A Field Guide to High School

August 6, 2007
This slender book-within-a-book, while witty, reads more like background for a novel than a full-fledged work in itself. Claire, who has just left for Yale, has penned little sister Andie a guidebook to the private high school where Claire reigned supreme and where Andie is poised to enter as a freshman. With her bestie Bess (who's about to enter a Catholic school), Andie—and readers—absorb Claire's words of wisdom, which have been set into the pages of an old field guide to “poisonous plants” and “venomous animals.” This wry touch closely resembles the use of zoology in Mean Girls
, a movie quoted here along with other pop culture references. Kids familiar with those references will already know Walsh's (Not Like I'm Jealous or Anything
) territory and players (goths, skaters, Muffys, Hiltons). Some of Claire's counsel might be shrewd but it's hard to implement (she tells her sister to be sick on the day of the ninth-grade class trip, since “nothing good comes of it”); much is obvious (while giving students distinct labels, she notes that “everyone... is insecure. Everyone. Insecure. Equally”). The narrative element, exploring the bond between the sisters, is too thin to compensate for the lack of a plot. Ages 12-up.