By Alexandra Speck ‘21, Student Writer

I recently read a book that had an impact on the way I view middle school.  Popular, an autobiography by teen author Maya Van Wagenen, is the story of a girl who learns the true meaning of popularity.  Maya’s journey is one that most people in middle school can relate to.  Maya isn’t cool.  She doesn’t have many friends and she can’t play sports.  She feels insignificant.  To quote her, she is at “the lowest level of people at school who aren’t paid to be here.”  Maya then discovers Betty Cornell’s Teen-Age Popularity Guide, an old book from the fifties that promised to make anyone “popular.”  Maya spends her entire eighth grade year following Betty’s advice without telling a soul at school her plan.

I polled a few people at Newark Academy to see how people responded to the question that I asked myself after finishing Popular:  What do you think popularity means?  The answers varied.  Being well-known came up in nearly all of the answers, but a few choice phrases also stood out.  “Everyone wants to know you” was one of the responses that stood out to me (not in a good or bad way).  It begs the question: What on earth could make everyone want to be your friend?  Maya had the answers, although they were not necessarily the expected ones.

During her experiment, Maya focuses on a new chapter of the book for each month of the school year.  For the first few months, Maya did her hair, changed her clothes, and put on makeup.  It was at this point that I almost gave up on the book, since it made a good portion of the story extremely bland (although the lessons learned trumped the slight monotony).  I do not believe that appearance should have an effect on so-called popularity, even though many would say that appearance is a factor.  Thankfully, no one cares much about the changes in Maya’s appearance – in fact, people made fun of her fifties-inspired clothes.

The book redeemed itself in my eyes when I reached the latter part.  Self-confidence, attitude, kindness, and stepping out of your shell – these qualities make Maya see the changes in others and in herself.  Having people want to be like you and giving them reason to actually like you makes all the difference.

“Popularity is more than looks. It’s not clothes, hair, or even possessions. When we let go of these labels, we see how flimsy and relative they actually are. Real popularity is kindness and acceptance. It is about who you are, and how you treat others.”

-Maya Van Wagenen