How to (Un)cage a Girl

by Francesca Lia Block

Overview

A celebration of girls and women in a three part poetry collection that is powerful, hopeful, authentic, and universal.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780061971723
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	10/06/2009
Sold by:	HARPERCOLLINS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	144
File size:	534 KB
Age Range:	14 - 17 Years

About the Author

Francesca Lia Block, winner of the prestigious Margaret A. Edwards Award, is the author of many acclaimed and bestselling books, including Weetzie Bat; the book collections Dangerous Angels: The Weetzie Bat Books and Roses and Bones: Myths, Tales, and Secrets; the illustrated novella House of Dolls; the vampire romance novel Pretty Dead; and the gothic werewolf novel The Frenzy. Her work is published around the world.

Read an Excerpt

How to (Un)cage a Girl

thirteen: the little oven

i thought my teacher was a nazi
with hair slicked to the side
short and germanic
he lectured about hitler
spittle
in his voice
boys with greasy scalps
drew cartoons of me
with a witch's nose
my body was so thin
i had chopped off
my pretty brown hair
my skin charred and blistered
red bumps broke out
there was blood between my legs
is this junior high school?
hell?
or somewhere worse?

How to (Un)cage a Girl. Copyright © by Francesca Block. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

Editorial Reviews

Free verse, somewhat surprisingly, makes a better framework for Block's plush imagery than does prose, as this spare collection of poems about women young and old demonstrates. Three brief, multiple-poem chapters comprise this work: "years at the asylum," "in the lair of the toxic blonde" and "love poems for girls." The implied audience of these Plath-aspiring verses seems not to be young women, however, but more mature ones. "love poems for girls," in particular, presents youth as something to remember and learn from. One poem celebrates a woman who's been married twice, has two children and teaches middle school, while another begins, "remember college." Still another first-person poem runs from 1970 to 2007, with a verse that begins "i am about to turn forty-five." The poems that cherish adulthood are this collection's real wealth, while those that attempt to speak to youth, such as the penultimate "forty-five thoughts for my daughter and my virtual daughters"-peppered with such flavorless lines as "plant a tree" and "tv is a depressant"-lack spark. (Poetry. YA & adult)

Kirkus Reviews

A stirring exploration of female suffering and empowerment.” — Booklist

“Fans…will be awed by Block’s consistently fertile imagination and her honesty in illuminating the dark moments of girls’ and women’s lives.” — Publishers Weekly

“Teenage girls…will devour this insightful and powerful collection.” — School Library Journal

“There is something for everyone in this short, beautifully written collection…poetry lovers or not, readers will find a wonderful read.” — Voice of Youth Advocates (VOYA) (starred review)

From the Publisher

There is something for everyone in this short, beautifully written collection…poetry lovers or not, readers will find a wonderful read.

Voice of Youth Advocates (VOYA) (starred review)

A stirring exploration of female suffering and empowerment.

Booklist

A stirring exploration of female suffering and empowerment.

Booklist

There is something for everyone in this short, beautifully written collection…poetry lovers or not, readers will find a wonderful read.

Voice of Youth Advocates (VOYA) (Starred Review)