The Popularity Papers by Amy Ignatow

Summary from Amazon:

Lydia Goldblatt and Julie Graham-Chang are best friends with one goal: to crack the code of popularity. Lydia’s the bold one: aspiring theater star, stick-fighting enthusiast, human guinea pig. Julie’s the shy one: observer and artist, accidental field hockey star, faithful recorder. In this notebook they write down their observations and carry out experiments to try to determine what makes the popular girls tick. But somehow, when Lydia and Julie try to imitate the popular girls, their efforts don’t translate into instant popularity. Lydia ends up with a bald spot, their parents won’t stop yelling, and Julie finds herself the number-one crush of Roland Asbjørnsen. Worse, they seem to be drifting farther and farther from their goal—and each other.

Amy Ignatow’s hilarious debut novel introduces the intrepid fifth-graders Julie and Lydia, whose quest to understand popularity may not succeed in the ways they want, but will succeed in keeping readers in stitches.

Review:

The Popularity Papers was a charmingly cute read told in diary format by two fifth grade girls- Lydia and Julie.

While Lydia is the out-spoken one who craves to be the center star of everyone's lives (blame the theater geek in her), Julie would just be happy being on the sidelines being the quiet, sullen smart one. Both were fun to read about, even if I did sometimes find it hard to support their quenching desire to be popular. Though, they were fifth graders, so what could you expect? Also they did learn a very important lesson through their research which made this a venial issue overall.

I really adored the way this was told. Since for one it was fun to see the different doodles that the girls would draw to occupy their entries; and for two, I personally think that the 9-13 year olds, who this is aimed towards, will find this to be an easy and interesting book to read.

In all, The Popularity Papers is a cute read that I'm sure will be eaten right up by the middle grade girl set after it's March release. I'm looking forward to reading more by Ms. Ignatow.
 
Grade: B

The Popularity Papers will be released April 1, 2010.