My Little Red Book - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0446546364 ISBN 13: 9780446546362

Publisher: Twelve, 2009

Synopsis

My Little Red Book is an anthology of stories about first periods, collected from women of all ages from around the world. The accounts range from light-hearted (the editor got hers while water skiing in a yellow bathing suit) to heart-stopping (a first period discovered just as one girl was about to be strip-searched by the Nazis). The contributors include well-known women writers (Meg Cabot, Erica Jong, Gloria Steinem, Cecily von Ziegesar), alongside today's teens. And while the authors differ in race, faith, or cultural background, their stories share a common bond: they are all accessible, deeply honest, and highly informative. Whatever a girl experiences or expects, she'll find stories that speak to her thoughts and feelings.

Ultimately, My Little Red Book is more than a collection of stories. It is a call for a change in attitude, for a new way of seeing periods. In a time when the taboo around menstruation seems to be one of the few left standing, it makes a difficult subject easier to talk about, and helps girls feel proud instead of embarrassed or ashamed. By revealing what it feels like to undergo this experience first hand, and giving women the chance to explain their feelings in their own words, it aims to provide support, entertainment, and a starting point for discussion for mothers and daughters everywhere. It is a book every girl should have. Period.

About this title

About the Author

Rachel Kauder-Nalebuff is a graduate of Choate Rosemary Hall and attended Yale University. In Choate's annual Pratt-Packard oratory contest, she adapted her own first-period experience and other stories from My Little Red Book to an audience of 1,000 classmates: "This is a speech about first periods, and I don't mean your 8:00 AM class," the speech began. The inspiration to begin collecting first period stories arose out of a conversation with her mother.

Reviews

Adult/High School—After finishing these recollections by women of their first menstrual period, readers cannot help but be struck by three things: what a defining moment it was, how far society has come, and how often Judy Blume's Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret (Yearling, 1970) is mentioned as a source of information and comfort. The 18-year-old editor recounts her story of her 12-year-old self caught unaware while waterskiing and dropped off, by her embarrassed grandfather, at a pharmacy where she found herself searching for sanitary products in an aisle featuring incontinence supplies. The women queried are as well known as Erika Jong and as little known as Nalebuff's younger sister. The earliest recollection is Henrietta Wittenberg's, remembering in her 100th year, of her worry in 1916 about sitting on a man's lap. The most recent story, from 2008, is Jacquelyn Mitchard's memory of getting the "curse" and her contrastingly comforting words to her sixth-grade daughter. Some memories are magical (snorkeling with a dolphin in the Caribbean Sea); some are heart wrenching (a Holocaust survivor's escape from a Nazi strip search); others embarrassing at the time but humorous in retrospect. For most female readers, the stories will be poignantly familiar. The subject index is particularly informative and includes YA authors and "Unusual Customs." A glossary of euphemisms is fun and enlightening, and the bibliography contains health resources, fiction and nonfiction, and informative Web sites.—Jackie Gropman, formerly at Fairfax County Public Library System, Fairfax, VA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

These brief, engaging and oh-so-revealing anecdotes (90 in all) about first-time periods are written by a vast array of authors, professionals and youth. Edited by a freshman at Yale with a global mission (the Do More section at the back lists women's health and reproductive-rights charities), and modeled wittily on Chairman Mao's Little Red Book, these short essays tenderly cover the gamut of grief and embarrassment, joy and disappointment that accompanies the onslaught of menses, written by women from ages 15 to 101. Mostly, these authors concur that Mom didn't tell us much; we didn't expect the big moment even if we had been prompted by reading Judy Blume's Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret; and suddenly becoming a woman proved rather more irritating than momentous. These accounts are touching and brave—The Curse, 1939, in which Lola Gerhard writes of starting to bleed cluelessly in the orphanage where she lived and being simply handed a big bandage and a belt (That was it for sex education); enduring the Old World ritual of being slapped by one's mother or ostracized, as one Indian author writes in Locked in a Room with Dosai, 1962; a more enthusiastic reaction by feminist mothers. Gloria Steinem's reprinted If Men Could Menstruate (1978) acts as a fulcrum, while others determined to break the silence rage, reminisce and resolve to banish the shame for their own daughters. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Borrowing her title from Mao Tse-tung’s classic, 18-year-old Nalebuff presents her own, very different manifesto: an anthology that she hopes will help bring menstruation “into the arena of acceptable discourse.” Ranging in age from teens to seniors, the international contributors speak about their first periods in entries that lead into broader questions of family life, social structure, gender politics, and self-image. Western readers will find the global perspectives eye-opening. A Kenyan teen says that in her country, “girls don’t go to school when you have your period because pads are so expensive.” The authors’ candor and accessibility and the extensive appended resource sections make this an obvious choice for teens, while parents dreaming of nurturing, celebratory discussions will be reminded to respect their daughters’ responses, even if, as reported in one essay, the response is: “Promise you won’t tell Dad, and, geez, no Rite of Passage party, ok?” A rich, welcome collection for readers of various ages and, perhaps surprisingly, more than one gender. --Gillian Engberg

Edition details

• Publisher: Twelve
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0446546364
• ISBN 13: 9780446546362
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 240
• Editor: Rachel Kauder Nalebuff