Daughters of the Moon, Sisters of the Sun is the latest addition to the recent deluge of books that explore the perilous emotional passage of girls into womanhood. The book is a compilation of bittersweet accounts of the lives of the girls today. Readers seeking morality tales or happy endings, look elsewhere: this is the gritty, real-life teenage world of sexual exploration, drug abuse, self-mutilation, sexual abuse, teenage motherhood, and racism.

The stories come from the participants in weekly focus groups led by the book’s editors, therapist Wind Hughes and photojournalist Linda Wolf. Each girl in turn interviews a role model about any number of topics ranging from body image to spirituality, to career aspirations and motherhood. The list of mentors is impressive and includes Carol Gilligan, Marion Woodman, Lindsay Wagner, Maya Angelou, The Indigo Girls, Angela Davis, and Bella Abzug. The Maya Angelou interview is a standout. In it, she makes a compelling case for the healing power of adults telling young people the truth about their own youths. When asked what advice she has for girls, she responds, “To laugh as much as possible, always laugh…. Laugh and dare to love somebody, starting with yourself.” Saccharine sounding out of context, when the advice comes from a woman who has just discussed her own trials as a drug taker, a teenage mom, and table dancer, it is remarkably poignant.

For those not in tune with recovery movement lingo, the wade through the editors’ morass of New Age psycho-platitudes can be tiresome at times. (For instance, Wolf and Hughes write that the girls in the groups were good at calling the older women on their “stuff” – whatever that means.) But there is also a surprising amount of common-sense advice in these pages. Hughes writes a refreshingly candid essay on drug use (“‘Just Say No’ Doesn’t Work”) and compiles a fascinating drug fact sheet geared to women. Wolf does equal justice to the issue of abortion. In an unflinchingly pro-choice piece, she recalls her own abortions in a way that is neither self-castigating nor dismissive of the distress multiple abortions caused her. With its plain-talk approach to so many of the experiences of young women today, Daughters of the Moon, Sisters of the Sun is a worthy tribute to what is too often a painful passage into womanhood.