Title: Girlhood: Teens around the World in Their Own Voices
Author: Masuma Ahuja
Genre: Nonfiction
Rating: 5.0 out of 5
All around the world, girls are going to school, working, creating, living as sisters, daughters, friends. Yet we know so little about their daily lives. We hear about a few exceptional girls who make headlines, and we hear about headline-making struggles and catastrophes. But since the health, education, and success of girls so often determines the future of a community, why don’t we know more about what life is like for the ordinary girls, the ones living outside the headlines? From the Americas to Europe to Africa to Asia to the South Pacific, the thirty-one teens from twenty-nine countries in Girlhood Around the World share their own stories of growing up through diary entries and photographs. They invite us into their day-to-day lives, through their eyes and in their voices, in a full-color, exuberantly designed scrapbook-like volume.
This was a fascinating read! The author gives a brief overview of each girl’s life and cultural/national customs and experiences, asks each girl a few questions, and includes pictures and journal entries written by the girls themselves. Glimpsing each of the girls’ worlds through their own eyes is compelling, as is reading their story—not just the glossy and social media-ready version, but the reality of their day-to-day existence. This book is a powerful experience.
Masuma Ahuja has worked all over the world as a journalist. Girlhood is her new book, chronicling the lives of girls across the globe.
(Galley courtesy of Algonquin Young Readers in exchange for an honest review.)
Tomorrow Is Another Day 