[adrotate banner=”1″]15 year old Maya Van Wagenen has had her eighth grade diary optioned for a film. Pause for the 5% of people who find out about this news who immediately leap in front of a bus. For the rest of us, let’s read that the diary actually has a plot that sounds like it’s from one of those quirky books that occasionally get optioned: a teen girl uses a 1950s advice book to try to fit in at school. And the diary she wrote at the time was then published by Penguin (as Popular: Vintage Wisdom for a Modern Geek), which sort of kills the idea that Dreamworks is reading dozens of random teenage girls’ diaries. So props to Dreamworks for not being as creepy as the worse-written versions of these articles seem to make them.

Van Wagenen

found social footing by following such advice as: always wearing white gloves, using pearls as a fashion accessory; and never forgetting that a girdle can be a girl’s best friend. The most important lessons conveyed were timeless ones like being open and honest, and kind. She found that each social clique was distrustful of the others, and that all of the kids bore similar insecurities. She was able to find common ground and feel for the first time like she belonged.

To cover their bets, Dreamworks also optioned the 1950s advice book, Betty Cornell’s Glamour Guide For Teens. Shockingly, it does not seem to be in stock at Amazon, so consult your local Goodwill. Though from that synopsis, does she really find that she belongs if she’s some sort of social butterfly wandering around from clique to clique known as “That 50s girl”? Though I’m sure her newfound fame from the book and movie deals will go a long ways to ensuring she stays popular. At least until she tries a 1960s guidebook and goes all hippie. No one likes hippies.

If anything, Van Wagenen’s story is good enough to possibly motivate certain people to finish the books they started long ago and then abandoned by the wayside, which is a constructive offshoot. Now aren’t you glad the bus service is terrible and one hasn’t come by for you to fling yourself in front of?

via Deadline.

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