Brown, L. & Gilligan, C. Meeting at the Crossroads: Women's Psychology and Girls' Development

Lyn Mikel Brown and Carol Gilligan ask, "What, on the way to womanhood, does a girl give up?" One hundred girls gave voice to what is rarely spoken and often ignored: that the passage out of girlhood is a journey into silence and disconnection, a troubled crossing when a girl loses a firm sense of self and becomes tentative and unsure. These changes mark the end of adolescence as a watershed in women's psychological development and the stories the girls tell are by turns heartrending and courageous. Listening to these girls provides us with the means of reaching out to them at this critical time, and of better understanding what we as women and men may have left behind at our own crossroads.

Carlip, H. Girl Power: Young Women Speak Out: Personal Writings from Teenage Girls
In this extraordinary book you will discover the secrets and deepest needs of girls from all across the country – the thoughts, the fears, and the dreams of girls between the ages of thirteen and nineteen. You will hear from teen mothers and beauty queens, girl rappers and farm girls, surfers and sorority sisters. Theirs are voices that have too long gone unheard and unheeded, silenced and ignored. And now in this stunning collection they dare to reveal the things that will change your preconceptions and touch your heart.

Chesney-Lind, Meda and Katherine Irwin. Beyond Bad Girls: Gender, Violence and Hype
In this important new work, two respected criminologists challenge the characterization of the new 'bad girl' arguing that it is only a new attempt to punish girls who are not the stereotypical depiction of good. Through interviews with young women, educators and people in the criminal justice system, Beyond Bad Girls exposes the formal and informal systems of socio-cultural control imposed on girls.

Edut, Ophira. Adios Barbie: Young Women Write About Body Image and Identity
Adios Barbie collects a wide range of essays that give collective voice to the first feminist generation to consciously repudiate the dominant beauty standard in order to feel at home in their bodies. Writers like Nomy Lamm and Lisa Jervis explore new paradigms of women who use their bodies as symbols of power, sites of resistance, and mediums of expression.

Fevereisen, Patti. Invisible Girls: The Truth About Sexual Abuse.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, one out of four girls will have experienced sexual abuse by the time she is 16 and 48 percent of all rapes involve a victim under the age of 18. Yet there is tremendous denial about the scope and cultural impact of this epidemic of violence against young girls and women. Dr. Patti Feuereisen has been working with teenage girls for 25 years and has been a pioneer in helping abused girls find their voices. What she discovered in listening to hundreds of girls was not only that sexual abuse of young girls is in fact epidemic but that if the abuse can be processed when girls are still young-in their teens and early twenties-remarkable healing can take place. Girls and young women who are given an opportunity to speak out will most often go on to thrive as adults; without such an opportunity the traumatic effects of their abuse will often continue to cause them difficulty long into adulthood. Invisible Girls weaves together powerful first-person narratives with gentle guidance and seasoned insights-giving every young woman who struggles with the scars of sexual abuse the courage to come out from behind the veil of secrecy and become vibrant, healthy, and whole.

Filipovic, Zlata. A Child's Life in Sarajevo.
A graphic firsthand look at the war in Sarajevo by a Croatian girl whose personal world has collapsed, this vivid, sensitive diary sounds an urgent and compelling appeal for peace. Filipovic begins her precocious journal in autumn 1991 as a contented 10-year-old preoccupied with piano and tennis lessons and saturated with American movies, TV shows, books and rock music. Soon the bombs start falling; her friends are killed by shrapnel or snipers' bullets; her family's country house burns down, and they subsist on UN food packages, without gas, electricity or water, as thousands of Sarajevans die. Filipovic, whose circle of friends included Serbs, Croats and Muslims, blames the former Yugoslavia's politicians for dividing ethnic groups and playing hell with people's lives.

Gilligan, Carol et al. Making Connections.
Adolescent girls' special needs in the teen-age years are thoroughly examined in this compelling book focusing on the resistance stage of development in young girls. Drawing on studies of women's and girl's development, clinical work with girls and women, and their personal experiences, the voices of adolescent girls are used to reframe and greater understand their resistance against debilitating conventions of feminine behavior.

Glickman, Rose. Daughters of Feminists
Filled with personal anecdotes that will engage mothers, daughter, and anyone concerned with the progress of feminism in today’s social climate, Daughters of Feminists explores the experience of women directly influenced by mothers who worked hard toward equality and the transformation of the home, the workplace, and the world at large.

Hampshire College Civil Liberties and Public Policy Program. Young Women’s Voices
A collection of writings documenting our personal stories, our struggles, our fears, our anger, and our fight for reproductive rights.

Hancock, Emily. The Girl Within: A Groundbreaking New Approach to Female Identity.
Adolescent girls' special needs in the teen-age years are thoroughly examined in this compelling book focusing on the resistance stage of development in young girls. Drawing on studies of women's and girl's development, clinical work with girls and women, and their personal experiences, the voices of adolescent girls are used to reframe and greater understand their resistance against debilitating conventions of feminine behavior.

Inness, Sherrie, Ed. Millennium Girls: Today’s Girls Around the World
Riding the wave of a booming girl culture worldwide, this collection of girls' voices across the globe invites us to learn more about varied girlhoods. From coming-of-age rituals in South Africa to the impact of computers and popular magazines on girls in Japan and Germany, Millennium Girls offers us a broader vision of global girlhood.

Jacob, Iris. My Sisters’ Voices: Teenage Girls of Color Speak Out
Jacob solicited works from teens across the country, writing thousands of letters to friends, English teachers and social organizations. The result is a stirring collection of essays and poems detailing the coming-of-age experiences of a diverse group of young women identified by name, age and ethnicity. Jacob and company tackle such issues as interracial friendships, poverty, oppression and family. With her personal reflections inserted before each piece, Jacob exhibits empathy with the writers, revealing rage when presenting African-American Brooke Wilson's harangue against female objectification, and later joining Chinese/Italian Alicia Mazzara in displaying defiance when forced to choose one race over another in the biographical information section of standardized forms. Some of the writings are more race-oriented than others (e.g., Shivani Agarwal's heartbreaking story of first love does not mention ethnicity, and some contributors are listed as "African American," while others are simply "Black"), but all are important and will resonate with teens and their parents, teachers and mentors.

Johnson, Norine, Michael Roberts & Judith Worell. Beyond Appearance A New Look at Adolescent Girls
Boston Univ., MA. Presents a balanced view of adolescent girls, emphasizing their strengths and weaknesses. Reviews research on girls from a variety of ethnic, racial, socioeconomic backgrounds, and ages. Explores gender roles, body image, family and peer relationships, sexual decision-making, and experiences at school and in the community. For researchers and practitioners.

Johnston, Andrea. Girls Speak Out: Finding Your True Self
In Girls Speak Out, educator Andrea Johnston looks at girls throughout history, questions taboos about gender, and provides a step-by-step guide to helps girls explore issues crucial to their sense of self. In essence, she challenges girls to take control of their own lives and to create a world that cherishes each person. With poetry and stories from girls of all social strata who have participated in the Girls Speak Out program, excerpts from the work of women writers such as Alice Walker and Sandra Cisneros, and transcripts from the “talk shows” that Johnston and her Girls Speak Out groups have staged, this book is a blueprint for change.

Lamb, Sharon and Lyn Mikel Brown. Packaging Girlhood: Rescuing Our Daughters from Marketers's Schemes
The stereotype-laden message, delivered through clothes, music, books, and TV, is essentially a continuous plea for girls to put their energies into beauty products, shopping, fashion, and boys. This constant marketing, cheapening of relationships, absence of good women role models, and stereotyping and sexualization of girls is something that parents need to first understand before they can take action.Lamb and Brown teach parents how to understand these influences, give them guidance on how to talk to their daughters about these negative images, and provide the tools to help girls make positive choices about the way they are in the world.In the tradition of books like Reviving Ophelia, Odd Girl Out, Queen Bees and Wannabees that examine the world of girls, this book promises to not only spark debate but help parents to help their daughters.

Lecroy, Craig Winston and Daley, Janice. Empowering Adolescent Girls: Examining the Present and Building Skills for the Future with the Go Grrrls Program
A method to help adolescent girls in today's culture successfully navigate the transition to adulthood. Mary Pipher's Reviving Ophelia awakened us to the need for gender-specific programs tailored to the unique issues girls face. In this book, LeCroy and Daley outline the issues, review the research, and offer specific strategies for working with adolescent girls.

Linn, Susan. Consuming Kids: The Hostile Takeover Of Childhood
In Consuming Kids, psychologist Susan Linn takes a comprehensive and unsparing look at the demographic advertisers call “the kid market, “ taking readers on a compelling and disconcerting journey through modern childhood as envisioned by commercial interests. Children are now the focus of a marketing maelstrom, targets for everything from minivans to M&M counting books. All aspects of children’s live – their health, education, creativity, and values – are at risk of being compromised by their status in marketplace.

Mann, Judy. The Difference: Discovering the Hidden Ways We Silence Girls, Finding Alternatives That Can Give Them Voice
A journalist surveys a wide range of scientific research and popular culture to reveal the roots of low self-esteem in girls and offers practical suggestions to parents and society for raising girls to an equal status with boys.

Orenstein, P. School Girls: Young Women, Self-Esteem, and the Confidence Gap
The classic account of the hurdles facing adolescent girls in America. Inspired by a study by the American Association of University Women that showed girls' self-esteem plummeting as they reach adolescence, Peggy Orenstein spent months observing, interviewing, and getting know dozens of girls both inside and outside the classroom

Pipher, M. Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls
Why are American adolescent girls falling prey to depression, eating disorders, and suicide attempts at an alarming rate? The answer hit a nerve. We live in a look-obsessed, sexist “girl-poisoning” culture. And despite the advances of feminism, girls continue to struggle to find their true selves. Here are girls’ unmuted voices from the front lines of adolescence, personal and painfully honest. By laying bare their harsh day-to-day reality, Reviving Ophelia issues a call to arms and offers parents compassion, strength, and strategies with which to revive these Ophelias’ lost sense of self.

Schor, Juliet B. Born to Buy
Marketing targeted at kids is virtually everywhere--in classrooms and textbooks, on the Internet, even at Girl Scout meetings, slumber parties, and the playground. Product placement and other innovations have introduced more subtle advertising to movies and television. Drawing on her own survey reserch and unprecedented access to the advertising industry, Juliet B. Schor, New York Times bestselling author of The Overworked American, examines how marketing efforts of vast size, scope, and effectiveness have created "commercialized children." Ads and their messages about sex, drugs, and food affect not just what children want to buy, but who they think they are. In this groundbreaking and crucial book, Schor looks at the consequences of the commercialization of childhood and provides guidelines for parents and teachers. What is at stake is the emotional and social well-being of our children.

Sewell, Michelle. Growing Up Girl: An Anthology of Voices from Marginalized Spaces.
Growing Up Girl is an eclectic collection of poems, essays, and short stories that document the transition from girl to woman, as told by the girls and women who know the journey best. Whether she's coming undone or coming out the writing is authentic and passionate.

Shandler, Sara. Ophelia Speaks
Ophelia Speaks by Sara Shandler is a clever response to Mary Pipher's best-selling Reviving Ophelia. Shandler reveals telling portraits of teenage girls in this book, a compilation of essays, poems, and true-grit commentary from a cross section of teenage girls (or Ophelias), throughout the country. The book succeeds because it gives voice to their deepest concerns and their too-often frenzied lives. Because she's a college student, Shandler considers herself a peer of these adolescent girls, able to tap into their collective consciousness.

Simmons, Rachel. The Curse of the Good Girl: Raising Authentic Girls with Courage and Confidence.
In The Curse of the Good Girl, bestselling author Rachel Simmons argues that in lionizing the Good Girl we are teaching girls to embrace a version of selfhood that sharply curtails their power and potential. Unerringly nice, polite, modest, and selfless, the Good Girl is a paradigm so narrowly defined that it's unachievable. When girls inevitably fail to live up--experiencing conflicts with peers, making mistakes in the classroom or on the playing field--the are paralyzed by self-criticism, stunting the growth of vital skills and habits. Simmons traces the poisonous impact of Good Girl pressure on development and provides a strategy to reverse the tide. At once expository and prescriptive, The Curse of the Good Girl is a call to arms from a new front in female empowerment.

Simmons, Rachel. Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls.
Although more than 16 years have passed, Rhodes Scholar Simmons hasn't forgotten how she felt when Abby told the other girls in third grade not to play with her, nor has she stopped thinking about her own role in giving Noa the silent treatment. Simmons examines how such "alternative aggression" where girls use their relationship with the victim as a weapon flourishes and its harmful effects. Through interviews with more than 300 girls in 10 schools (in two urban areas and a small town), as well as well as 50 women who experienced alternative aggression when they were young, Simmons offers a detailed portrait of girls' bullying. Citing the work of Carol Gilligan and Lyn Mikel Brown, she shows the toll that alternative aggression can take on girls' self-esteem.

Simmons, Rachel. Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Agression in Girls. Revised and updated
Drawing on her experience working with tens of thousands of girls, parents and educators for more than a decade, Simmons introduces four new chapters to help girls in school, in their friendships and at home. She offers an in-depth report on the ways technology is redefining girls' social experience and down-to-earth advice on how to parent in the digital age. The revised edition also includes new classroom initiatives for educators and step-by-step strategies to help parents respond to bullying. Odd Girl Out (Revised and Updated) remains the definitive resource for detailed insight and proven methodologies to address girls' social struggles.

Simmons, Rachel. Odd Girl Out: Girls Write About Bullies, Cliques, Popularity, and Jealousy.
The national bestseller Odd Girl Out exposed a hidden culture of cruelty that had always been quietly endured by American girls. As Rachel Simmons toured the country, these girls found their voices and spoke to her about their pain. They wanted to talk-and they weren't the only ones. Mothers, teachers, counselors, young professional women, even fathers, came to Rachel with heart-wrenching personal stories that could no longer be kept secret.

Here, Rachel creates a safe place for girls to talk, rant, sound off, and find each other. The result is a collection of wonderful accounts of the inner lives of adolescent girls. Candid and disarming, creative and expressive, and always exceptionally self-aware, these poems, songs, confessions, and essays form a journal of American girlhood. They show us how deeply cruelty flows and how strongly these girls want to change.