Words of (Questionable) Wisdom from Lydia Goldblatt and Julie Graham-Chang (Popularity Papers Series #3)

by Amy Ignatow

Overview

After spending six months apart in Book Two, best friends Julie and Lydia are reunited at last! Julie has said good-bye to the mean girls, and Lydia is ready to apply her hard-earned friendship lessons to founding their own crew. But bad news interrupts their reunion: their friend Sukie’s mother, ill for many years, has passed away. This shakes Lydia and Julie, who reevaluate their goals and decide to focus more on being supportive of the friends they have. Unfortunately, their well-meaning schemes almost immediately start to go awry, and everyone seems to be mad at them for reasons beyond their control. How can they be better friends when no one seems to want to give them the chance? As always, Julie and Lydia’s hilarious back-and-forth notes form the backbone of the novel, in which Amy Ignatow reveals all-too-real truths about friendship and loyalty.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781419700637
Publisher:	ABRAMS
Publication date:	10/01/2011
Series:	Popularity Papers Series , #3
Pages:	208
Sales rank:	438,273
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Amy Ignatow is the author/illustrator of the acclaimed series The Popularity Papers. She is a graduate of Moore College of Art and Design and lives in Philadelphia with her husband and their children.

Editorial Reviews

Seventh-graders Julie and Lydia return for their third funny, angst-ridden outing that navigates the perils of middle school.

In e-mails, back-and-forth notes and an occasional bit of graffiti, Julie and Lydia explore all of the emotional hardships of being non-populars in middle school. After their friend Sukie's mother dies, the pair decides to dedicate their lives to something more substantial than worrying about where they stand in the school pecking order. Consequently, they reach out to very badly dressed loner Jen, who turns out to be perfectly happy in her independent ways; Lydia gets a bit part in the school musical and angers the rest of the performers; Julie does all of the work on a class-assignment comic book for Jonathan—but the populars think they recognize themselves in it, and the girls visit the boys' bathroom to look for graffiti. Humorous illustrations in ink, colored pencil, markers and yarn featuring clearly differentiated characters add to the fizzy realism of the effort. While those new to the series may face a brief learning curve, given the total absence of introductory material, the quality of this almost-a-graphic novel will make the effort worthwhile.

"Outcast" middle-schoolers everywhere will recognize the situations depicted, and while some of them may seem heartbreaking at the time, this comic relief will add some much-needed perspective. (Graphic novel. 9-14)

Kirkus Reviews