Now, I've read the book How to Be Cool (Full House: Michelle #15) by Suzanne Weyn more than once, and I must say, I've found plenty of good and positive things to say about it.

For one thing, I took notice of the "slam book", which is usually a spiral-bound notebook that kids in school would use to write about their favorite things (such as books and TV shows, to name a few). In Michelle's case, they write things about their classmates.

Anyway, Michelle looks for her name in the slam book, but when she finds it, she sees the phrase "not much" under it. This causes her to feel that her classmates see her as "boring" and "uninteresting" (as she sees it). So, instead of showing the teacher, or simply shrugging it off and going about her work, Michelle decides to change her image. (She even changes her name from Michelle to Jet.) And she tries hanging out with Loreen West and Spike Henderson, two fourth-graders whom she sees as "cool".

However, towards the end of the book, Michelle plucks up the courage to tell Danny she was tired of being herself (which she describes as boring and average) and wanted to be someone exciting. Danny replies that he does not think she can be exciting by imitating other people, even those she thinks are cool. Finally, he asks her if Cassie and Mandy are in the cool group, and then if she thinks they are boring. After Michelle replies "No" to both questions, Danny tells her, "I bet they don't think you're boring, either."

Eventually, Michelle decides being cool is all a matter of perspective, and her own brand of cool is playing baseball and hanging out with her two best friends, Cassie Wilkins and Mandy Metz.

If had to choose my favorite part (or parts) of the book, here's the one I'd pick any day:

Michelle took a deep breath and turned to Spike and Loreen. "I can't play the electric guitar," she said.
"What?" Spike exclaimed.
"No way!" Loreen yelled.
"I wanted to be cool," she explained, "but I'm going back to being plain old Michelle I like softball—and my regular hair. I don't want to pretend to be someone totally different."
"You mean this was just a big joke?" Loreen demanded.
"No," Michelle answered quickly. "I really thought I wanted to be Jet. But I don't. Maybe we can still be friends."
"No way!" Spike exclaimed. "I was friends with Jet. A cool girl who played guitar and had great hair. I don't want to be friends with Michelle Tanner. She's boring!"
"Let's just do our song without her," Loreen said.
"Yeah, get out of here, Michelle." Spike sounded disgusted.
"Sorry," Michelle muttered.
She ran down the steps and didn't stop running until she was outside the school.
"Michelle, wait!" Cassie called.
Michelle turned around. Mandy and Cassie ran up to her.
"What happened after you told Spike and Loreen you couldn't play?" Mandy asked. "We were standing too far away to hear—but they looked really mad."
"Nothing," Michelle replied. She didn't feel like talking about it. "What were you doing there, anyway?"
"Well, we know you can't play the guitar," Cassie said. "So we wanted to see exactly what you were going to do."
"Um, besides, we have something to tell you," Mandy said. "We're sorry we walked off that day in the cafeteria. You have been acting strange lately, but we still want to be friends—if you want to be. We miss you."
"Yeah, we figure you're still our same friend Michelle under all the new clothes and hair and stuff—right?" Cassie asked. She patted the top of Michelle's spiky black wig.
Wow, Michelle thought. What great friends!
"I'm sorry too," Michelle said. "I shouldn't have called you jealous."
"So we're friends again?" Cassie asked.
"Friends again!" Michelle cheered.
"Hey, congratulations on the new comments in the slam book. You did it, Michelle!" Cassie said. "You got what you wanted!"
"Yeah," Michelle answered. "But Spike and Loreen got really mad when I told them I couldn't play the guitar. I told them I hoped we could still be friends—but they told me to get lost! They didn't want to hang out with the old boring Michelle."
"We told you four billion times, you're not boring, Michelle. It's their problem if they think you are," Mandy said. (p. 82-85)

From my perspective, Michelle learned a good lesson there (although she had to learn it the hard way): the meaning of cool varies from person to person.

Finally, I highly recommend it to all those fans of the TV show Full House out there, and I give it five stars (although ten stars would be even better). 🏠🏫