American Girls

Gr 8 Up—A meandering look at a murderous time in America's history and how the behavior of the young girls who carried out those atrocious crimes compares to the emotional viciousness of teenage girls of today. Umminger's novel offers a glimpse into the life of Anna as she in turn explores the lives of serial killers, the infamous Manson Girls. Anna is 14 and feels like a castaway in her own life; her mom has started a new life with a new family she doesn't fit in with, her dad has a new girlfriend as well, and her best friend may not be the greatest influence. Running away to stay with her glamorous sister in California seems like her best escape route, but life in L.A. brings problems and dangers of its own. To earn her plane fare back, Anna agrees to do film research on Charles Manson's female followers, who committed a series of murders in 1969, and learns that the line between good and evil is often less defined than it may at first seem. This is an introspective account of how deeply the invisible scars of familial emotional abuse can run and how easily they can wreak havoc on the lives of everyone close by.