Customer Reviews

Wild Girls: The Path of the Young Goddess

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is another positive and powerful book I wish I had when I was young and the only thing the church and my family had to say to me was women are bad and sex is sinful. I'd have worn this paperback ragged. Here Patricia offers the stories of young goddesses and follows each story with an object lesson--on beauty, creativity, meditation, dreams, etc--and then suggests rituals and project ideas. The stories are multicultural. There is Artemis, as we might expect, and there are Native American, African, Korean, Finnish, Baltic, Chinese, etc., stories. Every girl will see herself reflected. There are 12 total, one for each month of the year. This book with a blank journal will make a perfect gift for a first moon celebration or for a pre-adolescent birthday. Imagine a goddess a month for a whole year of meditations and rituals! I definitely recommend it for 10 to 13 year-olds. My 11-year-old nieces are each getting a copy.

The best thing to me about the book is that it talks about "girl power" outside the usual media terms of pretty and fashionable and (ultimately) sexually available. It also avoids all the irritating media fluff stuff that passes for "girl power"--the vampire-killing Buffys and "Charmed" girls who have fantasy magical powers--and brings home the most critical lesson that real power resides in the mind and soul and is there for every girl who seeks it.

To all you young goddesses! (And elders in whom the young girl yearns to fly!) "Wild Girls" is a mythic exploration of the creativity, beauty, strength, evil, limitation, ritual, and power experienced by younger women. Read about such Goddesses as the young Finnish creatress, Luonnotar, Sumerian dreamer Gestinanna, Irish sister Finola, Baltic star Austrina, and a truly wonderful story about the Korean healer Pali Kongju, the Thrown-Away Princess.Girls and younger women can learn how to affirm their power, intelligence and creativity, to struggle against abuse and limitation, and to form their own Wild Girl circles and ritual and magical spaces. This is the book we all wish we had as younger girls of spirit. The book is affirming of many different paths, and can be used by girls and women of many different earth-honoring belief systems. The stories give girls another set of images of themselves, far different from the limited images of TV, video and commercialism. Just by themselves, the stories are wonderful. Also included are suggested activities for further fun, learning and understanding.

I really loved this book. At first I wasn't going to read this book because of the title and me being a little bit older than what you would call a girl. In fact I was surprised, some of the stories touched a deep inner part of me that was in need of healing and her advice and projects were great.

This book is intended for teens, but I enjoyed it even as an adult. I liked the format, each chapter beginning with a myth starring a heroine Goddess and then continuing with complementary activities and explanations that let the reader explore her spirituality and empower herself, either working by herself or with other young women. The book concludes with a description of the Maiden/Mother MoonCircle, an example of a mother/daughter circle that readers can use to create their own circles. Imagine mothers and daughters, or teen girls, working together to explore their spirituality, creativity, divinity, and empowerment. The world will be a better place. I'm so happy that books like this are coming out for young women today. You can't go wrong with Patricia Monaghan.

I loved how this books has a wonderful balance of mythology that bridges practical application of the stories lessons. There is so much in this book for the young girl. Not only is it a wonderful educational tool in that it teaches about other cultures but it also offers a plethora of stories about strong women throughout the ages. A must read for anyone, young or old, who are interested in furthering their spiritual and intellectual base.

This book is a source of beautiful stories that can empower us all.
It is time for 'new' stories, stories that contribute to a myth for our age, of powerful, autonomous, compassionate, femininity. This book is an important and practical contribution to this end.
My 10yo daughter has been inspired to build an alter where she can honor the goddess qualities she is connecting with through the stories in this book.

What a beautifully written book! Easy reading. Goddess myths chosen to guide and to understand the girl in all of us. I'm 61 and enjoyed every word of it.

This book is an excellent starting point for young up and coming wild girls, those wild at heart at any age, and for those that should be but are not aware of their potential. There is a little bit of everything you need to know in a fun to follow format. The book contains simplified tales from around the world, augmented with songs, and tasks to make this more than just a reading experience.

This is much better than other literature floating around out there. First of all notice that the publisher is Llewellyn Worldwide; this publisher is well acquainted with the subject in hand. The author (Patricia Monaghan) is a resident faculty of the School for New Learning at DePaul University in Chicago.

Bottom line is the book is a lot of fun for one or many to share and it is main stream.

It is a shame I cannot give this book a negative score. It is a very poorly written book (as are other books written by this author). The stories seem to be a hodge-podge of different myths thrown together. Some of the myths are so poorly thrown together that they hardly resemble the well-known versions of the myths. The story of Artemis is actually NOT a story about Artemis. The majority of the story is about her mother and mother's sister. It is only at the end when Artemis finally appears in the story. This really seemed like an afterthought on the author's part since it was supposed to be about Artemis herself.

Half the time the stories themselves are stretched so thin as to try to correspond with the lesson the author is trying to get across and doing so rather unsuccessfully. It is at these times after reading the story then the lesson that is to be learned from it that one realizes the actual lesson does not correspond with what has happened in the story. Not all of the stories should have been used for the lessons. The one regarding incest was an absolutely horrible choice. That story had absolutely no place in a book used to teach young girls.

It also got tiring of seeing the same theme run throughout the book: men/boys bad, women/girls good. It is getting very tiring reading goddess themed books of this nature. The only good place for this book will be in the next bonfire I attend. Avoid purchasing this book at all cost or at least take the names from the book and do your own research. I guarantee you will find the true versions of the myths/stories make more sense then the garbled mess the author has provided in this book.