Girls A History of Growing Up Female in America Book

This ten chapter informational book gives readers a view of life growing up female in America. The first chapter describes the role of gender throughout history. The second chapter explains how girls originally came to this country during colonization. The rest of the book chronicles girlhood through different time periods-colonial all the way to approaching the millennium. Penny Colman did an extensive amount of research for this text. She gathered information from advice books, magazines, official documents, paintings, advertisements, lyrics, novels, museums, libraries, and historical sites. She interviewed historians, read journals and letters of girls throughout history. Colman even used journals and letters of adults in order to understand the expectations parents had for their daughters.
Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of this book is the attention to diversity. Colman includes Native American girls in every chapter. She discusses general topics like hobbies, work ethic, and tribal expectations. She also writes personal stories of real Native American girls like Sarah Winnemucca who became a crusader for the rights of her people during the mid-nineteenth century. Coleman mixes general information about girlhood and personal stories of not only Native Americans but also colonial girls, slave girls, immigrants, pioneers, rich girls, middle class, and poor. Readers can truly get a sense of what life was like for the different culture and lifestyles during each historical time period. Colman even includes a list of further reading in the back of her book. This would be a great resource for teachers and students who want to find out more about girls in history. I can see this book being read cover to cover for pleasure. It could also be used as an amazing reference for a class studying a certain time period in history. As students are learning facts from a given time period, they could read personal accounts of real girls experiencing that time period. The personal accounts would really help students connect to history which can often feel so distant. As Colman points out, male accounts were often more documented in history. This book makes girls feel proud of their role in historical America. Appropriate for young adults.