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Review: The Popularity Papers by Amy Ignatow
Do Nerdy Book Club members care about The Popularity Papers? Would it surprise you to learn that the narrators of a book about popularity are, in fact, nerds?
Yes, my nerdy friends, it’s true. Lydia Goldblatt is an Eskrima stick fighter who moves to London for six months with her single mother and her multi-pierced older sister. Her best friend, Julie Graham-Chang is an artistic field hockey player who must face the start of junior high school alone.
Is it a girls’ version of Diary of a Wimpy Kid? Yes and no. The Popularity Papers are heavily illustrated in the style of a middle school student, like the Wimpy Kid series. Its colorful pages, similar to a graphic novel, minimize the amount of text and should make it appealing to reluctant readers. On the other hand, those readers may stumble briefly at the narrative shifts, from Lydia to Julie, signaled by a change in handwriting and ink color.
The realistic handwriting in the book was delightful. It looks like real ballpoint pen, splattered by tearstains in places. Items like school maps, moist towelette wrappers, online chats, and emails between the two friends are mingled in amongst the handwritten letters, making the volume look like something that two sixth grade girls would realistically create.
In this volume, The Long-Distance Dispatch Between Lydia Goldblatt & Julie Graham-Chang, the best friends pursue popularity on different continents. Lydia intimidates the students in her British school with her stick-fighting skills and makes friends with “The Weirdest Girl in the School.” She embarks on a program to help the outcast kids become cool, whether they want to be or not.
Meanwhile, in America, Julie Graham-Chang, with the encouragement of her two dads, accidentally becomes popular, and learns about the pressure that brings. She realizes, “…that being popular just means that you can make other people do what you want them to do. Which I guess is probably why people want to be popular.” (p. 129)
Lydia learns “…that wherever you go, there’s probably going to be someone else there who is like you, because if you ended up there, certainly someone who is like you has ended up there as well, and they probably need a friend.” (p. 62) Does this remind you of the middle school girls you know? Silly, self-centered, worried about popularity…these sound like authentic narrators. In this series, you will find neither the heartbreaking emotion of a book like Ida B., nor the sharp wit of the Dear Dumb Diary series.
But, if you have students who like to read about kids like themselves living out their school adventures in colorful books, with not too many words, then Popularity Papers is the perfect series for them. I don’t know about you, but I have plenty of students just like that!
Cari Young is a teacher librarian at Fox Run Elementary School in San Antonio, Texas and blogs at The Centered School Library (http://librarycenters.blogspot.com). Her career as a nerdy book lover began many years ago when she discovered the long-lived joy of chapter book series, and she remembers fondly the long shelves full of Bobbsey Twins and Nancy Drew books in the public library.
Nerdy Book Club 
I definitely have students who would love this book. I’m adding it to my ever-growing list of books to read and buy.
I love The Popularity Papers. The beauty is that the characters grow and grow up as we read along. They are very real girls…it’s nice to see!
I like. The popularity papers