http://www.queenpower.com/

  Feminine Wisdom Share

Finding Your True Self Among The

Cultural Clutter

Reviewed by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, columnist and reviewer author of This is the Place and Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered and The Frugal Book Promoter

It seems that our culture continues to trade on a little girl's desire to grow up to be cared for by a handsome prince.  No doubt the Cinderella story is a captivating one.  We, as a culture love Underdog (remember him from the 70s?) and Horatio Alger.  The sad thing is that women still identify with the pretty, overworked keeper-of-the-hearth who has all that unrealized potential hidden beneath her apron and behind her sad eyes.

Allyn Evans, the author of Grab the Queen Power, uses the term (and title) Queen to attract readers who might otherwise not read a serious book or who would not understand the confident persona the author is trying to reach.  Queen is a combination memoir and guide.  It uses scholarly interviews with women of all ages to evoke memories and understanding from the reader.  It is not light reading but it is inspirational.

Author Allyn Evans, born as a southern belle, draws from cultural icons from literature and film (Scarlett O'Hara, The Sleeping Princess) and serious feminist writers like Sue Monk Kidd to make her points.  She has also worked closely with professors and graduate students from schools like Delta State University and the University of Mississippi's Center for the Study of Southern Culture.  That she also reveals herself--right down to the core--is effective because we see the courage there, the willingness to bare raw bones in the cause of helping others.

Clever titles like "The Half Unconscious Queen" and "When the Princess Takes her Poison," along with fully wrought scenes and anecdotes makes this serious work entertaining.  I'd like to see every little girl who turns 12 read it before she enters those difficult years of development, before she ventures out into the world.  She would be certain to see things more clearly than generations of women gone before.  Times have changed but the echoes of repression still abound.  We can only be the better for recognizing them when we see them.  This book will help women in any generation know and understand them well.

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(Carolyn Howard-Johnson's first novel, This is the Place, has won eight awards.  Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remember has won three.  Her new book, The Frugal Book Promoter is USA Book News' "Best Professional Book 2004."  Learn more at: http://carolynhowardjohnson.com.)

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