I Was a Little Princess: A Former Child Pageant Winner Revisits Her Past

The 1996 death of six-year-old beauty queen JonBenét Ramsey brought with it a cultural revelation – the previously little-known world of child beauty pageants, which was thrust into sharp public focus as a result of Ramsey's murder. Since that time, America has maintained a somewhat queasy fascination with these contests. But what really goes on at pageants like these? What does a child experience as a participant? And why do parents enter their children in these contests? In I Was a Little Princess, author Danielle Phillips combines careful research into the child pageant scene with personal experience and anecdotes in the hopes of understanding this controversial social phenomenon.