Picture the Girl: Young Women Speak Their Minds [Paperback]

Audrey Shehyn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 9, 2000

An eloquent, powerful, and inspiring celebration of teenage girls in pictures and words

Ashley, Age 14: "Who am I? I don't really know. I'm still figuring that out. I think it's part of being at this age. I'm changing now--I can't say that I'm totally a child, and I can't say that I'm totally a woman, because I'm not that experienced. I'm right in-between."

Startling for the beauty of its images and the expressiveness of its subjects, this collection of photographs and essays captures the diverse experience of growing up female in America. In Picture the Girl, thirty-five teenage girls from all walks of life talk about the things that matter most to them--friendship, body image, motherhood, sexuality, peer pressure, loneliness, and success. Their first-person accounts offer valuable insights into the emotional transformation girls undergo on their way to becoming women, while Audrey Shehyn's remarkable photographs present a sensitive and perceptive picture of female identity. Like the bestselling Ophelia Speaks and Sisters, Picture the Girl speaks to the crucial role that self-esteem plays in a girl's future well-being. This compelling book by and for teenagers, as well as for adults who care about them, is filled with hope, recognition, and the certainty that their voices can and will be heard.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

In two-to three-page profiles, in language candid and sharp, 35 brash yet vulnerable young women between the ages of 14 and 19 speak their minds about themselves and their lives. Shehyn has included young women of differing backgrounds, but many of their concerns are shared: problems with parents, self-image, school. There are, however, some surprises. These girls seem well aware of the challenges their gender faces today, and they're very alert to the consequences of drug abuse and unprotected sex. There's also a collective understanding that "if you don't have your mind set, you won't get nowhere." Shehyn, a photojournalist and part-time teacher at a San Francisco high school, matches the words with revealing portrait photos. Purposely coquettish, awkwardly pensive, sweet, or filled with genuine joy, the faces are as varied as the girls' personal stories. Stephanie Zvirin
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author

Audrey Shehyn has spent the last ten years as a professional photojournalist and documentary photographer, and is a part-time teacher at a San Francisco Bay area high school.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 12 and up
  
• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Hyperion (August 9, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 078688567X
• ISBN-13: 978-0786885671
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.9 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,630,743 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Astonishing!, November 20, 2000

By 

Idris (Redwood City, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Picture the Girl: Young Women Speak Their Minds (Paperback)

Anyone interested in or involved with the lives of adolescent girls should own this book and read and re-read it, view and re-view it. It is a spiritual experience, truly, as it exposes in words and pictures what young women are thinking, feeling, disturbed about, moved by in their very rich and complex experiences. It looks like a good "table book," something you set out in your livingroom to browse through occasionally. But in addition to the photographs of these young women--beautiful and so revealing too, there are the monologues of the girls, taken directly from Shehyn's interviews with each of them but set down in monologues instead of chopped up into questions and answers. What VOICES these young women have! I feel like the Ancient Mariner, collaring everyone I know to see and hear this book. I know of nothing that has such an exact finger (eye and ear) on the pulse of young women today.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars poignant and illuminating expose of young women, August 21, 2000

By 

Elizabeth Kenney (Connecticut) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Picture the Girl: Young Women Speak Their Minds (Paperback)

Audrey Shehyn's "Picture the Girl" provides a poignant and illuminating expose of young women as they negotiate their teenage years. The revealing portraits and first person accounts of 36 girls offer insight and surprisingly familiar wishes and fears. Women will see themselves reflected back in sometimes disturbing yet always refreshing and wiser-than-their-years self-depictions. The photographs speak wonderfully to each individual girl, complementing their words in a remarkably fitting way. This book is for mothers, fathers, and teachers who want to understand their children or students, girls who will take comfort in shared experiences, women who are still coming to terms with their own difficult but hopefully carefree teenage years, as well as anyone interested in an honest view of girls and the unique issues they face today. If nothing else, buy it for the deeply personal photographs by the talented Shehyn.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fabulous Photojournalism, January 15, 2001

By 

Vanessa (4119) (SF, Cali USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Picture the Girl: Young Women Speak Their Minds (Paperback)

>Have you ever read a book in which teenage females are NOT degraded by society, but are allowed to speak their minds and feel good about it? Audrey Shehyn's "Picture the Girl: Young Women Speak Their Minds," is one of these books. >This photojournalism book is full of teenage women -NOT girls- sharing their thoughts filled with emotion. Many of the diverse young women in this book struggle with the `basic' teenage problems, like relationships, and parents; while others are contemplating issues concerning their body, questioning their sexuality, and worrying about their OWN problems of motherhood. >The photojournalist, Audrey Shehyn, captures these women in extraordinary pictures, and allowed them to be truly open and honest, sharing some of their deepest, darkest secrets. The young women really seemed to care about expressing their feelings and being "real." This allows you to `connect' with many of the young women; you see yourself in them, and they help you to realize who YOU are as a person. One girl, Annie (16 years old), said something that I feel to be one of my mottos in life: "You gotta love yourself before you love anybody else. I'm just me." (p. 101) The first sentances of each girls section was usually them in a nut shell. This was the first sentance of Annie's section. Annie came off to me as a very strong opinioned person who knows exactly what she wants. Annie lives in a very poor community, and wishes that the government would just "...give us money..." so that they could paint the houses, along with other things. Each of the women had their own hardships, each had their own strengths. >I was left wanting to know more from each of the women, feeling as if I was just getting a bite of their lives, when I really wanted an entire meal. There wasn't enough behind each woman to be able to feel that you really knew them, as you usually do with characters in other books; but that wasn't the style of this book. This was photojournalism, these are real people telling real stories. >Everyone of these wonderful young women have a story to tell, and every young woman not in this book has a story to tell. "Picture the Girl:Young Women Speak Their Minds" is one of the more extraordinary books to help you learn what some womens lives are like. This is a 'must read' for anyone remotely involved with, or near a teenage woman that wants to understand them. This book is 'straight-up' the real thing. And as many girls in this book might say: " This book is keepin' it REAL, YO!"