Description:
The familiar idea that strong female role models create strong women is given fresh treatment in the essays and photographs featured in Girls. Three sisters, novelists Jenny and Martha McPhee and photographer Laura McPhee, believe that girls can become powerful role models for each other.The McPhees spent two years traveling across America to create this chronicle of unforgettable young women. As they explain, "We wanted to look at ordinary girls and record both visually and verbally the extraordinary things that girls do and the drives and desires that lead them to do those things." The girls they interviewed and photographed are surprising, whip smart, funny, and inspiring--hardly "ordinary." Among them: Alvina Begay, a cross-country runner living on an Arizona Navajo reservation; Stephanie Formas, a 12-year-old Dallas stock market investor; Jena Malone, a formerly homeless actress whose family once lived in a car; Mina Blyly-Strauss, an orthodox Jew and video artist with tinted blue hair; and Kara-Lee Alexander, a 16-year-old in Maine who fishes for lobster and tuna in her spare time. Also included are stories and photos describing the women of the McPhee family. Not all of the girls are gender busters. The cast of characters also includes cheerleaders, girls scouts, and ballerinas. Yet each girl displays originality, resilience, and a sense of self that is defined in terms of her accomplishments rather than her appearance. Their stories are meant to be savored one by one--perhaps read at bedtime or around a warming fire--and invite every girl to become the author of her own experience. --Barbara Mackoff
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