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https://www.teenvogue.com/story/maya-van-wagenen-popular

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This is a big week for Maya van Wagenen. Just 24 hours before we meet, her very first book hit shelves across the country. She's in New York to appear on The Today Show, do a million interviews, and take part in the publicity whirlwind that accompanies a buzzy release. But unlike most first-time authors, Maya's worried about keeping up with the assignments she's missing back at her high school in Georgia.

"I actually feel really bad right now because I'm procrastinating on all my homework!" the 15-year-old admits over tea and sandwiches on the Upper West Side. I tell her she gets a pass, what with promoting her book and all. Oh, and by the way, isn't just any YA tome-it's her 8th grade journal that's been published for all see. Yes, this is a very big week.

As a middle schooler in a Texas border town, Maya considered herself an outsider. "I always struggled with making friends and finding confidence," she says. "I felt ostracized and bullied, and it was really hard for me." Then she stumbled upon Betty Cornell's Teen-Age Popularity Guide, a 1950s how-to book that her dad picked up at a thrift store before she was even born. She decided to follow the advice-devoting each month of her 8th grade year to different chapters like "Good Grooming" and "Be a Hostess"-and see if she could, in fact, become popular. Every day she'd take notes on how people responded to her secret efforts (that's right, nobody knew she was conducting this social experiment) and then she'd write fully fleshed-out stories about her experience over the weekend. Spoiler alert: Betty's tips worked, although not necessarily in the way she anticipated.

"Pushing myself out of my comfort zone and doing things I never thought I'd have the courage to do definitely helped to boost confidence," Maya explains. "I learned a lot about the person I was and wanted to be, and I made friends for the first time in my life. I learned that the kind of popularity based on the hierarchy our school created wasn't real. Reaching out to others and having the courage to stand up for yourself and for other people- that's the kind of popularity that's important. It could change the world."

After she finished the project, she sent the journal to her family, including an uncle who passed it along to a writer friend who in turn forwarded it to his agent. The agent wanted to sign Maya immediately. It was only a blur from there: Penguin was the first publisher to bite, and Dreamworks snapped up the movie rights months before the book's April release date.

While there were tons of people pulling for Maya, her biggest supporter was no doubt Betty Cornell herself. In the book, they connect over the phone, but a face-to-face meeting was inevitable. "I flew out and stayed with her and her daughter," Maya says. "Betty's exactly like you would expect. She's 87 years old and looks fantastic. She's just a wonderful person-she lives the book with everything she does, and she's been so supportive." As icing on the "vintage wisdom for a modern geek" cake, Betty's book has been reissued in conjunction with Popular's release.

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Meet Maya Van Wagenen, the Girl Whose 8th Grade Diary Landed Her a Six-Figure Book Deal

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This is a big week for Maya van Wagenen. Just 24 hours before we meet, her very first book hit shelves across the country. She's in New York to appear on The Today Show , do a million interviews, and take part in the publicity whirlwind that accompanies a buzzy release.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfwEgIyhhMw

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Justine Magazine: Maya Van Wagenen on "Popular" - What it Means to be Popular & Tips for School!

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https://www.kokomotribune.com/news/nation_an_world_news/teen-finds-meaning-in-1950s-popularity-guide

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-Popularity is reaching out to others
-taking time to love others
-Not being afraid
-Reaching out
-"Remember the girls in pearls"
-The principle of "being popular"
-Truly loving others
-What Betty Cornell taught her to say was "Hi, I'm Maya"  instead of being alone

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It was Maya's last day of school with all these people she had grown up with, she was moving and was sad to leave everyone. Maya is proud to have done what she did this year, she learned so many lessons and made, and will continue being friends with everyone she had met this year.

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Maya did not care about a date, she decided she was going to invite every person who didn't have a date to go with her in a group. The night of the from Maya curls her hair, puts on her makeup, and her dress. She feels so pretty, not for Betty, but for herself. Maya makes it a goal to be the most inclusive she can be, she dances with anyone who seems lonely and has the best night ever, with no care of what anyone thinks of her.

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Maya got the solo in her choir, she is singing a solo in the song "Its a Beautiful Day". As it's time for Maya to start her solo she gets really nervous and messes up a ton, and misses a phrase.

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Maya is going to use her fifty dollars she earned to host party. Maya's moving summer party. A lot of people Maya invites can't make it. Maya figures out that someone is hosting a different party the same day and everyone is going to that one, everyone but Maya. Maya was not invited so she just decided not to have a party and focus on prom instead.

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Maya talks about all her crushes
Tyler- Was her friend when her dad was in graduate school and they would walk to school together everyday. One day Tyler told her that he did not want to be here friend anymore unless she kissed him, she went home and never talked to him again.
Blake- The smartest kid in the class, and Maya loved that.
Jason- The most wanted guy in her grade, he never remembered who Maya was , but she liked him anyway.
Ethan- Just a boy she liked, and wanted to go to this dance with him.

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One day at school, the principle says on the intercom that Mr. Lawrence their 7th grade English teacher had passed away, everyone one was so sad, they all hugged and let all their sadness out. Maya realized it did not matter if your were popular or not, everyone feels pain.

Quote number 9
"No popularity exists when tragedy strikes."(161)

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May, the last month of the social experiment. Maya is a changed person now, Maya is not afraid of anyone now, she does not care what anyone thinks and knows she is seen as a normal human being now.

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Maya is having doubts about this month because changing her personality from antisocial to acting popular is going to be very hard. Betty says in order to be popular you have to have a nice pleasant, polite, considerate, and any adjectives that go with good manners. Maya has a goal to sit with different table groups at lunch everyday. Maya starts to wear her normal clothes again, with the exception of her pearls and makeup. Although Maya is trying there are some very nice people she has met, but a lot of people still choose to ignore her. Kenzie, Maya's friend hats that she is doing this and does not want her to go sit with other people.

Quote number 10
"I'm going to this this by sitting with other groups at different tables every day. I'll start with people I know, and move on to strangers, then finally face...the popular crowd."

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Betty's book tells Maya that Mothers and Fathers mostly deal with money, but when it comes to having your own and wanting desired things you have to get a job. Betty then goes on by saying Baby-sitting a good job or a hit or miss. Maya of course listening goes to get a job as a babysitter. Her goal is to earn 50 dollars.

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Maya at her choir concert doing what Betty said, and wearing pearls.

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Maya goes on a school trip for her choir, and they were going to perform. Of course since it was a school trip it was skanky and not very fancy. Betty always recommends wearing a girdle, so of course Maya brought one to wear and right before her concert, Maya put it on.

Quote number 8
"I shower quickly and put on my girdle before anyone can see. I gargle with mouthwash as Betty requires, then I rush to wake up the other girls." (145)

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Maya reminisces about the first time she had ever witnessed popularity, was a girl names Vanessa. Vanessa was well groomed and always looked perfect. That was a big part of why Vanessa was so popular. Maya was going to strive to become like Vanessa and Groom her self up a ton.

Quote number 7
"This month I will strive to be more like Vanessa."(137)

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Because Betty's book was written in the 50's, Betty instructed Maya to wear a skirt and pearls to school. Betty also gave Maya tips on what colors go with skin tone, hair color, and the color of your eyes. Many people stared and judged her for it, but Maya did not really care and did what she wanted to do. Maya went full out 50's with no care in her mind.

Quote number 6
"Betty Cornell was right. People do judge you on your clothes."(118)

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https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/11/books/review/maya-van-wagenens-popular.html

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When you're in middle school, you're a mess. It's a world of boys with wispy mustaches and bro-tanks revealing an absence of armpit hair. They make comments like "Damn, that girl is sexy" in cracked voices stuck in the transition between too high and too deep. It's even worse for girls. The moment they get to middle school they start putting on makeup, and they put it on wrong. Growth spurts make them tall and goofy; acne arrives along with a period they are not sure how to manage. At that exact moment, they develop a dream - more of an obsession, really: to be popular. This is when the pain begins.

Maya Van Wagenen's book "Popular. A Memoir: Vintage Wisdom for a Modern Geek" is an account of her eighth-grade year. A shy, Hobbit-loving nerd, she had never been outgoing enough to make many friends at school. When she comes across an old copy of "Betty Cornell's Teen-Age Popularity Guide," written in the early 1950s, her mother encourages her to try a "grand experiment" and follow its advice for an entire school year.

Having read Cornell's book (republished last month, also by Dutton), I can't say she is the person I would go to for assistance with middle-school social issues. I'm all for former models writing self-help books, but some of Cornell's advice seems antiquated, and no wonder: It's six decades old. She offers a lot of thoughtful common sense, but also makes tone-deaf comments like "If you don't know what foods are fattening, ask your chubby friends, because they will know." More typical is "When you are shy it is possible for you to give people the impression that you are rude" (oh, that's why nobody likes me) and "In order to be a success in this world you have to be pretty as well as look pretty" (I agree with half of that).

Van Wagenen seems to have taken to heart the best of Cornell's advice. Each month, she focuses on a different chapter (these include "Figure Problems," "Modeling Tricks," "Look Pretty - Be Pretty," "Are You Shy?" and "Be a Hostess"). She keeps a diary of her efforts, and gradually her life improves: She becomes "popular," at least according to her own enlightened definition. "Real popularity," she writes, "is kindness and acceptance."

What makes Van Wagenen's book more affecting than other middle-school survival guides is that not all her problems can be fixed with the right lipstick and better posture. She lives in Brownsville, Tex., a troubled border town. From his office window, her father can see fires from the drug war in Mexico, and that conflict sometimes comes as close as her school parking lot. One of Van Wagenen's sisters died during infancy; another struggles with autism. You can't help admiring her positive attitude in the face of these real-world challenges, just as you can't help rooting for her when she talks to her crush while wearing a 1950s-style straw hat and gloves or when she decides to sit, uninvited, with a different social group at lunch every day and learns how similar everyone is.

At times, I found "Popular" painful to read. I'm only two years out of middle school, and my wounds are still fresh. I don't have the distance to look back at that time fondly, and I don't yet feel the need to relive it. Maybe when I'm in my 40s - or maybe never. For now, I am much too busy with more important issues, such as the trauma that is high school.

There were moments, too, when Van Wagenen seemed too good to be true. Is anybody this nice? I'm not. But I was inspired by her journey and made a point of saving a copy of "Popular" for my sister, who starts middle school this fall. Maybe if I had read it when I was her age, it could have saved me from a world of hurt, or at least put that world in perspective.

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When you're in middle school, you're a mess. It's a world of boys with wispy mustaches and bro-tanks revealing an absence of armpit hair. They make comments like "Damn, that girl is sexy" in cracked voices stuck in the transition between too high and too deep. It's even worse for girls.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A17Cl86e79s&t=32s

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Maya Van Wagenen: Living like a girl in the 50's

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Maya after

Quote number 5
"But Betty's the one who instructed me to wear a skirt and pearls to school tomorrow." (113)

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Maya before

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Of course like every teenager, Maya deals with skin problems and Betty says that makeup is going to help. Maya always thinks she looks like a stripper when she puts makeup on, but Betty Cornell's book gives her plenty of tips to not look crazy.

Quote number 4
Instead of wearing crazy eye shadow colors and looking like a clown, Maya takes Betty's advice and puts Vaseline on her eyelids, to give it a glow. "Actually, it's Vaseline"(94)

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Maya's mom is so happy when she sees that Maya wants to be popular and is trying to complete every step in Betty's book. Maya has to work on her posture by standing tall and not slouching. Her classmates still comment and judges Maya a lot.

Quote number 3
"I walk lightly down to the bus stop, sucking in my stomach. I pull myself up into one straight line, even though it hurts my shoulder. Later in history class, I keep up my good posture. It definitely a challenge."(70)
" 'Hey, look guys,' says Carlos Sanchez 'she's trying to be a model!' Maybe I am" (71)

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Maya has always had long thick hair, but over the summer she got it cut, a little shorter than expected. Betty Cornell told her that hair can either make it or break it, so Maya had to work with what she had. Maya has had the same hairdo for the longest time, so to raise her popularity she decided to change it. Betty told her to try rag curler that you put in your hair and just sleep in them and once you wake up, the perfect curl. Maya was excited to try something new, she did the rag curls and woke up for school the next day. As she took them out they did not go as planned. The other students are shocked and comment on her hair all day.

Quote number 2
" OH NO! I LOOK LIKE A BROWN-ISH SHIRLEY TEMPLE!"
" 'So, Maya, what's up with your hair?' " (53)

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Maya's dad gives her betty cornells teenage popularity guide Maya was going to try rise to the top of the popularity scale. Maya and every other teenager struggled with figure problems, but she had her new book to help her out.  She was going to try and eat healthy and exercise.

Quote number 1
"Ever since I was little, I've always had a panza, Spanish for belly."
"This is another reason why I've got to bid farewell to my panza for good. It can't come with me on my rise to the top."(16)

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-It's a memoir
-Maya Van Wagenen
- 2010
-A girl who becomes a social experiment to become popular
-Betty Cornells teenage popularity guide