Westlake Girl


Book Description

Westlake Girl: My Oregon Frontier Childhood is the true story of a spirited girl coming of age in an isolated village on the Oregon coast from 1928 to 1936. It portrays the artless feminist strivings of a capable girl who dreamed of a career in the Coast Guard on the merit of her skills as a boat pilot and champion swimmer. Frieda’s triumphs (taming a harbor seal as a pet, winning swim races against older boys) and disappointments (exclusion from the Coast Guard “for no better reason than that I was a girl”) will resonate with modern women who still meet obstacles – some natural and some arbitrary – to having it all.




Amelia Westlake Was Never Here


Book Description

A fiercely funny, queer romantic comedy about two girls who can't stand each other, but join forces in a grand feminist plan to expose harassment and inequality at their elite private school. Harriet Price is the perfect student: smart, dutiful, over-achieving. Will Everhart is a troublemaker who's never met an injustice she didn't fight. When their swim coach's inappropriate behavior is swept under the rug, the unlikely duo reluctantly team up to expose his misdeeds, pulling provocative pranks and creating the instantly legendary Amelia Westlake--an imaginary student who helps right the many wrongs of their privileged institution. But as tensions burn throughout their school--who is Amelia Westlake?--and between Harriet and Will, how long can they keep their secret? How far will they go to make a difference? And when will they realize they're falling for each other? Award-winning author Erin Gough's Amelia Westlake Was Never Here is a funny, smart, and all-too-timely story of girls fighting back against power and privilege--and finding love while they're at it.







Learning Like a Girl


Book Description

Faced with a spirited eleven-year-old daughter, a concern about what therapists have called a 'poisonous' youth culture -- especially for girls -- and a conviction that parents need powerful tools to help their daughters realize their potential, educator-activist Diana Meehan was disappointed in the selection of schools available. So she decided along with two other mothers to create one, based on social science and brain research on how girls learn best. The result, The Archer School in L.A., has in only ten years become a model for girls' schools nationwide. In this entertaining, inspiring book, Meehan describes her obstacle-ridden journey to create a new institution to serve girls first and foremost, while laying out through vivid stories and examples what girls need to thrive. She explains why co-education so often doesn't serve them (just as it doesn't serve boys), takes sides in the controversy over male/female learning differences, and advocates for schools' role in giving girls tools to navigate through our sexualized, materialistic culture. She also visits other schools around the country -- private and public -- to show how single sex education works, and how every girl everywhere can benefit from having a classroom of her own.




Miss Westlake's Windfall


Book Description

Ada Westlake has turned down Viscount Ashmead—again, convinced that a marriage of convenience would ruin their perfect friendship. She then also fails to latch onto the fortune in coins she finds in her apple orchard, assuming it is tainted money. Though the viscount knows something about that money, he can’t possibly tell Ada, and so he watches her try to dispose of it—without much luck… Regency Romance by Barbara Metzger; originally published by Signet




A Girl Undone


Book Description

"Having survived a violent confrontation with the US government, Avie is not out of danger. Both she and the young man she loves, Yates, have been declared terrorists, and Yates is hospitalized in critical condition, leaving Avie with the perilous task of carrying information that can bring down the Paternalist party, if she can get it into the right hands"--




Wonder Girls


Book Description

Wonder Girls: Changing Our World is the first photographic book to document groups of activist girls (age 10 to 18) globally. It’s award winning and inspiring! Paola Gianturco and her eleven-year-old granddaughter documented the work of fifteen girl-led nonprofit groups in thirteen countries in Asia and Central Asia, North and Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and Oceania. They interviewed and photographed 102 girls. If you think "girls are the future," prepare to be dazzled. These girls are changing our world right now. Groups of activist girls age 10-18 are transforming our world: improving education, health, equality and the environment; stopping child marriage, domestic violence, trafficking and war. Their imagination and courage radiate through their stories, all told in their own words. In this book, you will watch girls lobby U.S. senators; see Mexican girls invent mobile phone apps to solve social problems; meet Malawian girls who convinced Parliament to outlaw child marriage. You will eavesdrop on Ugandan girls as they advocate for girls' rights at a UN meeting. And you will meet other girls as they write blogs, petitions, poetry, create radio shows, videos, invent dances, songs and works of art to promote their causes. Wonder Girls: Changing Our World is a call to action to help these girls accomplish their important work. Alex Sangster's sections, the finale of each chapter, tell you how. The book's Foreword was written by Musimbi Kanyoro, President and CEO of the Global Fund for Women, the world's largest grant- making organization that benefits women and girls internationally. The Global Fund for Women will receive 100% of the authors' royalties from this book.







Myrna Loy


Book Description

From the beginning, Myrna Loy's screen image conjured mystery, a sense of something withheld. This first ever biography of the wry and sophisticated actress, best known for her role as Nora Charles in The Thin Man, offers an unprecedented picture of her life and a career that spanned six decades. Opening with Loy's rough-and-tumble upbringing in Montana, the book takes us to Los Angeles from the 1920s, through the thirties, when Loy became a top box office draw, and to her robust post-World War II career. Throughout, Emily W. Leider illuminates the actress's friendships with luminaries such as Cary Grant, Clark Gable, and Joan Crawford and her collaborations with the likes of John Barrymore, David O. Selznick, Sam Goldwyn, and William Wyler, among many others. This biography offers a fascinating slice of studio era history and gives us the first full picture of a woman who has often been overlooked.--From publisher description.




Della


Book Description

This surprisingly candid, often funny, and entirely moving memoir is Chuck Barris’s story about life with his only child, Della. Born on Christmas Eve in 1962, Della was a lovable charmer like her father, an adventurous and quick-witted kid. She had a carefree suburban childhood, even while her father was fast becoming an entertainment superstar, inventing, hosting, and producing his legendary game shows. When Barris and his wife eventually divorced, Della was shuttled between parents in New York and California, then moved from boarding school in Switzerland to Beverly Hills High, among other places. Bored, lonely, and often depressed, she discovered drugs and petty crime early in adolescence, and her escapades soon took on a far more alarming and dangerous aspect. She was lost, yearning for attention and guidance, and growing up in Los Angeles amid temptation everywhere. Her father felt helpless: caring for a daughter was more than Barris had bargained for. Ranging from late-night phone calls from the neighbors to emergency room visits, Della’s behavior was out of control. When Della decided at age sixteen to move out on her own, Barris didn’t object. He gave her a trust fund and let her go out into the world alone, a regret that he shares with readers here in heartbreaking and clear-eyed detail as he chronicles Della’s descent into addiction and her eventual death from an overdose at age thirty-six. But Della is not just a grief-stricken story. Filled with loving memories and spontaneous humor, it is a brave and hard-earned reflection on fatherhood and a tribute to innocence lost.