Other kids point and laugh and talk about her but she just keeps going, and when things don’t work out, she learns from them. The point is, she does the thing that terrified me the most as a kid - she calls attention to herself. Even if it’s silly things like wearing long skirts and pearls to school. I wish I’d had the nerve to do half of what she did. What made the biggest impression on me was Maya’s willingness to take risks. I wonder, though, if I would learn from it or if those things can only be learned in hindsight, after it’s too late to change anything. I wish I could have read this book as a teenager. I’ve long been sad about how many people I didn’t get to know in school because of these perceived barriers, and how much I missed out on. If I knew them but they were more popular (which was everyone) I didn’t talk to them. If I didn’t know someone, I didn’t talk to them. At the beginning of the book, she approaches school in exactly the same way I did: most of the people in the school are off limits because they are more popular.
Maya has one best friend, a teacher and a librarian who support her, and a small circle of “social outcasts” that she sits with at lunch. She spends a month at a time on things like body issues, clothing, hygiene, and posture. She decides to follow a chapter a month for one school year, and since she wants to be a writer, she plans from the outset to write about her experiences. Maya’s mother suggests she follow the book’s suggestions and see what happens, and Maya decides she has nothing to lose as she’s one of the lowest on her school’s social ladder (just above substitute teachers). Cornell was a model who started writing self-help books for teenagers like “The Glamour Guide for Teens” and “The Teen-age Popularity Guide”. While her parents are cleaning out their office, they find an old social etiquette book from the fifties written by Betty Cornell. Maya wrote this book about her eighth grade year in a small Texas border town. I can’t really criticize the book since I’m practically as old as Betty herself. It’s a bit hard to fairly review a book written by a middle-schooler. First, a major disclaimer: I am NOT the target audience for this book.
There aren’t that many books out there that feel fresh and original, and this one did. I’ve been recommending this book a lot lately, especially to my friends with daughters.
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