Stay True: Short Stories for Strong Girls - Hardcover

3.31

78 ratings by Goodreads

9780590360319: Stay True: Short Stories for Strong Girls

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0590360310 ISBN 13: 9780590360319

Publisher: Scholastic, 1998

An outstanding collection of short stories written by eleven popular authors varies in content but produces the same message: that young women deserve recognition and have much to say about their futures.

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Review:

"Sometimes our inside-the-head world gets so crammed with what other people think that what we think gets squished out our ears or something." So laments the young protagonist Molly-Be-Gone in C. Drew Lamm's "Stay True," the title story in this impressive collection of short tales about teenage girls finding strength within themselves (and bringing it forth for the whole world to see). The contributing authors read like the women's wing of a young adult literature hall of fame: M.E. Kerr shows us a girl who rejects her parents' strait-laced culture and follows her true love; Rita Williams-Garcia tells the exuberant story of a young woman whose crazy dancing earns societal ostracism but brings her inner happiness; and Norma Fox Mazer offers a compelling tale about Grace, who learns to rise above the stigmatism she receives because of her size. Marian Flandrick Bray, Andrea Davis Pinkney, and Peni R. Griffin are among the other writers who make an inspiring appearance. The particulars of family structure, ethnicity, and geography may vary widely, but the young women in these stories are all fighting the good fight toward becoming independent women. As Molly-Be-Gone remembers, "We were fighting the alien girls living inside our heads and racing around in our guts. But we made a pact that night to try. To stay true to ourselves and each other." (Ages 12 and older) --Brangien Davis

From Publishers Weekly:

In her first short story anthology, Singer (All We Need to Say) brings together works by 11 distinguished authors, including M.E. Kerr, Rita Williams-Garcia, Norma Fox Mazer and Singer herself. Thematically related by their emphasis on learning to navigate life's tailspins through self-reliance and self-discovery, the stories are nevertheless widely diverse in style and subject. From the more predictable twist on the Cinderella story found in Anne Mazer's "The Transformations of Cindy R.," to C. Drew Lamm's eye-opening take on adolescent soul-searching in "Stay True," readers will find characters and situations, both comfortable and disturbing, that reflect their lives and concerns. More importantly, the stories depict thoughtful young women ably meeting their challenges with courage and wit. Amid a recent outpouring of volumesAfiction, nonfiction and biographyAaiming to encourage and inspire teen and preteen girls, Singer's collection stands out as proof of fiction's ability to create distance and to subtly alter readers' perceptions of the world. Thus, these stories will likely function for readers the way trees do for Lamm's protagonist: "I can feel them hard-stroking my brains, untangling and freeing my mind. And when I leave, I'm in place." Ages 12-up.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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