There is little sugar but lots of spice in journalist Rachel Simmons's brave and brilliant book that skewers the stereotype of girls as the kinder, gentler gender. Odd Girl Out begins with the premise that girls are socialized to be sweet with a double bind: they must value friendships; but they must not express the anger that might destroy them. Lacking cultural permission to acknowledge conflict, girls develop what Simmons calls "a hidden culture of silent and indirect aggression." The author, who visited 30 schools and talked to 300 girls, catalogues chilling and heartbreaking acts of aggression, including the silent treatment, note-passing, glaring, gossiping, ganging up, fashion police, and being nice in private/mean in public. She decodes the vocabulary of these sneak attacks, explaining, for example, three ways to parse the meaning of "I'm fat." --- Amazon.

When Odd girl out was first published, it ignit[ed] a long-overdue conversation about the hidden culture of female bullying. Today, the dirty looks, taunting notes, and social exclusion that plague girls' friendships have gained new momentum in cyberspace. Simmons gives girls, parents, and educators strategies for navigating social dynamics online, as well as classroom initiatives and step-by-step parental suggestions for dealing with conventional bullying.--p. [4] of cover.