ARC Review ~ Girlhood: Teens Around The World edited by Masuma Ahuja

What does a teenage girl dream about in Nigeria or New York? How does she spend her days in Mongolia, the Midwest, and the Middle East?

Synopsis:

All around the world, girls are going to school, working, dreaming up big futures—they are soccer players and surfers, ballerinas and chess champions. Yet we know so little about their daily lives. We often hear about challenges and catastrophes in the news, and about exceptional girls who make headlines. But even though the health, education, and success of girls so often determines the future of a community, we don’t know more about what life is like for the ordinary girls, the ones living outside the headlines.

From the Americas to Europe to Africa to Asia to the South Pacific, the thirty teens from twenty-seven countries in Girlhood share their own stories of growing up through diary entries and photographs, and the girls’ stories are put in context with reporting and research that helps us understand the circumstances and communities they live in. This full-color, exuberantly designed volume is a portrait of ordinary girlhood around the world, and of the world, as seen through girls’ eyes.

Girlhood let’s us get a glimpse into the lives of 30 teenage girls. These girls may be teenagers and have the same fears and issues, but many suffer from adult issues they will never escape from. Masuma Ahuja shares their stories and let’s their voices shine.

Ahuja begins Girlhood by sharing startling facts with readers:

About 130 million girls between the ages of 6 and 17 are not in school. This could be due to culture, marriage, or having given birth. Females are still considered property. I live in the United States and I was horrified to see that in eight years time, about 250,000 kids under 18 got married. Some of them were 12-years-old!

Females are not just prohibited from school, but from sports, voting, and getting a higher education. Forget about going after their dreams.

This does not stop girls from trying and some from succeeding.

Ahuja takes us around the world to meet these ladies. Girlhood is filled with candid photos of them living life. Showing us snapshots of the world they live in. Ahuja also shares statistical information about topics that directly affect these females.

We get to see what they like to do for fun and what their dreams are. We listen to their voices as Ahuja shares their life with us. Take a trip around the world and listen.

I received an ARC of this book and I am writing a review without prejudice and voluntarily.