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* Ia Dubois and Katherine Hanson, eds. Echo: Scandinavian StoriesAbout Girls. Seattle: Women in Translation, 2000. Pp, i-xix + 284. $18.95.
"You're just a girl" the boy said. "Hard as a whip the words struck the child. Just a girl-just.... From that moment she had a heavy burden to bear, one of the heaviest, the feeling of being something inferior, of being born that way, beyond help" (51). To anyone who has ever used those words to accuse or berate, Echo-a collection of excerpted stories by women authors-answers back, twenty-eight times. The stories are fictional, autobiographical, or a creative combination thereof, whose authors are linked by Scandinavian heritage and the common motive to portray active girls in the serious context of adult life.
While a number of the works in this collection spring at the reader like a clenched fist, others offer a gentle hand of serenity, peace, and the security of female strength. In their sometimes fierce, frequently graceful ways, these...