Just Girls

One thing that I found particularly interesting in this book was the title. All the girls in the book, both the social queens and tough cookies considered themselves “just girls.” However the two groups of girls were quite different and had very different literacy practices. But what they have in common is the thought that they are average girls. The both use their literacy practices to prove this. These practices such as writing notes or poetry are important to these girls. Our group also talked about the different ways that the parents viewed these practices as well. While the the mother of one of social queens wishes her daughter would read books rather than “fluff”, she admits that she is glad her daughter is reading. To her daughter this reading important. These magazines provide information that the social queens feel they need. I found this to be my favorite part of the book. Most of the social queens did read books as well, however it was the magazines that they bonded over and they hid the books they were reading from each other. Mot of these girls were involved in many different literacy practices. Some of them however, were used to establish social status and these literacy practices were extremely important to these girls.