History Lesson for Girls

A coming of age novel is not typical of the type of reading that I would normally recommend to my readers. However, the general theme of a young girl and her parents dealing with her scoliosis diagnosis struck a cord within me.

Both my mother and daughter have scoliosis. Neither of them wore the Milwaukee brace that both author Aurelie Sheehan and her fictional character, Alison Glass, wore. But my daughter did under go spinal fusion surgery to help straighten the curve in her spine when she was sixteen.

The time period of the text centers smack in the middle of the seventies, the "free love era" of hippies and flower children also made me feel nostalgic. In the story, scoliosis, or the awkward brace 13 year old Alison must wear, may at first appear to be her obstacle to fitting-in, but it soon becomes apparent that fitting-in is a desire that even eludes the adult characters. History Lesson for Girls is a touching read...

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