What I learned the most from this book is that I am so happy that my friends are this anal about our children or their school. We help at the school, but we don't obsess about it!

I also learned or remember that this is the way girls could be at our schools when i was growing up. There were the Populars and sometimes you could feel left out of activities that you so wanted to go to but may not have had the right hair, the right clothes etc... Until we moved to Ocala I can honestly say that this didn't happen so much at my children's schools. Now, don't get me wrong, there were popular kids and not popular, but on the whole, all the kids got along and had "big" parties so as not to insult anyone!

It intrigued me to think about what would happened to my kids had we sent them to a private school.

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I could totally identify - being taken advantage of and even being looked down upon because of the decision to become a stay at home mom after having a good position in a good company for many years. Also, I absolutely agree with the cattiness and crap that goes on with teen girls these days...such nonsense, and yet they have no idea that these people will likley not matter by the time they are 21. ( )

Absolutely riveting story of a sixth-grade girl and her family, told through the eyes of the mother. Erin is (briefly) a "popular girl" and then her place in her group of life-long friends is taken by a new girl in school. Beyond the middle-school angst is the story of the mother trying to cope, when her own friends are anxious about hurting her OR siding against their daughters, and when her husband is mostly gone (heading a large trial team in an Enron-style trial far away from their DC home).

The mother, Lydia, is so well-told and so understandable (to me) that this could be the family behind me in line at car pool. I loved this story of their year. ( )

A Most Uncommon Degree of Popularity by Kathleen Gilles Seidel is the story of Lydia Meadows, who discovers on the eve of 6th grade that her daughter Erin and her 3 best friends are the most popular clique at school. Lydia is shocked, because she herself was never popular, and unsure how to deal with her daughter's new found popularity. All goes well for Lydia and Erin until a new girl moves to town and turns their lives upside down when she displaces Erin from her group of friends and creates drama and havoc in the school. Lydia and Erin navigate the world of teenage popularity and angst and discover in the end how much true friendship means and how unimportant popularity is compared to believing in and staying true to yourself. This was a very well written, interesting book. I enjoyed the story and found the world of teenage drama fascinating (but also scary to look forward to as a mother of a daughter!). It was a light, easy read and I recommend the book to anyone who likes mommy lit or who has a daughter. A very cute book! 4 stars. ( )

http://www.likesbooks.com/cgi-bin/bookReview.pl?BookReviewId=5521 ( )