanelos, September 5th 2007

Sonja

admin — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 19:52:00 +0000

Directed by Kirsi Liimatainen

Vertrieb & Verleih, HFF-Filmmesse

Sonja is a tale of unrequited love and adolescent bumbling depicted with typical Finnish tendencies towards the grand, dramatic and baroque; that is to say, none. A joke: “How can you tell when you’ve met an outgoing Finn? He stares at your shoes.” I note this because the director, Kirsi Liimatainen, is a Finn, and this highly personal movie is typically devoid of the teary-eyed, blouse-rending that might infect another teen drama about relationships. My pal. Manicella. saw Kaurismäki’s Man Without a Past, and I had to explain to her that the pronounced lack of affect was not a comedic affectation, but indeed an accurate portrayal of the culture.

Set in Berlin, the heroine adores her best friend, but considers her boyfriend with ambivalence. “You should be nicer to him,” her mother scolds. Liimatainen reminds me a bit of Fassbinder with her awareness of color and pattern in interior scenes. High drama is restricted to voices raised – between mother and daughter, of course. The ostensible issue – whether or not Sonja is a lesbian – is a non-issue, and the resulting document is a subtle and calm depiction of typical developmental turmoil concerning relationships and appropriate object choice, albeit one that might be charitably described as "languid." At moments of intense crisis, the heroine walks into water. I found myself frequently checking the time remaining during the feature. Sonja might be appropriate accompaniment for a foot soak.

Written by: Erika Mikkalo, September 1st 2007

Dairy Queen

admin — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 12:15:00 +0000

By Catherine Gilbert Murdock

Houghton Mifflin

The word “charming” is too vague, and it makes me think of smarmy real estate descriptions, but…I…can’t…stop…myself. Dairy Queen is just so darn charming that I am forced to momentarily succumb. Catherine Gilbert Murdock has taken a traditional coming-of-age story about a tomboy in a small town and wrung some feisty new life out of it. Her character, DJ Schwenk, is a fifteen year old girl living on a dairy farm and learning about boys, football and family ties.

The first few pages of Dairy Queen are a little disconcerting. DJ speaks in the first person with a simple style and slangy dialogue, and she definitely sounds like a fifteen year old from Wisconsin. Once I settled into her voice, though, I was hooked. DJ is disarmingly honest, naïve, observant and witty - Gilbert Murdock’s voice is spot on. DJ’s mixed feelings toward her family are a realistic combination of humor, angst and love, but they aren’t overdone or corny.

Gilbert Murdock also skillfully addresses some of the issues female athletes face. DJ gets called a “dyke” on the football field, but what upsets her more is that the opposing player pinches her butt as he says it. DJ describes herself as “big” and “strong,” but she has no more than an occasional pang of jealousy for the thin “girly girls.” She may not be free from insecurity, but she is comfortable in her skin. I found DJ’s healthy body image and appetite to be a refreshing departure from teen weight and popularity obsession. More importantly, DJ’s focus on training and competition rings true to anyone who has ever loved to play. When that focus begins to clash with a budding summer romance, DJ is forced to make decisions she has been putting off all summer. By that point I was praying for a sequel as charming as the debut.

Written by: Jennifer Wedemeier, July 10th 2007

Kickoff

admin — Tue, 29 May 2007 13:00:00 +0000

By Donna King

Kingfisher

If the thought of being 13 again makes you more nauseous than nostalgic, Kickoff is not the book for you. However, if you feel free to channel your inner tween, read on. Donna King, also known as Jenny Oldfield, is the author of several children’s series novels, including the Horses of Half Moon Ranch. Kickoff introduces the reader to Tyra, the new American Army brat at a British school and a self-professed “soccer fanatic.” Kickoff is a light hearted and engaging read, and King keeps the tempo quick with short scenes, dialogue and plenty of on the field action.

King plays to what she feels are the common denominators for the Tyra’s age group: misunderstandings with parents, confusing interactions with peers and the class bully and participation in sports. Interestingly, King includes the female characters’ struggles with sexism in this mix, though the “sexist comments” are of a mild and rather hokey variety. The girls’ soccer team eventually earns the respect of the boys’ team, and in several scenes the boys even comment to one another on the talent of the girls. King’s presentations of these adolescent male conversations - and, in fact, much of the “slang” dialogue in the book - is optimistic and innocent at best, and eye-rollingly bad at worst. I doubt this will stop younger ones from enjoying the book, though they may think the characters are a little old-fashioned.

King writes positive, encouraging stories for a younger generation, and it is difficult to find fault with her messages of teamwork and tolerance (the heroine eventually befriends even the class bully). Parents will appreciate the King’s lack of focus on the physical appearance and sex appeal of the female characters, and the increased attention to their physical activity and friendship. I can still describe Nancy Drew’s “creamy complexion” to this day, so the experience of being “blind” to the characters’ physical appearance was slightly off-putting, but also liberating. In a contemporary culture of Bratz dolls and constant updates on Paris Hilton, what tween girl couldn’t use a little break?

Written by: Jennifer Wedemeier, May 29th 2007

The Films of Su Friedrich, Vol. 4: Hide and Seek

admin — Wed, 02 May 2007 12:42:00 +0000

Directed by Su Friedrich

Microcinema / Outcast Films

Hide and Seek is a brilliant movie that explores the real life stories of lesbians' self actualization of who they are during their childhood interwoven with the story of one little girl who - though on the outside she is just like the rest of the girls in her class - she knows that there is something fundamentally different about her. There is also some very interesting footage of very old 1950s-style biology documentaries on homosexuality.

Are we a product of our genetics or are we a product of our environment? This is the question that is debated amongst many leading psychologists and sociologists. Friedrich’s answer to this question is that it is a matter of genetics, using actual accounts of how women at young ages found themselves attracted to those of the same sex and always knew there was something different. Friedrich puts a face to the debate. These are not just statistics or abstract labels; these are actual people with feelings and life experiences.

The movie also gives some insight into this world for those of us who are not homosexual and allows us to connect with our lesbian kin at a very feminine level. Through those very fragile pre-teen and post-pubescent female years, many experiences are shared: the same the games, the social struggles and the desire to feel comfortable in our own skin.

I highly recommend this film to anyone who has struggled with their identity, and to family members of those who have recently “come out.” This movie is a valuable tool in breaking down the negativity that has plagued the lesbian community.

Written by: Diana Tierney, May 2nd 2007

Girl Stories

admin — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 16:37:00 +0000

By Lauren R. Weinstein

Henry Holt

A friend once described the experience of being a Smiths fan at age twelve. Listening to the lyrics of “Half a Person”—“Sixteen, clumsy, and shy, I went to London and I booked myself in at the Y…WCA…”—he felt a pang of recognition with that teenager. Precociously morose, he told me, “I felt so old for my age!”

Reading Lauren R. Weinstein’s comics, I feel a similar sympathetic pang – albeit from the far side of sixteen. It makes me think that the ageless adolescence of the sensitive, artistic, somewhat nerdy kid is a permanent state of being. You’re born with it; you never grow out of it.

Most of the comics included in Girl Stories chronicle the adventures and misadventures of “Lauren Weinstein” during her last year of middle school and freshman year of high school. What kind of girl is she? The kind of girl who, in kindergarten, tells all the Christian kids that the existence of Santa Claus is logically impossible. The kind of girl who repurposes Barbies with scissors, markers, and tin-foil outfits, in order to cast them in dramatic tableaux. The kind of girl who believes Morrissey is her guardian angel. In other words, she’s smart, creative, and strange—and so, inevitably, she’s also lonely.

Lauren’s life is shaped by the tension between wanting something and being smart enough to know it’s no good yet wanting it anyways. She wants to be popular and ends up an outcast (at least temporarily). She wants a boyfriend, but he ends up being a lame, skater dude. She wants her bellybutton pierced; it becomes massively infected.

Weinstein’s drawings are textured, exuberant and enjoyably sloppy. She conveys the terrible swiftness with which triumph becomes humiliation and has a keen understanding of the arcane social logic of adolescence. Her comics are at their best when expressing the higher registers of human emotion—anguish and glee.

The other comics collected in this volume are brief funny pieces about being a girl. Of particular note is “Am I fat?” in which Weinstein describes the double-helping of guilt she feels around food: guilt at eating and guilt at how ridiculous it is to feel guilty about eating. After the comic was published, Weinstein’s inbox was flooded with emails, many from girls asking her for dieting advice. Weinstein, devastated, wrote another comic in response pleading with her readers not to obsess over body image: “Imagine what we could do (and how much more fun we’d have) if we just focused on what we loved!”

Written by: Nadia Berenstein, April 29th 2007