Review
During her lifetime, Margaret Mead (1901-78) was the world's most famous anthropologist. In this insightful memoir, she recalls her childhood, her place in her family, and how the lessons learned and ideals instilled then shaped her life. Margaret Mead was the first child of a university professor father and a social activist mother; her paternal grandmother, who lived with the family, had been a school principal and taught the Mead children at home for much of their youth. In college, Margaret discovered anthropology and as a graduate student went to Samoa to conduct the research of adolescent girls that resulted in her then-shocking study, Coming of Age in Samoa. In Blackberry Winter, she reflects on her life and work, through three marriages and ground-breaking fieldwork in eight cultures. But perhaps her most fascinating revelations are the "gathered threads" of her own experience of childhood, motherhood, and grandparenthood. From her observations of sex roles, childhood, and parenting styles in other cultures, her appreciation of her own upbringing, and her shift to single, working motherhood after the break-up of her third marriage, she anticipated and pioneered a new model for family life. "In my family I was treated as a person," she writes. "It was never suggested that because I was a child I could not understand the world around me and respond to it responsibly and meaningfully." Affirmed and valued for herself during her childhood, Margaret Mead was able to be herself throughout her life. -- 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 Lynne Auld
