Jo's Girls: Tomboy Tales of High Adventure, True Grit, and Real Life

by Christian McEwen (Editor)

Louisa May Alcott's energetic, ambitious, and androgynous Jo March has inspired generations of tomboys. But at the close of Little Women even Jo's valiant tomboy spirit has been subordinated to her role as wife and mother. For Jo's Girls, editor Christian McEwen has assembled a collection of fiction and memoir that looks at what it has really meant to be a tomboy from the nineteenth century to the present-and at what the refusal to turn into a "young lady" has implied.

Contributors include: Toni Cade Bambara, Willa Cather, Sandra Cisneros, Colette, Simone de Beauvoir, Alexis De Veaux, Annie Dillard, Nadezhda Durova, Leslie Feinberg, Emily Hiestand, Maria Hinojosa, Teresa Jordan, Jamaica Kincaid, Maxine Hong Kingston, Anne LaBastille, Ursula K. Le Guin, Bia Lowe, Carson McCullers, Susan Moon, Toni Morrison, Alice Munro, Grace Paley, Minnie Bruce Pratt, Rose Tremain, Frances Willard, Opal Whiteley, Virginia Woolf

Genres: Anthologies, Nonfiction, LGBT, Queer

368 pages, Paperback

First published June 30, 1997

Reviews

[Ratforce]

Jo’s girls: Tomboy Tales of High Adventure, True Grit, and Real Life is a collection of true adventure stories and short fiction involving strong and rebellious women. Many of the authors are well-known writers such as Willa Cather, Virginia Woolf, Annie Dillard, and Toni Morrison. This is a collection that one might find on the bedside table of Lisbeth Salander.

[Kezia · Rating 4 out of 5]

File under: girls and women bucking gender norms, from very young "tombabies" to the elderly; girls and women who climb trees, ride horses, join the Cossacks, join gangs, love women.

It was a stroke of brilliance to compile and organize this by the age of the protagonists, and trace the advancing awareness of social and cultural obstacles that trap us, and prevent us from being our whole selves.

Combining short fiction and memoir in one go, well, that was a little odd to me. Overall it worked, though in my opinion some of the memoir went a bit long, while some of the fiction was too abbreviated.

I don't read a lot of anthologies. I should, because it's nice to get a taste of unfamiliar writers without committing. (And most writers publishing after about 1950 are unfamiliar to me.) I found several to add to my to-read list.

[Johna Van · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tomboy tales of high adventure, true grit, and real life the cover says. For Jo's Girls, editor Christian McEwen has assembled a collection of fiction and memoir that looks at what it has really meant to be a tomboy from the nineteenth century to the present and at what the refusal to turn into a young lady has implied. Some contributors include, Willa Cather, Toni Morrison, Carson McCullers, and Virginia Woolf. Named after Jo March of 'Little Women',this book captures the tomboy spirit long suppressed.

[Gabrielle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a treat for girls and women, and maybe for interested guys. It is an anthology of stories by literary women writers. Their stories span the life phases from a girl's childhood to stories of women in their seventies. The main theme is the expression of independent spirit of girls and women, and the challenges to it. Such writers who were never afraid to support a feminist perspective - Paley, Munro, Beauvoir, Bambara, Morrison, Kincaid and many others - write with an emotional palette ranging from the hilariously funny to the tragic.
I read this book with my daughter when she was thirteen. Every night we read one of these stories. Forty some nights (we did not always get through a complete story in one night). The book stimulated conversations between us about such complex issues as self-image, awakening sexuality, the confusing behavior of adults (from my daughter's perspective), mother-daughter-love, sexual relationships, gay relationships, loss and death.
I am not sure if it is still in print. I bought it in a second-hand store. If you can find it, it will take you on a journey whether you have a daughter or not, and whether you know most of the stories or not. The arrangement in life phases puts some of these well-known stories in a new perspective.