Girlhood: Teens Around the World in Their Own Voices is a raw, honest look at what it is like to be female and a teenager across the world. Masuma Ahuja's project tried to ascertain what it was like to grow up as a girl in Iraq. What keeps a girl up night in New York or in Nigeria? But this isn't just a book of biographies. Just as answers to any of these questions of what life and friendship is like, their homes definitely impact their responses. Ahuja wants girls to understand where these other girls are coming from. Even if you were to ask 5 girls in the US the same question, you would get very different answers based on where they live and their upbringing. Each girl in the book has a few diary entries, but there is also information from Ahuja about the girl from interviews and about the area that they live in. When reading about all of these girls, readers can see how different the areas are that they come from, but also how very similar they all are.

Girlhood: Teens Around the World in Their Own Voices is fabulous. It is different. It is important. These are real girls that our own young girls can relate to. These are real lives lived across the globe in different kinds of situations, showing the bigger world that is out there. Girlhood is the ultimate in giving us mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors.

Girlhood let’s us get a glimpse into the lives of 30 teenage girls. These girls may be teenagers and have the same fears and issues, but many suffer from adult issues they will never escape from. Masuma Ahuja shares their stories and let’s their voices shine.

Ahuja begins Girlhood by sharing startling facts with readers:

About 130 million girls between the ages of 6 and 17 are not in school. This could be due to culture, marriage, or having given birth. Females are still considered property. I live in the United States and I was horrified to see that in eight years time, about 250,000 kids under 18 got married. Some of them were 12-years-old!

Females are not just prohibited from school, but from sports, voting, and getting a higher education. Forget about going after their dreams.

This does not stop girls from trying and some from succeeding.

Ahuja takes us around the world to meet these ladies. Girlhood is filled with candid photos of them living life. Showing us snapshots of the world they live in. Ahuja also shares statistical information about topics that directly affect these females.

We get to see what they like to do for fun and what their dreams are. We listen to their voices as Ahuja shares their life with us. Take a trip around the world and listen.

I received an ARC of this book and I am writing a review without prejudice and voluntarily.

'Girlhood' is a thoughtful survey of girls around the world, combining photos and diary entries that offer snapshots into daily life for all different girls. What is most wonderful about this book is how it showcases the different circumstances and experiences of each of these girls, but also highlights through their diaries just how similar these girls are. Across the world, these girls write about their dreams and school stresses and hobbies and crushes, all offering a new but familiar look at girlhood in all its beauty. Girls around the world face so much, but this book celebrates them where they are and asks the reader to rejoice in their stories and how they help define what it means to be a girl in this world.

So often, books about teens focus on those who are exceptional in some way. Rarely is the focus on the everyday lives of young women around the world. Ahuja has done a marvelous job of gathering diary entries from a broad spectrum of girls from different backgrounds, illustrating both their commonalities as well as what makes their lives unique. The layout, with plenty of photos, is attractive. My only complaint is at times Ahuja's narration seems to just be a repetition of what the girls themselves wrote. She is more interesting when she fills in background about the different issues the girls face. An interesting global perspective for teen readers.

The premise of this book definitely got my attention. I’ve always been fascinated by biography and memoir because seeing how other people move through the world really informs me about myself as well as others. There are connections made that may be unexpected and many insights to appreciate. Through these thirty stories, readers can learn about others and themselves. Already with the very first story, there I was on the page. Alejandra explained, “Sometimes I arrive late, but that is my role in the group, being late always and everywhere. I do not say it proudly, but I accept it.” It may seem a little thing, but even small connections can be meaningful and help us feel less alone in the world. Finding someone we can relate to on the page can be helpful especially now when many people are so isolated.

I also appreciated the design of the book and think that the scrapbook style will appeal to many readers. There are photos from the contributors and lots of interesting design choices such as when there are maps and shading behind the text. It helps to keep it from feeling text-heavy.

Ahuja includes quite a bit of context with each of the features. She gives background information about the location and some of the concerns, events, or activities the young person may have in their life. She also includes quite a few statistics regarding gender-based violence, discrimination, and other things negatively impacting young women around the world. For the most part her commentary was very helpful.

One thing I noticed was that Ahuja explained that the girls in the book couldn’t and weren’t meant to represent all of the many possible experiences of girls in their country. She mentioned that while she was reminding readers of the economic disparity in Guatemala. The girl from Guatemala had what Ahuja called a comfortable life that might not fit what is shown in the news. On the flip side though, when sharing about the girl living in poverty in a dangerous neighborhood in Haiti, she doesn’t remind readers that there are also people in Haiti that have more money and live a more comfortable life. It’s certainly not a deal breaker, but it was something that didn’t sit well with me.

The best part of the book though is definitely hearing from girls in their own voices. They are sharing day to day type of information. It’s very personal which can draw readers in even when their activities may seem fairly mundane. Things are often universal and really remind us that we are all humans just trying to live the best way we know how. The girls share hopes, dreams, disappointments, frustrations, joy, and so much more. To see a day or two in the life of so many personalities in so many situations and settings is really a delight. It’s an incredible collaboration and is a great way to amplify the voices of young people and get those words out to other young people who can benefit from seeing pieces of themselves on the page.

Recommendation: Get it soon. This is a book that will speak to many readers and could be both inspirational and comforting.

Title: Girlhood: Teens around the World in Their Own Voices
Author: Masuma Ahuja
Genre: Nonfiction
Rating: 5.0 out of 5

All around the world, girls are going to school, working, creating, living as sisters, daughters, friends. Yet we know so little about their daily lives. We hear about a few exceptional girls who make headlines, and we hear about headline-making struggles and catastrophes. But since the health, education, and success of girls so often determines the future of a community, why don’t we know more about what life is like for the ordinary girls, the ones living outside the headlines? From the Americas to Europe to Africa to Asia to the South Pacific, the thirty-one teens from twenty-nine countries in Girlhood Around the World share their own stories of growing up through diary entries and photographs. They invite us into their day-to-day lives, through their eyes and in their voices, in a full-color, exuberantly designed scrapbook-like volume.

This was a fascinating read! The author gives a brief overview of each girl’s life and cultural/national customs and experiences, asks each girl a few questions, and includes pictures and journal entries written by the girls themselves. Glimpsing each of the girls’ worlds through their own eyes is compelling, as is reading their story—not just the glossy and social media-ready version, but the reality of their day-to-day existence. This book is a powerful experience.

Masuma Ahuja has worked all over the world as a journalist. Girlhood is her new book, chronicling the lives of girls across the globe.

(Galley courtesy of Algonquin Young Readers in exchange for an honest review.)

(Blog link live 2/3.)

*Review will posted to my blog on blog tour date, 2/4/21*

Likes:
*It is wonderfully multi-cultural! So many different girls from around the world are featured in this book. I love the full color pages of the girls, it’s wonderful to see their smiles.

*I love the diary entry format and scrapbook style of the book. This is the kind of book I would have loved to read when I was a teenager. It’s inspiring and makes me want to travel to experience the different cultures out there.

*Showcasing different girls around the world and their own thoughts makes one feel not alone. Though the girls come from different places and live unique lives, there is something relatable about each girl whether it’s how they feel about school, friends, their family and the future.

Final Thoughts:
This is a wonderful collection of stories and thoughts from girls all over the world. It is inspiring and relatable and perfect for young girls to add to their book collection!

📚 ~ Yolanda

I really enjoyed this book! I learned a lot about not only each girl but about what is was like being a girl in their country.

Loved it! Kelly and I both talked it up on the latest issue of Hey YA from Book Riot. I have a feeling it will end up being mentioned again at some point in the near future. It's just that good. https://bookriot.com/listen/the-r-word-and-the-x-word-and-ya-in-translation/

What an awesome, inspiring collection of stories from girls around the world. I would have LOVED something like this as a teenager. The girls in their own words do an amazing job of showcasing the similarities and the differences in the teenage journey. This is a great browseable book, and one to return to again and again for inspiration and solidarity.

Rating 5

The book "Girlhood: Teens around the World in Their Own Voices" by Masuma Ahuja was extremely interesting. I loved learning about each girl and how their lives had similarities and differences no matter where they lived. In this book we get to learn about 30 teenage girls from across the world. We get to see what their day to day life is as well as their hopes for the future. It was nice to see that almost all of these girls have huge dreams and hopes for their future. They all want to go far and give back to their community. It was nice getting a backstory about each girl so we could learn how their mind works and why they think or feel the way they do. The addition of photos was awesome. Being able to see the girls, their hobbies, or their home environment helps the reader connect on a deeper level. I liked that the author threw in some information about the hometowns or countries because a lot of that I did not know and it helps the reader understand even more about the girls upbringing. I do wish we will get follow ups to see how their lives are in a year or two or even possibly in their twenties. It would be nice to know if these girls fulfill their dreams and studies. 

Should you read "Girlhood: Teens around the World in Their Own Voices"?
Yes! If you want to learn about people from around the world this one's for you. Honestly, I think everyone would enjoy this book but I think it would be great for teen girls or boys to read in high school. It will give them a different perspective on how other teenagers from different countries are spending their days. 

**Received an advanced copy through NetGalley in return for my honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own. **

With all of our 21st century global connectedness, there's still so much we will never know about other people's daily and inner lives-- those who live across the world and those who live the next block over from our homes.
This beautiful book collects snapshots of 30 teen girls' lives from around the world, including photographs, diary entries, and short 3rd person introductions to each girl written by the author.

This book will be an invaluable gift to every girl who wonders if she's the only one who doesn't have a best friend, or struggles with math, or deals with sexual harassment, or lives with depression. This is not to say the book is full of sob stories. To the contrary, the girls show their strength, humor, resilience, compassion, and joy in beautifully unique ways throughout.
I wish I'd had this book back when I was a girl. But reading it as an adult has been special, too.

This book shares the stories of 30 different girls who live in 27 different countries. I liked that it began with the author discussing the autonomy given to each girl. They could choose a lot of what they shared. The age of the girls also varied.

Despite not being able to dedicate too many pages to each girl to be able to cover so many different stories, I felt like each chapter had a strong amount of information. It had journal entries from the girl, a brief Q&A, information about where the girl lived, and photos that it seemed like the girls were able to help choose.

Anyone reading this book will come out of it having learned something. Not only do you get to learn about each girl’s unique story and life, but you can also learn some of the ways that people are all similar. For example, girls all over love watching Brooklyn 99.

If I’m being super nit picky, I would have loved to see more LGBTQ+ representation, but overall, I thought this book did a great job. I do plan to recommend it to tweens and teens who are interested in learning about those in other parts of the world.

What I enjoyed here is the snapshot of life each diary presented. It was amazing to see my own girlhood reflected in the experiences of girls so far removed from my own country and era. It was fascinating too to have my own assumptions about places challenged and the contextual notes on each location has made this book informative and enlightening. I feel like everyone should try this book because you can’t fail to learn something from it.

Girlhood: Teens around the World in Their Own Voices is an inspiring, extremely diverse and educational read, that should have pride of place in school libraries across the world.

A look inside the minds and hearts of young girls from many cultures and situations. It is lovely to read their hopes and aspirations. What a wonderful idea, to interview these young women and get a general idea about their lives and then to have them produce some writing about themselves to show their personality and what they hope for and to explain their family life. There are beautiful photos, which feel unposed and authentic. You hear from those in Mongolia, Russia, America and many other places. I loved it. I think it has real value. I would recommend this for school libraries around the world.