Running for their Lives : Girls, Cultural Identity, and Stories of Survival

Girl Power has become the rallying cry for a new generation of girls as they navigate-on their own terms-the perilous yet exhilarating journey from girlhood to adulthood.

Though this transformation is often difficult for middle-class white girls growing up in the United States, it is unimaginably more difficult for girls, often in developing countries, who contend with such life-threatening issues as poverty, abuse, and civil war.

Indeed, girl power is a luxury these girls can't afford.

Consider the young Thai teenage girl who must work in a button factory in order to save some money for her daughter.

Think about the poverty-stricken young girl who is raped in rural Pakistan, and whose rapist is never brought to trial.Consider the journey of the African girl who is adopted and brought to the United States, yet discovers that she is not accepted because of her race.

These stories and other equally painful sagas will resonate with readers of this collection, whose chapters will give these and other disenfranchised girls a place to speak, a place to express some of the pain, emotional and physical, of their journey through girlhood.