girlfriends: Invisible Bonds, Enduring Ties

by Carmen Renee Berry & Tamara Traeder

$12.95, paper, 240 pp., ISBN: 1-885171-08-0, Wildcat Canyon Press

Celebrating Girls: Nurturing and Empowering Our Daughters

by Virginia Beane Rutter

$10.95, paper, 208 pp., ISBN: 1-57324-053-2, Conari Press

girlfriends is a collection of friendship stories covering childhood through adulthood. Many different women tell their anecdotes of relationships and how important these were for them. The stories are down-to-earth and candidly told. Topics include forging close friendships, keeping friends through maturity and life changes, “Running with the Pack,” “Roommates,” and so on. Not a “New Age” book and not necessarily only a “Middle Class” item, the book includes sections on betrayal and sexual awakening, but nothing on gay or lesbian leanings. Berry and Traeder also have prefaced the short chapters with excellent quotes from women authors. Sample quotes: “Constant togetherness is fine—but only for Siamese twins.—Victoria Billings. “One can never speak enough of the virtues, the dangers, the power of shared laughter.”—Francoise Sagan. Celebrating Girls is another sensible, down-to-earth book, this one especially for mothers of girls. It is filled with specifics, real things to do with real children, not just theory or sentiment. Chapters focus on archetypal but homey activities as simple as haircombing and bathing, as crucial as first menstruation and goddess myths. The information on girls’ sports signals that (to at least some degree, on the average…) gender equity has arrived in the mid-‘90’s. The author’s capsule description from Chapter One reads in part: “…Each chapter addresses girls’ development from birth to puberty. (A girl may have her first period as early as age nine or as late as age sixteen.) Many of the child-raising principles in this book also apply to boys, but here the focus is on girls. Each chapter highlights a positive aspect of intimate relationship with girls that has significance for feminine identity and self-esteem.”

Both of these books fill a need for sound informational literature for contemporary women that is feminist but not politically or culturally radical. The brief Fiction/Nonfiction bibliographies of both books give many leads for more in-depth reading and also support the idea that a modern tradition of women’s literature created by women is alive and well.

Out of the Garden: Women Writers on the Bible

Edited by Christina Buchman and Celina Spiegel

$xxxx, paper, ISBN: 0-449-90692-2, Ballantine Books

For instance, there's the story of Lot's wife, as examined by Rebecca Goldstein. She wonders just why Lot's wife was turned into a pillar of salt, and just what this could reveal about the nature of God. She also tells about how horrified she was when she heard this story as a little girl. Now, as an adult, recalling her reaction, she delightfully dwells on God's decision to turn a woman into a pillar of salt and what it could mean. This leads to an examination of the natural human tendency of "looking back". Funny, poignant, and provocative, this essay alone is worth the price of the book--but the fun continues as more of God's bewildering behavior is examined from the point of view of sensitive women writers who speak for and about the women of the Old Testament.—Hart

A God Who Looks Like Me: Discovering a Women-Affirming Spirituality

by Patricia Lynn Reilly

Ballantine, ISBN# 0-345-37519-X, Hardback $22.50

The Artemis Chronicles: A Trilogy of Metaphysical Novels

by Lillian R. Yeshe

$24.95, paper, 520 pp., ISBN: 0-9646369-0-5, Lillian R. Yeshe Publishing