Supporting A Girls’ Point Of View
There’s no mistaking this scene for a high school English class. The Camden Hills Regional High School students gathered on this summer Sunday wear shorts and tank tops; one shields her face from the sun with a straw hat. In lieu of a chalkboard, a lake sparkles behind them. The sticky remnants of make-your-own sundaes share space on the picnic table with hardcover books, ice cream pooling dangerously close to the dust jackets. Lacrosse season is over, curtains have fallen on school plays and concerts, but the Girls’ Point of View book club is the one “extracurricular” these students can’t bear to leave behind. That stands to reason: it’s the only one that has blurred the line between their classrooms and their lives.
”I wonder if Dessen had a publisher breathing down her neck,” says Sarah, “because the whole thing seemed kind of like a rough draft.” Anna agrees: “It read like a really long movie trailer, with tiny clips of really good things spliced together.” The girls know that author Sarah Dessen’s books are marketed heavily to their cohort, and they’re not duped by the “corny symbolism” of her plots. Clearly, her work is a guilty pleasure compared with some of the other books they’ve read together—Dorothy Allison’s Bastard Out of Carolina, historical fiction like Jennifer Donnelly’s A Northern Light—but they confess to liking it anyway. “She always works-in really deep stuff that you never would have thought about otherwise,” McKenzie muses.
The first Girls’ Point of View book club for high school girls was founded on the island of Vinalhaven in 2000. School librarian Sue Dempster found herself fielding requests from female students for books selected by Oprah for her TV book club. Dempster thought what they might really be after was not the books so much as the experience of reading them with other girls and women. Her suspicion proved correct; in that first year, nearly every high school girl on the island, along with several teachers and staff members, joined the club. “The girls connected the characters’ struggles to their own lives,” says Dempster, “which gave them a safe way to analyze issues and get feedback.”
In 2005, the Camden-based nonprofit Mainely Girls applied for a grant from the Maine Humanities Council to build on the Vinalhaven model and establish Girls’ Point of View book clubs across Maine. By creating a lending library to offset the cost of books, Mainely Girls was able to launch new clubs in seven midcoast towns by 2006. Last year, there were 25 clubs operating in high schools from Caribou to Madison to Machias. Each club selects from a catalog of 40 titles, compiled by girls with input from facilitators, and Mainely Girls sends copies from the central library. The high school girls read both fiction and nonfiction books that depict resourceful female characters developing self-respect and autonomy—in sharp contrast to the girls they’re used to seeing on TV and in the movies.
Adolescent girls seem to spend plenty of time chatting amongst themselves about their personal lives, but when it comes to seeking guidance from adults, they’re much more secretive. Reading and discussing literature gives them the distance and perspective they need to truly reflect on the challenges they face, and seek guidance without directly asking for help. The adult women who facilitate the groups (teachers, school nurses, active community members) absorb their comments without judging or lecturing. (When a story addresses a particularly sensitive issue such as drinking or self-injury, facilitators often invite a professional counselor to join the discussion.)
Club membership also helps girls transcend the vicious social hierarchies that have been documented in books like Odd Girl Out by Rachel Simmons and Queen Bees and Wannabees by Rosalind Wiseman, and immortalized in movies like “Mean Girls.” Friendships are formed in clubs between girls who might not have otherwise acknowledged one another in the halls at school. Also (perhaps surprisingly), clubs attract proficient readers and struggling students alike. The latter are motivated by the schedule of club meetings to read challenging books quickly, but carefully so they can contribute to discussions. One student from Presque Isle wrote, “I am not as shy as I was before I took part in the club, because it taught me that my opinion is not dumb and my voice is actually being heard.”
Some book clubs have enjoyed visits from special guests, including authors like Cynthia Lord. First Lady Karen Baldacci joined Lawrence High School for a discussion of Sue Mayfield’s Drowning Anna. “I found it interesting to hear the girls’ points of view, opinions, and how they expressed their feelings,” said the First Lady. “Book clubs are important to discuss issues and conflicts, explore ideas and solutions. I wish all Maine students could participate in a book club on a regular basis.”
She may yet get her wish. With additional support from the Council, Mainely Girls staff has responded to demand from students, teachers, and parents to expand the Girls’ Point of View book clubs to younger students. In 2007, there were 32 groups drawing on the lending library of titles selected especially for sixth, seventh, and eighth graders; starting this fall, the first clubs for fourth and fifth graders will be established. Popular selections for this age group include Newbery Award-winner Criss Cross by Lynne Rae Perkins and Newbery honor book Rules by Maine author Cynthia Lord. And although Mainely Girls cannot directly support them, book clubs for boys are also springing up around the state. On Vinalhaven, Sue Dempster has organized “Boys, Books, and Bagels” breakfast meetings led by local men. As evidence emerges about the social and academic vulnerabilities of boys, more boys’ clubs may yet develop. When that time comes, they’ll be able to follow the precedent set by Girls’ Point of View.
FROM THE MAINELY GIRLS BOOKLISTS
GRADES FOUR & FIVE
Rickshaw Girl*
by Mitali Perkins
Naima is ten years old, but ambitious. She wants to help support her poor Bangladeshi family, so she offers herself, disguised as a boy, for painting traditional patterns on rickshaws.
Roxie and the Hooligans*
by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Nine-year-old Roxie Warbler is a master at outdoor survival skills, but she doesn’t know how to master Helvetia’s Hooligans, which have targeted her for the year as the subject for their torments. Through a series of adventures, Rosie and the Holligans find themselves stranded on an island. Here, Rosie suddenly finds herself among frightened bullies, the only one who knows what to do.
Each Little Bird that Sings*
by Deborah Wiles
The Snowberger family runs a funeral parlor in Mississippi, but that doesn’t prepare 10-year-old Comfort when her 94-year-old great-great-aunt Florentine Snowberger dies in a vegetable garden.
Ida B...and Her Plans to Maximize Fun, Avoid Disaster, and (possibly) Save the World*
by Katherine Hannigan
Ida B is a homeschooled only child who has always used her creative mind to find pleasure in life and to solve problems. Her life becomes suddenly frustrating and complex when her mother develops cancer and Ida B must go to public school.
The Canada Geese Quilt*
by Natalie Kinsey-Warnock
Ariel is worried about the new baby soon to arrive on the Vermont farm shared by her parents and her grandmother, but when her grandmother suffers a stroke, Ariel’s worries shift. It is when her grandmother refuses to try to recover that Ariel sees the new baby as an opportunity to help re-engage her grandmother in life.
Bridge to Terabithia*
by Katherine Patterson
Jess is the fastest runner he knows, until he meets a tomboy named Leslie. He discovers that there’s nothing wrong with being second to a girl in running, and that imagination has a power above all else.
Number the Stars*
by Lois Lowry
This fictionalized true story relates the experience of one Danish girl as people of Denmark sought to save 7,000 Jews from the death camps in 1943 by smuggling them to Sweden. Told from the perspective of Annemarie Johannesen, whose family helps best friend Ellen Rosen and her family escape.
MIDDLE SCHOOL
Boy2Girl
by Terence Blacker
Sam is 13 when his mother dies and he must leave California to live in England with relatives. His life has changed dramatically, and so he accepts a dare from his cousin to enter his new English school as a girl. Sam(antha) teaches everyone a lesson about stereotypical identities.
Criss Cross*
by Lynne Rae Perkins
A group of 14-year-old friends is at a crossroads, making decisions that seem to send each along a different path. The stories explore children searching for themselves as they enter adulthood.
Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy*
by Gary Schmidt
It is 1912 and Turner Buckminster is immediately at odds with the residents of Phippsburg, Maine, after he moves there. He meets Lizzie Bright Griffin, who lives on Malaga Island, and soon is drawn up into the struggle that threatens Lizzie’s very home.
Perfect*
by Natasha Friend
Isabelle Lee has an eating disorder, and when this is discovered by her little sister, she is forced to attend a group. There she makes her own discoveries about peers and her world in which all that matters is appearances.
Rules*
by Cynthia Lord
Even though 12-year-old Catherine loves her younger brother David, who has autism, his behavior causes her such embarrassment that she forces him to obey certain rules. Then Catherine meets Jason, a nonverbal paraplegic who uses pictures to communicate, and she realizes there is a wide range of “normal.”
Tending to Grace*
by Kimberly Fusco
Cornelia Thornhill is widely seen to be antisocial and even slow, so no one seems to mind much when her mother takes her out of school and drops her off with her great-aunt Agatha while she heads out west with her boyfriend. Cornelia is soon ready to run away, but she begins to realize how much she and her misunderstood aunt, called the “Crow Lady,” have in common.
The Whale Rider
by Witi Ihmaera
The male heir always inherits the title of “chief” in New Zealand’s Maori Tribe, but eight-year-old Kahu attempts to change this tradition, struggling with her great-grandfather’s will.
HIGH SCHOOL
Bastard Out of Carolina
by Dorothy Allison
Bone lives with her mother in Greenville County, South Carolina-a rural, wild place. She can see everything and see through anyone, but that doesn’t help her with her stepfather, Daddy Glen, who calls Bone “cold as death, mean as a snake, and twice as twisty.”
Drowning Anna
by Sue Mayfield
Anna Goldsmith comes to a city from a small town, with both an accent and almost-perfect grades. Hayley Parkin, the most popular girl in school, befriends her, but then begins a slow game of torture that everyone has seen before. The only difference this time is Anna’s response.
The First Part Last*
by Angela Johnson
Bobby learns on his 16th birthday that his girlfriend Nia is pregnant. Suddenly, his free and easy urban life changes. He trades parties for visits to Nia’s obstetrician. Both face difficult decisions when a social worker recommends they put the baby up for adoption in order to return to a normal life.
Looking for Alaska*
by John Green
Miles Halter, an unconventional Florida teenager, trades home for a boarding school in Alabama and a chance to explore the “Great Perhaps.”
The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things*
by Carolyn Mackler
Fifteen-year-old Virginia struggles to fit in with a family who all seem smart, thin, and beautiful.
Secret Life of Bees*
by Sue Monk Kidd
Lily Owens and her beloved black nanny Rosaleen escape Lily’s abusive father and an intolerant community for Tiburon, South Carolina (which was scrawled on the back of a photo left by Lily’s dead mother). There they meet the beekeeping sisters, May, June, and August, who help Lily face the tragic events of her past.
Northern Light*
by Jennifer Donnelly
Sixteen-year-old Mattie is determined to do something different. It is 1906, and she wants to attend college and be a writer. Her father and fiancé are against the plan. When Mattie begins work at a summer inn, a murder occurs, and Mattie solves a mystery.
* Books which have received awards
