Seven Going On Seventeen

The tween is the «new girl on the block» in girlhood studies. Although the study of tween life may have derived from a particular marketing orientation at the end of the twentieth century, it is not limited by it. On the contrary, this collection of essays shows that «tween» is not a simple or unified concept, nor is it limited to a certain class of girls in a few countries. This collection by an international group of authors highlights specific methodologies for working with (and studying) tween-age girls, provides challenges to the presumed innocence of girlhood, and engages in an analysis of marketing in relation to girlhood. In so doing, this book offers a reading on these three or four years in a girl's life that suggests that this period is as fascinating as the teen years, and as generative in its implications for girlhood studies as studies of both younger and adolescent girls.

This interdisciplinary volume explores the girl’s voice and the construction of girlhood in contemporary popular music, visiting girls as musicians, activists, and performers through topics that range from female vocal development during adolescence to girls’ online media culture. While girls’ voices are more prominent than ever in popular music culture, the specific sonic character of the young female voice is routinely denied authority. Decades old clichés of girls as frivolous, silly, and deserving of contempt prevail in mainstream popular image and sound. Nevertheless, girls find ways to raise their voices and make themselves heard. This volume explores the contemporary girl’s voice to illuminate the way ideals of girlhood are historically specific, and the way adults frame and construct girlhood to both valorize and vilify girls and women. Interrogating popular music, childhood, and gender, it analyzes the history of the all-girl band from the Runaways to the present; the changing anatomy of a girl’s voice throughout adolescence; girl’s participatory culture via youtube and rock camps, and representations of the girl’s voice in other media like audiobooks, film, and television. Essays consider girl performers like Jackie Evancho and Lorde, and all-girl bands like Sleater Kinney, The Slits and Warpaint, as well as performative 'girlishness' in the voices of female vocalists like Joni Mitchell, Beyoncé, Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift, Kathleen Hanna, and Rebecca Black. Participating in girl studies within and beyond the field of music, this book unites scholarly perspectives from disciplines such as musicology, ethnomusicology, comparative literature, women’s and gender studies, media studies, and education to investigate the importance of girls’ voices in popular music, and to help unravel the complexities bound up in music and girlhood in the contemporary contexts of North America and the United Kingdom.

Written to support the Education Studies student with full pedagogical features throughout, this book explores the inter-relationship between the three fields and considers how these relationships have informed teaching practice, especially in the school context.

When a man dies in a gas explosion, the police suspect arson. The Murder Investigation Team is called in to examine the evidence, but the case takes on a new and terrible twist when a local villain is viciously attacked. As the police inquiries lead from an expensive Harchester Hill estate to the local brothel, a witness dies in a hit-and-run. Was it coincidence … or cold-blooded murder? The Murder Investigation Team has problems of its own—and so does Geraldine Steel. A shocking revelation threatens her peace of mind as the investigation races toward its dramatic climax.

Dicey struggles to make a go of a boat building business while facing family concerns, romantic problems, and the uncertainties of a drifter who offers to help her in her work.

Valley of the Shadows is a duet of two novels, concerning the fickleness of pursuing fame in a society that measures success by media adoration. In the title novel, Marya Brooks, an experienced poet in her seventies, decides to practice amateur obeah (voodoo) to cast negative spells on her favorite top five poets, the thriving competition. Only when each poet begins to die mysteriously does she develop guilt for her actions. Her former student, H.D., believes her research can dispute Marya's fallacious theories. Surrender, the second poem-novel, alternates between viewpoints of Rory Pole, an aspiring songwriter, and her idol, country music rising star, Maggie Moore. Also set in the southeast, primarily on both coasts of southern Florida, Rory is bitter when she receives no response from Maggie but notices that lines of her poems begin appearing in the singer's songs. In both novels, all characters eventually give up illusions and false patterns of behavior in these chilling stories, regarding the relevance of mass recognition and inordinate acclaim and adulation. They are novels-of-the-future, in accord with Anais Nin's tenets that commingle art with moral issues for compelling psychological literature.

Madison Lansford and Shannon Fletcher met when they were ten years old. Madison—daughter of wealthy parents and Shannon, daughter of their live-in maid and cook—became fast friends, yet both knew their place in life. There was never a doubt that they would become lovers . . . there was also never a doubt that Madison would marry and maintain her social standing in the community. Little by little, they grew apart, their love affair ending with Madison’s marriage and pregnancy. Now, years later, Shannon returns to her old hometown to care for her ailing mother. Can they rebuild their friendship? Or will their new-found closeness bring back memories of their long-lost love? Travel through the years with Shannon and Madison and watch their love unfold as they move from teens to young women and into adulthood.