June 01, 2005

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Palo Alto Online

Surviving middle school

by Jennifer Deitz Berry

I have never in my life felt nostalgia for the middle school years. What I can remember involves trying to get the creepy-but-still-kind-of-interesting stoner-chick who sat next to me in homeroom to spill her stories, the ongoing anxiety that my best friend -- who had a fickle streak -- was going to decide that our other best friend was cooler than me, and the agony of bra-shopping with a mother who believed that functionality and price, as opposed to fashion and style, should be the key factors in our decision-making.

I am not sure that having a guide-book to help me through this phase would have made it any less melodramatic. But I do I think I would have appreciated knowing there were other girls who had confronted the same things as me, that they had gotten through more-or-less unscathed, and had even reached a point where they could look back on it all with a fair amount of humor and good-cheer. It is this spirit -- probably more than any of the specific advice it offers -- that makes a new survival guide written by middle school girls for middle school girls so appealing.

The book is called "Middle School -- How to Deal" and the authors--Sara Borden, Sarah Miller, Alex Stikeleather, Maria Valladares, and Miriam Yelton -- well, what can you say? They are all 16-years-old and still barely able to believe that a class project they started in seventh-grade has led to contracts with New York agents and editors, a publishing deal with Chronicle Books, and lately -- in-between high-school, homework and after-school sports -- demands to make appearances and give signings at local book stores. The final stop on their five-store tour was at Kepler's in Menlo Park last Wednesday night and it was standing-room only. The girls drew a crowd of probably a hundred friends, fans, family and interested readers, and sold out every copy of the book Kepler's had in stock.

What's most refreshing about their road to success is how frank and funny the girls are about how they did it. They are the first to try to convince you they are not incredible geniuses or brilliant writers. They are just, as they put it, "really serious, extremely wise, incredibly talented, and amazingly mature (hahaha)" seventh-grade girls who were close friends, and who -- when assigned to do an entrepreneurial project at their middle school -- decided that the usual fare of hawking candles and bath products was boring, and they'd rather shoot for something a little more ambitious.

At the time, the five of them were enrolled at Girls' Middle School in Mountain View. The entrepreneurial project was a year-long effort. Students were asked to come up with a product and a business plan, which they would have to pitch to venture capitalists in order to get funding and would then have to produce, market and sell, in the hopes of making a profit.

For the authors, the first and perhaps most crucial step in launching their project was out-maneuvering their teacher. When told to write down the name of one student they wanted to work with, they each chose a different member of their fivesome so as to keep the group together. Typically each group is assigned a mentor from the business world to advise them. But when they heard Cameron Tuttle -- author of a chic set of books known as the "Bad Girl's Survival Guides" -- introduce herself to the class, they decided she was the mentor they needed and pressed their teacher into letting her work with them.

Tuttle advised them to "write what they know," and as seventh-graders, it occurred to them that the one thing they knew really well was sixth grade. Their book, they decided, would be a guide for sixth-graders on how to survive their first year of middle school. But they wouldn't try to write the way they did in English class, having to worry about proper grammar and careful analysis. "We just spoke and stuck it on paper," Yelton said. The book they wanted to create would simply be "heart-to-heart girl-talk."

Another lesson the girls picked up from Tuttle (although possibly not the one she had intended to impart) was the role of procrastination in the life of the author. Tuttle claimed to be procrastinating on her latest Bad Girl's Guide and the girls figured it was reasonable that they follow suit. They went forward missing most of their deadlines, submitting their final business proposal on a stack of index cards, and selling their first copies of the book as a sort of IOU: The guide was supposed to offer the "nuts and bolts" of getting through sixth-grade, so buyers got a front-cover and a back cover held together with nuts and bolts (no content inside) and a promise that the "real book" would be forthcoming.

Only a threat from their teacher that they would have to return the money they had made if they did not produce the "real book" before the school year was out convinced them to get serious. By then they had established a routine. Their Saturdays typically involved ordering Chinese takeout and sitting in a circle with five laptops on. Each girl started writing the section she liked best or knew the most about: boys went to Sarah Borden, since she was the only one who'd been to a co-ed school, while fashion and makeup began with Yelton, who loved style and had plans of one day writing for Vogue. And in an effort to cut down on their incessant talking, which was slowing down the process, they banned themselves from speaking out loud during their writing sessions and would only communicate by instant message. As one girl finished her section, she would pass it on to the next girl to edit or add onto, so by the end they would all have a hand in writing each part.

By the end of seventh-grade, the girls had just barely managed to whip together a 50-page book complete with laminated cover and illustrations. There were a few glitches: the nuts and bolts used to bind it were a bit larger than planned -- "It was a coffee table book that would destroy your coffee-table," they joke -- and the photocopier at Kinko's had shrunk down the pages so far they were hard to read without a magnifying glass. And, they admit there was a fair share of spelling and grammatical errors, including their favorite mistake: the word "shirt" that was missing an "r."

Mistakes or no mistakes, the book was a hit. After selling out of the first batch, the girls published a second edition with better copying and better editing. They presented it to Kepler's, and staff agreed to stock it on a trial basis. Week after week, Kepler's kept called them back, asking for five or 10 more copies. To sell any book at that pace is unusual, so the bookseller suggested that the girls consider using their connection with Tuttle to see if they could find a publisher. Tuttle's agent took the girls on and mailed copies of to 12 publishing houses.

Eleven rejection letters later, the girls were as thrilled as could be. Up until then, the book had been bought and read mostly by people they knew. Each letter they received proved that someone important-and a total stranger-had taken the time to sit down and read it. And, having been advised by their school librarian that no one is truly an author until they get their first rejection letter, the girls figured they were now "11 times an author."

Then came number 12. Only rather than another rejection, it was a call of congratulations from Chronicle Books: they were ready to publish it. Almost ready, that is. But first, they had some editorial suggestions. When the proofs of the manuscript came back, the girls said, every page was covered in red ink. They weren't concerned. They got settled back into their Saturday routine with their laptops and Chinese food. They liked the changes the publisher suggested, were happy to write the new sections the editor recommended, and were thrilled that they got to keep "their voice" -- the chatty personal approach they'd started with. Best of all, their favorite parts, like "the boob graph" -- illustrations of different sizes and shapes of breasts -- got to stay, along with its lead-in: "Here is a handy-dandy boob graph to show you that breast come in all shapes and sizes, and that no boobs are perfect."

None of them were prepared for just how cool the final product would be. Copies of the book arrived in their mailbox: a small square hardback done in "girl colors" -- pale turquoise, pink, purple and yellow. The pages inside were also done in pastels with a stars and bubbles and cartoon girl characters that made the book look a bit like a younger version of the Bad Girls Guides. "I don't know about the rest of the girls, but I carried a copy of mine around school with me for a week," Valladares said.

By the time the book came out this spring, the girls had already moved onto high school: three to Palo Alto High School, one to Foothill, and the other to Menlo School. With four readings already under their belt, they arrived back at Kepler's looking and sounding like old pros. No sign of nerves despite the huge audience, they rattled through their adventure tale of making their book and had an answer ready for just about every question the audience threw at them. What's the main message they're trying to impart with this book? "Just be true to yourself in every situation," Borden offered. "We know it sounds sappy, but we still mean it," Miller added.

Will there be a follow-up book? A guide to high school, maybe? They all laughed -- it's a question they've heard asked quite a few times by now. "Our response to that is going to have to be, 'It's not going to happen," Borden said, much to the disappointment of their fans in the audience. "We're good with this. We wouldn't trade it for the world, but we're good."

Jennifer Deitz Berry is a free-lance writer and former Weekly education reporter.

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