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Fraustino, Lisa Rowe. Don't Cramp My Style: Stories about That Time of
the Month.
Simon, 2004 295p
ISBN 0-689-85882-5 $15.95
Gr. 9-12
Menarche ushers young girls into complex new worlds of strange and heightened
emotions. Menstruating girls enter a worldwide community of women, who, as Michelle
H. Martin notes in her introduction to this collection of "period"
pieces, need to "learn to be at home in their menstruating bodies."
The stories assembled here welcome the reader to girlfriend hour, complete with
laughter, tears, and lots of affirmative nods. They extend and turn into narrative
art the stories girls have always told in hushed voices on playgrounds, on the
phone, to their diaries, and in their prayers.
The mild disgust that can accompany menstruation dissolves into humor in Pat
Brisson's "Taking Care of Things." Set in a contemporary high school,
this story highlights both the absurdity and the business-as-usual ordinariness
of periods that always seem to come at the most inconvenient times, as the main
character has to cope with trying to impress the editor of her school newspaper,
managing a run-in with her crush, and being unable to find a bathroom when she
really needs one, all at the same time. Periods don't only cause uncomfortable
moments for girls, either. David Lubar's "The Heroic Quest of Douglas McGawain"
treats a guy's experience when he makes the mistake of asking his girlfriend
if she wants anything from the store besides soda. Faced with the bewildering
array of tampon sizes and brands, and precipitously abandoned by his best friend
in his hour of need, Douglas McGawain emerges as an intrepid remnant of all-but-bygone
chivalry.
The fears (and sometimes dangers) of starting your period when you aren't ready
to grow up are featured in Alice McGill's "Moon Time Child," the story
of a slave girl sold to be a breeder, and Joan Elizabeth Goodman's "The
Czarevna of Muscovy," whose main character knows that the onset of menses
will signal her confinement not only to the Kremlin, but to marriage as well.
In both stories, the girls are victims of systems that treat women as hostages
to their bodies, and yet both girls manage to find a way to negotiate their
freedom, either literally or imaginatively. Han Nolan's young protagonist in
"Maroon" doesn't fare so well. She learns too young about teen pregnancy
and do-it-yourself abortions and responds by trying to starve herself in a futile
attempt to stave off periods, breasts, and growing older.
Then there are the opposite fears of periods that won't come when you want them
to, as in Linda Oatman High's "The Uterus Fairy," a lighthearted tale
about a mother's hysterectomy and a daughter's pregnancy scare. Both mother
and daughter find themselves missing their periods in different ways and discover
that a "ride on the cotton bicycle" isn't so bad after all, considering
the alternatives. Pesky emotional and technical problems like PMS and sex during
your period are highlighted in Joyce MacDonald's "Transfusion," a
subtle story about irrational anger and its rational causes, and Julie Stockler's
"Losing It," a not-at-all subtle story about not quite knowing how
to tell the strange guy with whom you find yourself naked in a sleeping bag
that you're on your period. The solace that the company of women and cultural
tradition can provide finds expression in Dianne Ochiltree's "The Women's
House," about the traditions of menstruation and birth among the Lenni-Lenapes,
and Deborah Heiligman's "Ritual Purity," where a troubled girl finds
healing in the cleansing rituals of Orthodox Judaism.
The standout piece in the volume is Fraustino's own "Sleeping Beauty,"
a darkly compelling tale of a girl whose ambition and perfectionism lead her
to believe that she can ignore the cycles of her body. Inspired by a true story
about a girl found dead in a college bathroom after giving birth and given folkloric
resonance through an analogy with Sleeping Beauty, this cautionary tale haunts
the others, reminding readers that however they may feel about their periods,
they ignore their bodies to their peril.
A tone of knowingness and the implicit camaraderie of the already initiated
permeate these stories, and some of the darker entries place quite sophisticated
demands on readers as they explore issues of sexuality and its various effects
on girls with admirable frankness and clarity. Hence, this is not a warm-hearted,
chicken-soupy text to give to prepubescent girls or even first-timers, though
it is a strangely welcoming one for more mature readers. The far-reaching range
of emotion captured by these stories synchronizes with the complexities of feeling
that accompany girls' sometimes complicated experience of menstruation. Taken
as a whole, the anthology effectively mirrors the blend of mystery, horror,
humor, and community that surrounds menstruation-it's a can't-miss with older
readers.
Karen Coats, Reviewer
Cover illustration from Don't Cramp My Style: Stories about That Time of
the Month ©2004 by Image Source/Picture Quest.
This page was last updated on May 1, 2004.