I have fallen deeply in love with the Brooklyn Public Library. I often work there and enjoy full-on democracy in action. There are so many kinds of people there every day, and everyone is different but equal. I love the library’s programming – everything from business seminars for female leaders to film festivals to tai chi demonstrations. They have free classes, books clubs, rooms you can rent, printing facilities and a wonderful staff. Then, of course, there are the books.
A few weeks ago, I was doing some work in the youth wing (I like changing my location up). I looked to the shelf on my left and saw a book: Popular: How a geek in pearls discovered the secret to confidence. I picked it up and started reading:
“’School is the armpit of life,’ my best friend Kenzie once told me. My school is no exception. Walk through the scratched glass doors on that first day and your life becomes a series of brutal and painful encounters: being called a dick by a football player who sits near you in science, standing in a bra and granny panties in front of your gym locker that you can’t open while the girls around you giggle and point, crying in the bathroom because you didn’t know it was possible for your heart to hurt this much. There is one thing, though, that can help you navigate this sweaty, smelly underarm, and that is a careful understanding of how the social food chain is organized.”
You’re hooked, right? I was.
Without an ounce of embarrassment, I checked it out and read it on every subway ride I took. It was – something I’m saying more and more the older I get (!) – a delight.
The whole premise is so cool. Maya, the oldest of three kids on a border town in Texas, discovers this popularity guide written in the 50s by Betty Cornell. She reads it and decides to focus on one piece of advice from the guide each month of her eighth grade school year, until she finds the popularity she seeks. The ensuing monthly experiments are a little John Hughes, a little Project Runway, and entirely endearing.
And to say nothing that Maya is 16 when her memoir came out. Sixteen! She’s a fantastic writer and self-deprecating hero. It’s an uncommon feel-good story, set in a town where the DEA regularly brings drug-sniffing dogs to the school, and in a time of increasing bullying, anxiety and violence.
I’m not sure what Maya’s up to now. At the end of the book, which came out in 2014, Maya and her family were moving to Georgia, and I think she’s still there. Now 21, as sweet and original as ever, with her entire life still ahead of her.