Dr.
Sylvia Rimm's book!
How Jane Won
55 Successful Women Share How
They Grew
from Ordinary Girls to Extraordinary Women
with Dr. Sara-Rimm Kaufman
The companion
volume to Dr. Rimm's
New York Times Best Seller,
See
Jane Win®
Read the highlights of How Jane
Won
SOLD OUT
The readers who made a
bestseller of See Jane Win--and all girls and young women who value personal
achievement--will welcome this inspiring companion volume in which successful women speak
about the turning points, crises, mentors, opportunities, failures, and blessed accidents
they encountered on the road to fulfillment.
In How Jane Won, Dr. Sylvia
Rimm lets more than fifty women tell the stories, in their own words, about how they got
to where they are. Among the women are plenty of household names, including Justice
Sandra Day O'Connor, Florence Henderson, New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman, space
shuttle commander Eileen Collins, astronaut Cady Coleman, Harry Potter artist Mary
GrandPré, and novelist Jacquelyn Mitchard. But there are also women you've never
heard of--scientists, teachers, artists, and homemakers¾who are every bit as successful.
To learn how--these women earned, struggled, and lucked their way to the top is both fun
and inspiring.
Significantly, success in How
Jane Won is not narrowly defined. A sense of happiness and satisfaction is just
as important as a six-figure paycheck or fancy title. Any doubt about this is dispelled by
Lisa Taylor's account of why she loves being an elementary school teacher or Roberta
Baldwin's sonnet to the virtues of volunteering.
Sometimes the first step to success is believing it's possible. How Jane Won
erases all doubt.
"Every
reader will find resonance somewhere in this wide array of experiences of hardship and
comfort, mediocre and top grades, social success, and difficulty. . . this impressive
group of mainstream feminist role models will inspire girls and women alike."
Forecast:
"The bestselling record of the Rimms' previous book, a 20-city radio tour, a 23-city
author tour, and widespread interest in girls' development should guarantee this book
broad exposure and a long life."
Publishers Weekly, December, 2000
"How
Jane Won is a great book for our daughters¾It's a roadmap to living an extraordinary
life."
Ann Curry, NBC Today Show
When I
was 8, my grandmother sent me a biography of women’s lives. Clara Barton’s
accomplishments as a nurse and humanitarian spoke to me, and her story lingered long after
I had lost track of the book. Twelve years later, I became a registered nurse.
Books
can influence young lives. In 1999, the best selling See Jane Win: the Rimm Report
on How 1,000 Girls Became Successful Women by child psychologist Sylvia Rimm inspired
mothers who were seeking advice on how to raise their daughters. Now its companion,
How Jane won: 55 Successful Women Share How They Grew from Ordinary Girls to Extraordinary
Women, aims to inspire those daughters.
More
than a how-to book, How Jane Won shimmers with personal triumphs. Gathering a cultural and
socio-economic mix of women ages 30-80, Rimm’s interviews capture the passion of
these varied individuals and their perseverance against the roadblocks of poverty,
physical, and emotional handicaps and self-doubt.
Mary
Previte, New Jersey assemblywoman and administrator of Camden County Youth Center, was
born the daughter of missionaries China. As a girl, she spent three years in a Japanese
concentration camp. Surviving that, Previte returned to American Where at age 14, she lost
her left hand in a revolving saw accident. When her little brother voiced concern
that his sister couldn’t ride her bike again, Previte’s father answered, “I
don’t know why not.”
Positive
statements like that pop up repeatedly in these stories, showing at least a single binding
thread throughout the interviews. At some time in each of these women’s lives,
someone cheers on their behalf. Someone tells them that they are worthwhile and
deserving. “You can do it” may be the most important words they hear
– a catalyst for choosing a positive path. Many have supportive parents, yet
positive messages also can originate with teachers, nuns, bosses, friends, or lovers.
Rimm
separates the women’ stories into several sections: lawmakers an adjudicators;
shatterers of the glass ceilings; healers and discoverers: nurturers; artists and
musicians, and communicators. From Eileen Collins, NASA astronaut and space shuttle
commander to Tamara Minick-Scokalo, marketing director for Procter & Gamble to NBC
News and Dateline anchor Jane Pauley, each woman divulges how she coped with life’s
struggles and society’s expectations. Sandra Day O’Connor, associate
justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, discusses her shyness. She grew up on a remote
cattle ranch in the Southwest where people had to fend for themselves. Despite being
fiercely independent, shyness plagued her. A dramatic arts teacher gently demanded
she “get up in front of people and say things.”
Like
many of these women, today’s teens still with poverty, racism, peer pressure, raging
hormones, and not fitting in. women’s issues in society, however, have changed and
new obstacles have replaced old ones. Schools that provided safe and fertile ground for
many of the 55 successful women Rimm reports on now practice “lock-down” drills
preparing children to avoid shooters who may blast into classrooms.
What
has not changed, however, is the need for role models. How Jane Won presents myriad
choices, allowing girls to identify with the lives of women astronauts, district
attorneys, CEOs, civil engineers, professors, photographers, musicians, editors, authors,
teachers, and nurses. Most important, the book offers words of encouragement.
That
may be all a girl needs to give her a step up.
Theodora Aggeles, Saint Petersburg Times,
March 25, 2001
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