Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2022 -

Pfeiffer's Transforming Girls is a much-needed addition to scholarship on girls' literature, providing a fresh perspective on several fronts. First, Pfeiffer (Hollins Univ.; editor of the annual Children's Literature) shows that the concept of adolescence and adolescent literature for girls emerged just before the end of the 19th century, which predates the more commonly held dating. Second, she examines the strong literary and social ties between the US and Germany before WW I, ties more pronounced than the Anglo-American relationship of later years. From this enlightening discussion emerges the primary value of this book, which is Pfeiffer's examination of the positive adolescent female development story highlighted in Backfischliteratur, a genre of girls' literature that focuses on the backfisch (adolescent, immature girl) and emphasizes the protagonist's nurturing by older women who mentor her on her journey toward womanhood. This contrasts with later girls' novels that feature girls enacting the volatile (and more sexualized) "storm and stress" trope of adolescence that G. Stanley Hall, often considered the founder of child psychology, defined in his book Adolescence (1904). Pfeiffer provides excellent resources and in-depth analysis of eight novels, both German and American, of this little-known, understudied genre, making this book a vital addition to the study of girls' literature.Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.