Lives of Girls and Women

'Superb' Independent

'Exact and unflinching' Guardian

Catching frogs, grazing knees, singing songs to save England from Hitler - that was childhood for Del Jordan, and now she's impatient for more.

More than she can find in the encyclopaedias sold by her mother, or in the half-understood innuendos dispensed by best friend Naomi, or in the whispers of boys during Friday night dances.

Just like the girls in the movies, she wants to get started on real life.

In her only novel, Alice Munro turns her eye to the frustrations, embarrassments, glee and bewilderment of adolescence, and to the brushes with sex, death, violence and birth that shape the lives of girls and women.

'In Munro's work, nothing can be predicted. Emotions erupt. Preconceptions crumble. Surprises proliferate' Margaret Atwoo