Bibliographic Data
Wagenen, Maya Van. Popular:
How a Geek in Pearls Discovered the Secret to Confidence. New York: Dutton,
2014. Print.
Summary
In this memoir, Maya, an 8th
grade student living in south Texas, is by her own admission a geek who knows
what it feels like to get teased by her peers. While cleaning out their house,
they found a book from the 1950’s called Betty
Cornell’s Teenage Popularity Guide which teaches girls everything they need
to do in order to become popular. Taking a chapter a month, Maya tries out the
advice to see if over 50 years later it can help her become popular.
Critical Analysis
Maya does a great job of interweaving
Betty Cornell’s words, and her experiences with those words. You feel like you
are on this journey with Maya, fist pumping with each success she has. You also
feel just as crushed, reflecting on your own middle school experiences, as she
does when things don’t go quite as planned. It’s wonderful to see her go on her
journey to find popularity, and find something more important: confidence and
how to make others feel good and included.
The main weakness is I wish there was
even more from Betty Cornell’s books, whether it be more of the text, or more
of the pictures. I know this book is about Maya’s journey, but I wish we could
have heard from her peers and their thoughts on what she was doing while the
was doing it, and their thoughts once she finished and could tell everyone why
she did what she did. Overall I think young girls will be able to quickly and
easily connect with Maya, and hopefully see that they too can become confident,
happy people.
Creative Activity
Students can read Betty Cornell’s Teenage Popularity Guide and
try out some of the advice just like Maya. After trying out the different
advice they can come back together and discuss what happened, what went well,
and what maybe didn’t go so well.
Students can also create their own
Teenage Popularity Guide, teaching younger students how they should dress,
behave, etc. Or, taking it in the vein of what Maya learned in the end, they
can create a Teenage Inclusivity Guide, teaching students how to become more
confident and inclusive of others.
Related Resources
Students can read what started Maya’s
journey to finding her inner confidence. Whether students choose to try some of
the advice on their own is up to them.
Cornell, Betty. Teen-age
Popularity Guide. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1953. Print.
Students that enjoy Popular will love
exploring Maya Van Wagenen’s tumblr page. Full of inspirational quotes,
pictures, and words from Maya, students follow her page and keep some
positivity and self-help at the touch of a button.
"Popular." Popular.
Tumblr, n.d. Web. 24 July 2016.
Published Review
Weber, Ann.
"Popular." School Library Journal 60.11 (2014):
65. Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts with Full
Text. Web. 23 July 2016.
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