Note to Sixth-Grade Self

by Julie Orringer

Genres: Short Stories

ebook

About the author

Julie Orringer is an American author born in Miami, Florida. Her first book, How to Breathe Underwater, was published in September 2003 by Knopf Publishing Group. She is a graduate of Cornell University and the Iowa Writers' Workshop and was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. Her stories have appeared in The Paris Review, McSweeney's, Ploughshares, Zoetrope: All-Story, The Pushcart Prize Anthology, The Best New American Voices, and The Best American Non-Required Reading. She received the Paris Review's Discovery Prize, two Pushcart Prizes, The Yale Review Editors' Prize, Ploughshares' Cohen Award, the Northern California Book Award, and the Anne and Robert Cowan Award from the Jewish Community Endowment Fund. She was the recipient of a 2004-5 NEA grant for her current project, a novel set in Budapest and Paris before and during the Second World War.

Reviews

[Mira Schubert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Aw

[Annabelle Katz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked this book. Even though it was only a few pages long, I got to know the characters as if they were real people I actually know. You, end up getting swept up. This book was really good, and I would highly recommend it!

[Maha · Rating 3 out of 5]

2nd person narration - well done.
Reminiscent of the worries/experiences many girls probably had on the cusp of teen years.
#shortstory

[Sam · Rating 1 out of 5]

this story made me get a bad grade in English, like just stand up to the bullies and fight back. I am going to fail English now I am very sad. I hope you have a nice day. L story

[Lihsa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Articulates the tough love an older self gives to her fledgling self, pushing, directing, helping to put her pre-adolescent pain into perspective.

The author does a great job of capturing overarching themes of adolescence and social hierarchy, using dance as a metaphor for identity and bending barriers. Nice touch with the hybrid peas to demonstrate that the hierarchy can be cross pollinated.

Also demonstrates the randomness of dominance when a "popular" girl has a stutter but manages to defy what would seem to be an abnormality. It also shows a male's reaction when confronted with female power struggles with interesting accuracy.

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great outlines of adolescence: remembering those childhood dramas, the larger than life moments, hierarchy of power within the teen social structure, the competition, drama, (oh the drama!), the mean tricks kids play. The commanding voice is interesting and adds a little hustle to the tone, like the situation must be handled immediately or your life is absolutely over—and it is to kids at this age, so it works.

[Mette · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read it in school and and first time I found it both unrealistic and slightly boring. BUT after I had been reading it a couple of times and felt like I knew the characters, it ended up being a good text with other dimensions. However still with a bit of a boring and predictable plot.

[Parksy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this short story - just beautiful. Captures the villainy of childhood without a single misstep.