Allegra Maud Goldman [Paperback]

Edith Konecky (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

As Allegra, an upper-middle-class Jewish girl in pre-WW II Brooklyn, ages from three to 13, she expresses her precocious opinions of school and family and attempts to defy the sometimes stifling, "safe" lifestyle in which she is raised. In its 1976 review, PW found this tale "appealing and often very funny."
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"Allegra Maud Goldman. There's a whole plot in that name...I knew from the beginning that I would never fit that name." For Allegra, growing up is challenging on every front. Her father is rarely happy, her mother is rarely home, and her older brother just wants to practice the piano. Grandma stays in the background, except at Passover - then she is in the kitchen. Allegra questions everything, coming up with her own answers to what she sees through her young eyes, and her observations are fun and refreshing. She is the kind of child who drives her parents and teachers crazy: she's not bad, she's not mean, people call her precocious. But as Allegra observes: "...they never said it as though it were anything good to be." When she is forced to take home economics, she remembers her teacher as "a large, jolly-looking woman with a heart of stone." Her friend Melanie wonders about the home economics course: "if they're preparing us to be housewives and mothers, why don't they teach us something really useful like sexual intercourse?" To which Allegra remarks: "That's the kind of girl she was. Brainy." By the end of the novel, through Allegra's laughter and tears, we feel excitement for her future and realize she does indeed fit her name. -- For great reviews of books for girls, check out Let's Hear It for the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14. -- From 500 Great Books by Women; review by Holly Smith

Konecky declared the emancipation of the twentieth-century woman writer... -- Belles Lettres

Many, many readers are going to recognize just what she's going through and share it with pleasure. -- Publishers Weekly

One of those rare delights, a novel of childhood...that is as wise and true as it is funny... -- Ms. Magazine --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: The Feminist Press at CUNY; 2 edition (November 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1558612815
• ISBN-13: 978-1558612815
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #221,165 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant ! A must for all young women and their mothers., September 2, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Allegra Maud Goldman (Paperback)

This book taught me the meaning of empowerment before the term was coined. I read the book as a child and never forgot Allegra. I recently purchased the book again and wish I hadn't waited so long! The story weakens toward the end but that is meaningless when taken as a whole. The character is a gem - a strong female and Jewish protaganist who never avoids being honest. Quite the role model!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Allegra Maud Goldman, December 11, 1999

By 

Michael (London) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Allegra Maud Goldman (Paperback)

This is a wonderful coming-of-age novel. Allegra Maud Goldman sees past the limitations of her conventional family, her teachers and peers. Her father is only interested in his fashion business, her mother mostly too busy meeting friends. She notices, and usually points out, what they can't see, especially when they treat her differently from her brother because she's a girl. For the most part she remains bright and clever, and her frustration rarely turns inwards or outwards - she rises above everyone and everything with the help of a friend.

It's very funny, very easy to read and stands up to being re-read.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars lively, precocious and tenacious girl discovers selfhood, May 11, 2003

By 

Bruce J. Wasser (Lake Bluff, IL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Allegra Maud Goldman (Paperback)

First published over twenty-five years ago and recently reissued by The Feminist Press of the City Univesity of New York, Edith Konecky's "Allegra Maud Goldman" soars with life, tingles with humanity and snaps with feminist tang. Its theme of self-discovery, a staple of coming-of-age novels, however has a distinct slant; "Allegra" insists that its protagonist, a precocious girl growing up in late Depression Brooklyn, hurl herself against familial and societal restraints imposed on her due to the simple reason of her sex. Konecky has created a masterwork; her novel is neither strident or didactic. Instead, her protagonist, Allegra Maud Goldman tells her own story -- directly, ironically and courageously. It is this unadorned, unaffected point of view and voice which enriches the novel and elevates it to mythical proportions.

Cursed with a memory which forbids her forgetting any sexist reduction of her self, Allegra's childhood unfolds as an unending conspiracy to eviscerate her unbridled enthusiasm for life and undermine her incredible intellectual talents. Unsaddled from the urban poverty afflicting most Americans during the 1930s, Allegra lacks little material comfort but suffers, at an early age, from existential oblivion. Her distant and chronically-absent mother, a social butterfly who has made peace with her marriage to a quietly tyrannical dress manufacturer, provides little to copy as a role model. Allegra must set out to develop, define and fortify her own sense of self in a world seemingly set to reduce her to docile femininity.

In a revealing conversation with her mother, Allegra expresses discontent that her family focuses attention on her older brother David, who suffers from his own lack of confidence. When she asks, "How come nobody around here is at all interested in whether I am finding myself?", her mother dismisses her by telling her that she will "grow up and marry some nice man and have children." Against this biology is destiny environment, Allegra launches her battle. As her childhood evolves, Allegra challenges the different ways boys and girls are indoctrinated to handle their emotions, does battle with a public school system that diligently attempts to socialize girls into subordinate domestic. Her sardonic friend Melanie has one of the best lines of the novel: "If they're prepring us to be housewives...why don't they teach us something useful like sexual intercourse?"

By the time Allegra has come to grips with her evolving body, she has developed a passion for writing and a talent for poetry. Her epiphany is hard-earned and promises a life of rebellion. After having one of her poems purchased for publication in a daily newspaper, her father chooses to take her letter of acceptance instead of her creation to work as a means of validation. Stunned and bewildered by how her family "managed, with nothing but good intentions, to make me feel so dismal," Allegra repeats her own mantra of self-validation, her own declaration of independence: "You're a person. You're a person."

We tend to forget how hard girls have had to work to obtain what boys perceive is their birthright: the need for self-definition, praise for ambition and affirmation for struggle. Strong women come from strong girls. Strong girls come from the crucible of their own experiences and the will to face the hurricane. Edith Konecky's "Allegra Maud Goldman" will be a treasured companion for girls and women who savor the creation of an independent, autonomus self and will be valued by the boys and men who cherish girls and women who are strong, vibrant and proud.