33 Things Every Girl Should Know

LS 5623 Book Review
History, Biography, & Nonfiction

Bibliography
Bolden, Tonya (edited by). 1998. 33 THINGS EVERY GIRL SHOULD KNOW. New York : Crown Publishers. ISBN 0517709368.

Plot Summary
A collection of essays, stories, songs, poems, and even a couple of comic strips about sharing the wisdom 33 different women have learned. The editor starts off the book with a short essay on why the book was written, "They are all females of positive distinction: writers, entrepreneurs, visual artists, performing artists, educators, athletes. Most important, they are folks who cheer you, who wish you the best, who urge you to grow up steady and strong as you go about your girlhood and head on to womanhood."

Critical Analysis
This book is intended to give young women positive encouragement from renown women in their field and it does just that. Readers of this book have the privilege of hearing lots of good advice. Sigourney Weaver tells young women, "Another thing you need besides your inner compass is your fearless shoes." Johnnetta B. Cole says," If you know your passion, cherish it, nourish it, let it grow." Wise words indeed.

It is easy for readers to get to all the wonderful advice provided, each piece is easily discernible from the pieces around it, so readers can easily read just the pieces they are interested in. There is also an index available at the beginning of book for readers looking for a particular subject or author. As School Library Journal says, "There's something here for everyone. "

One thing that would have greatly enhanced this book would be if the editor provided a short synopsis of who the author was along with a thumbnail picture of the author with each piece. Each author does have a short synopsis at the end of the book however, if a one sentence biography and a picture was given with the individual works it would add a reader connection and a reliability to the book that it now lacks.