Yale Needs Women by Anne Gardiner Perkins

YALE NEEDS WOMEN by Anne Gardiner Perkins was just released this week and I am actually reading this book in tandem with Paul Tough’s new work about college, The Years That Matter Most. It is truly fascinating to reflect on changes and the differing experiences across generations. Perkins is writing about “How the First Group of Girls Rewrote the Rules of an Ivy League Giant,” chronicling the experiences of several women who were among the first of their gender to attend Yale. For some of our students, it may be hard to believe that Yale and many other schools were only integrated gender-wise in the late 1960s and early 1970s, a generation or so ago.  Perkins does an excellent job of describing the feelings of those pioneering co-eds and her work could readily apply to events at other schools, like Union College.  In fact, Booklist says that YALE NEEDS WOMEN is “recommended for teens [because] teens approaching college age, especially those involved in social justice, will enjoy this window into a not-actually-that-distant past.”   

Perkins' book, though, is not just about the decision to admit women, but about what happened next and how subtle (or not so subtle) traditions and rituals impacted their experiences: “‘The worst part was being constantly conspicuous, which is something you don’t think about until it happens to you,’ said one freshman girl.”  Extremely well-researched, YALE NEEDS WOMEN contains a chart about the sources for oral histories and interviews, plus extensive notes (50+ pages), an index, and some black and white photos from the time.  Please look for a copy on our shelves soon – I am looking forward to having many conversations with interested readers. We still have much to do, as Perkins emphasizes through a number of statistics in her epilogue: “Women students today graduate at a higher rate than their male classmates, but their bachelor’s degrees earn them just 74 cents on the dollar compared to what men with the same credentials are paid. En route to that degree, one in five women is sexually assaulted. Nationally, women represent just 32 percent of full professors, and 26 percent of college and university presidents. … The battle … is not yet done.” 

The Downstairs Girl by Stacey Lee

THE DOWNSTAIRS GIRL by Stacey Lee (Under a Painted Sky and Outrun the Moon) is a work of historical fiction in which readers definitely will experience 1890 Atlanta with all of its gender, race, and social class biases. The main character is Jo Kuan, a seventeen-year-old Chinese orphan who lives with her guardian, Old Gin, in a basement hideout formerly on the underground railroad. She wants to be a milliner and has obvious skills until she is abruptly dismissed for making some of the white patrons “uncomfortable.” Next, it is on to being a lady’s maid for a rather spoiled young woman at an estate where Old Gin helps to care for the horses. In an effort to save a local newspaper, she also starts writing an advice column, signing her letters as Miss Sweetie and cleverly tackling questions related to beauty, social mores and "newfangled machinery" like bicycles. Even though THE DOWNSTAIRS GIRL is set in a time and place with which our students will have little affinity, I think they will readily relate to Jo’s spirit – she is optimistic, resourceful and daring – a real “saucebox” with an independent streak. And the cover is beautiful and eye catching!  

THE DOWNSTAIRS GIRL received multiple starred reviews (Booklist, Bulletin for the Center of Children’s Books, Kirkus, Publishers Weekly and School Library Journal) – expect this title to appear on award lists, too.

If You Want to Make God Laugh by Bianca Marais

IF YOU WANT TO MAKE GOD LAUGH by Bianca Marais deserves a spot in your “to be read” pile. The story takes place in South Africa in the mid-1990s as Mandela is elected president.  There are three narrators: Delilah, a former nun and aid worker; Ruth, her flamboyant, alcoholic sister who is about to get a divorce; and Zodwa, a young Zulu girl struggling with her sexual orientation and an unexpected pregnancy. Originally from South Africa, Marais intertwines the characters’ stories with the changes in that country, its racial conflicts and attitudes, and the growing AIDS epidemic. The white middle-aged sisters, who had been estranged for decades, reunite at their family home and are forced by economics to learn to live together. Delilah carries guilt and regret for past actions, saying “the past wasn’t a place you could just walk away from; it was something you carried with you your entire life, and year upon year as your arms got weaker, the burden just got heavier and harder to bear.” Ruth sees signs in everything and alludes to her “belief that I’ve been having a lifelong conversation with the universe just as profound as the one she’s [Delilah’s] been having with God.” One of those signs is a pair of knitted blue booties and the subsequent abandonment of a newborn baby on their porch. The decision to foster this black child is not an easy one and the story is full of loss and hardship mingled with love and courage. There’s a thread of feminism, too, with comments on “it was a girl’s duty to grin and bear it. No matter what any man did, she absolutely wasn’t to make a fuss. … a dysfunctional way to be raised.” Yet, the sisters and Zodwa persevere and find their way in this well-written second novel.  As Ruth says, “Maybe we’re all born with that piece of us missing and our life’s journey is about finding it. Finding the one thing that makes us whole.”