Your Friend, Natalie Popper

by Nancy Smiler Levinson

In the summer of 1946 Natalie looks forward to going to camp for the first time and being together with her friend Corinne but things do not turn out as she anticipates.

112 pages, Hardcover

First published January 17, 1991

About the author

Nancy Smiler Levinson was born in 1938 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. A graduate of the University of Minnesota, she worked as a reporter, researcher, editor, and Head Start teacher before taking time to raise her two children. It was while reading to her kids when they were toddlers that Levinson first became interested in writing for young people, and in 1981 she published her first novel for young readers, World of Her Own. The first of many critically acclaimed biographies came in 1981, and since then Levinson has written a variety of well-received fiction and nonfiction for beginning readers as well as middle grade and young adult audiences.

Levinson has also contributed articles and stories to such publications as Seventeen magazine, Highlights for Children, Library Journal, and the Los Angeles Times. She has been a tutor for disabled children. She lives in California, where she enjoys reading and attending theater and symphonies.

Reviews

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this a few times when I was a kid. The whole book has kind of an earnest quality that I find almost painful and yet endearing. I am not a Natalie Popper, but it's good to have one such as her in my reading life occasionally.

I was surprised to find, when looking this up to mark as read, that the book was actually written in the 90s! I thought it was an article of its time (it takes place in the 40s) because of said near-painful earnestness, and because of a number of details that strike me as particularly informed, such as the insufficiently-dyed oleomargarine scene, or the demeanor of the counselor who is so cool in Natalie's eyes.

[jacky · Rating 2 out of 5]

Yet another Novelist find. I remember a book where a girl went to summer camp hoping to popular, but gets stuck in a cabin with the weird girl. I remember most strongly the weird girl asking to borrow a barette to clean her toe nails with. Reading the summary on Novelist makes me think this has to be the book.

[Mary Alice · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the summer of 1946, after sixth grade two girls go to camp in Minnesota. This story is about friendship at an all-girls camp. Natalie is Jewish; Marlys is antisemitic. The characters are distinct and this is an excellent book.