Girls are everywhere these days: they rule MTV and the pop charts; they are big box-office draws; they are on the covers of top-selling magazines; and they score the winning points in professional sports. Despite the recent flurry of books exploring girlhood, like Odd Girl Out and The Secret Lives of Girls, these titles mainly tackle the topic of aggression in young women.

Anita Harris, in her new book Future Girl, goes beyond this to create a realistic portrait of the "new girl" that has appeared in the twenty-first century--she may still play with Barbie, but she is also likely to play soccer or basketball, be assertive and may even be sexually aware, if not active. Building on this new definition, Harris explores the many key areas central to the lives of girls from a global perspective, such as girlspace, schools, work, aggression, sexuality and power.

In an era of girl power and Riot grrls, Future Girl provides a fresh and original perspective on what it means to be young and female at the beginning of the new millennium.