How I Survived Being a Girl - Softcover

Van Draanen, Wendelin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0060540737 ISBN 13: 9780060540739

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2003

Synopsis

Carolyn's tips for survival:

Keep your hair too short for ribbons.
Get a great dog.
Avoid girls who wear Mary Janes.
Spy on the neighbors.
Play in the mud.

Carolyn likes to break the rules. To her great surprise, it turns out that's what being a girl is all about.

About this title

About the Author:

Wendelin Van Draanen is a high school computer science instructor. She lives with her husband and two children in Santa Maria, CA.

From Kirkus Reviews:

Van Draanen's first book has a crackling pace, funny lines, and an iron-willed heroine with a knack for putting herself in the center of all the action. Sixth-grader Carolyn doesn't act like a girl, and doesn't look much like one either, clad in boys clothing and wearing her hair very short. She likes to spy on the neighbors with her two brothers, play stickball, and dig foxholes in the backyard. Of girls who play with dolls and wear too much lace, she has low opinions, and hardly counts herself in the girl camp at all until some unfamiliar feelings surface for her stickball buddy, Charlie. When her baby sister, Nancy, is born, Carolyn decides that being a girl is really okay, now that she has an ally in the family. The era in which the story takes place is never specified, and while Carolyn's voice is contemporary, some of the problems she faces are dated, e.g., having to wear a dress to school and being unable to have her own paper route because she is a girl. Regardless, her irreverent narration is engaging and she's refreshingly astute about family and neighborhood dynamics. Blithely entertaining. (Fiction. 8-11) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0060540737
• ISBN 13: 9780060540739
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 176