8 Ball Chicks

Imagine a world in which teenage girls hang obituaries on their bedroom walls instead of posters. Sikes, former Mademoiselle senior writer and producer of the youth-oriented PBS series In the Mix, knows that world, having spent a year ""kicking it"" with girl gangs in three U.S. cities (Los Angeles, San Antonio and Milwaukee). According to Sykes, 10% of the American teenagers involved in gangs are girls. These young women organize and identify themselves through their own gangs, which are often auxiliaries of male gangs. They deal drugs, steal, fight and retaliate viciously against their rivals. Sikes's relationship to her subjects ranges from anthropologist to big sister, and her portraits are sympathetic and genuine. The reportage hits hardest when she implicates herself in the events she describes. A party she attends in South Central Los Angeles is rousted by the cops and she is forced, along with the Crip set she is studying, to kneel and put her hands up: ""The action felt strange, humiliating. I noticed how much it hurt on the concrete."" Her writing is brisk and accessible, though short on analysis or conclusions--rather like a Mademoiselle feature. Still, Sikes offers a convincing, unsettling view of a domain that most would as soon avoid. (Jan.)