Popular A Memoir

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Writing a memoir is about more than describing events that have happened in your life; it's also an exercise in writing on a theme. These three powerful memoir examples will demonstrate how to draw people into a stranger's life story. Along with our sample, they will help you craft your own memoir to engage readers and share insights from your life.

Powerful Memoir Examples
Popular memoirs for middle school

Three Memoir Examples to Inspire

A good memoir relays real-life events in an engaging way. Studying memoirs can help you write a personal essay for a college application or an assignment, and it can improve your own storytelling abilities.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is a famous memoir by poet Maya Angelou, available from Penguin Classics. It chronicles her experience of growing up amid racial bigotry and personal challenge. It's not just her heartwrenching tale but also the vivid imagery that makes it a page-turner.

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube. The title of Margo Jefferson’s Negroland, her memoir of growing up in Chicago in the 1950s and 60s, is her nickname for the space in which she grew up: not just a physical location, but a state of mind.

This high-spirited memoir traces the life and times of this inimitable public intellectual, who is much missed, from his childhood in Portsmouth, England, where his father was a navy man, through. This memoir is so popular, it's basically a meme. You may already know the basics of Elizabeth Gilbert's journey through Italy, India and Indonesia to recover her sense of self, but this book that.

Popular A Memoir

The dress I wore was lavender taffeta, and each time I breathed it rustled, and now that I was sucking in air to breathe out shame it sounded like crepe paper on the back of hearses.

Angela's Ashes

Frank McCourt's Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir, Angela's Ashes, tells the story of his upbringing in the Irish slums during the era of the Great Depression. Published by Simon and Schuster, this memoir reads like a novel as Frank somehow manages to withstand an unspeakably difficult childhood.

When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while.

All Creatures Great and Small

James Herriot's All Creatures Great and Small proves that a memoir doesn't have to deal with triumph over adversity; it can also be about finding wisdom and joy in the everyday. This beloved classic, published by MacMillan, tells the tale of Herriot's life as a country veterinarian in the Yorkshire Dales.

I lay face down on the cobbled floor in a pool of nameless muck, my arm deep inside the straining cow, my feet scrabbling for a toe hold between the stones.

Writing a Memoir: An Example

Imagine you want to write a memoir about your experience as a shy child who had just moved to a rural community. This process can help.

List Real Life Facts

Start with a list of facts and experiences that you may want to include:

  • You had no friends except your dog.
  • Your dad left your family the previous year.
  • Your mom made you join Girl Scouts, and you needed to sell cookies door-to-door.
  • People in this town were suspicious of outsiders.
  • Because you had just joined the Girl Scouts, you didn't have very many badges yet.

Identify a Theme and Conflict

Before you begin writing, you need to know your theme. What do you want readers to learn from your memoir? You also need a central conflict. Study the types of conflicts in stories and decide which one you want to use.

  • Theme - People aren't always what they seem.
  • Conflict - You must face your fears in order to grow stronger.

Organize the Story to Build Tension

Now that you know the conflict and the theme you want the reader to understand, you need to organize the story so the tension builds toward the conflict. This is something you can do in a memoir that does not ordinarily happen in an autobiography.

In this example, you could arrange the events as follows:

  1. The Girl Scout troop leader hands out the cookies and says that if you sell 24 boxes, you will earn a badge for your uniform. You really want the badge.
  2. You load the cookies in your wagon and set off to make some sales. As you stand in front of the first house, you are afraid to knock.
  3. You remember a previous experience knocking on the door of a house and having it slammed in your face.
  4. You walk up to the house and are greeted by a grumpy old woman.
  5. You make the sale.
  6. Eventually, you receive your badge for selling 24 boxes.

Sample Memoir Excerpt

Putting all these pieces together, here is an example of how the narrative outlined above might play out in the actual text of the memoir:

The gravel crunched under the wheels of my red wagon. My father had bought it for me the week before he left us, and I'd never used it before. I hadn't wanted to use it, not even today, but I needed something to haul the cookies.

I stopped in front of Mrs. Nelson's house. I could feel her looking at me through the lace curtains, even though I couldn't see her. Now that I wasn't pulling the wagon, everything was silent. There was no wind. Even the birds had stopped their chirping. The curtain in Mrs. Nelson's front window moved a little bit.

Last year, the same month my dad had driven away, I'd had to sell chocolate bars for my old school. Dad had promised to take me, but he didn't. So while Mom was at work, I'd packed up the chocolate bars and knocked on the door across the street. When the door opened, I began to talk about my school. Before I'd even explained why I was there, the lady had slammed the door in my face. I was the only kid who didn't sell any chocolate bars that year.

Now, I took a deep breath and pulled the wagon up Mrs. Nelson's front walk. The paint was peeling on her railing, and her front door was a dirty white. I knocked, and the sound seemed to echo.

She opened the door a crack and grumbled, 'What do you want?'

Difference Between a Memoir and an Autobiography

Both memoirs and autobiographies involve a person writing about his or her own life, but that's where the similarities stop. These are a few of the key differences:

  • Scope - An autobiography covers a set period of time in a person's life or often, the entire life. A memoir may skip around or only cover one or two events.
  • Purpose - An autobiography's purpose is to inform a reader or record events. A memoir's purpose is to explore a theme and pass on insights.
  • Length - An autobiography is generally a book-length manuscript. A memoir can be any length, from a personal essay of a few pages to an entire book.
  • Tone - Because the purpose is different, the tone may be different too. An autobiography is often more formal and factual sounding, while a memoir may employ more humor and casual writing.

Get Inspiration From Fiction Too

Rather than just relaying the facts, a memoir is about telling a great story. It needs to have a central conflict or theme, and then arrange the story so the tension builds. In addition to reviewing memoir examples, take a look at some examples of short stories for inspiration. You'll find that even though they are factual, memoirs have a lot in common with fiction.

Popular A Memoir

B.A. English

Title: Popular: A Memoir
Author: Maya Van Wagenen
Publisher: Penguin
Publication Date: 2014
ISBN: 978-0-14-751254-3

Book Summary:
Maya, an eighth grader in Brownsville, Texas, lives with her mom, her professor father, her younger brother Brodie, and her younger sister Natalia, and her current goal is to survive middle school. Maya considers herself as a Social Outcast at the very bottom of the school social ladder, well below the volleyball players, the football players, and the Ignored (aka sixth graders), and just above the teachers. Resigned to accept her position, Maya discovers a book purchased by her father years before at a thrift store titled Betty Cornell’s Teen-Age Popularity Guide, written in 1951. Encouraged by her mother, Maya endeavors to follow Betty Cornell’s advice and guidance for the duration of her eighth grade year in an effort to rise up the social ladder and become “popular.”

Month by month, Maya strives to work on her hair, figure problems, clothing and fashion, and skin care to achieve her definition of “popular.” As she begins her transformation, Maya’s definition of popular is “. . . not sitting alone, or being made fun of. It’s not feeling ashamed of how you look and constantly wanting to hide in corners, wishing you could disappear. It’s not what I feel right now.” Although much of the guide focuses on physical changes, Maya soon learns that the physical is only the surface of what can happen emotionally and mentally. As her journey progresses, her self-esteem and social standing, as well as her definition of popularity, transform and grow.

From wearing long skirts, hats, and gloves, to purchasing a girdle, to sitting and talking to the kids at the Goth table at lunch, Maya’s experiences are heart-warming, hilarious, and at times painful. However, anyone who has ever experienced middle school will be drawn to her poignant observations and honest self-discovery. Her observations as a 16-year-old writer are wise and insightful well beyond her years.

Book Commentary:
This books was absolutely delightful. For one whose own middle school experiences was painful and let’s be honest, whose wasn’t, this book was touching and truthful in so many ways. I was most impressed that a 16-year-old wrote this book; not only was her writing fluid and engaging, but her observations and reflections were honest, mature, and sometimes surprising.

In our society, there is a constant call for acceptance and understanding of others. This book could have taken a preachy turn but rather was truly a story of self-discovery. As an adult, I was impressed with Maya’s growth and wisdom; truths and perspectives that she observed and learned are often not achieved until a much older age. At the same time, as a mother of three, my heart warmed as she gained knowledge and experiences that all parents hope for their own children.

Adding to the hilarity and poignancy is the fact that her guiding influence is a popularity guide from the 1950’s, and although some items – like gloves, girdles, and Vaseline on the eyelids – seem out-of-date, the core values of kindness, cleanliness, and self-respect are universal truths for any age. In addition to following the popularity guide and surviving eighth grade, Maya’s experiences also include an unrequited crush, the departure of a well-loved teacher, real-life fear of gang warfare, a special needs sister, and family financial concerns. All of these aspects blend into a truly magical and realistic coming of age story.

Who might like this book:
This would be a great book for book clubs; if just to have a fun evening rehashing the humor and horrors of everyone’s own middle school experiences. As a former teacher, I would love to be able to have my students have read a book like this. The knowledge that someone their own age could pen a story combined with the understanding that they are not the only ones with struggles and fears and failures would provide some great dialogue and hopefully a little more acceptance and patience with others.

Teens

I have given the book to both my 15-year-old daughter and my 12-year-old daughter. Both girls enjoyed the book immensely and could relate to Maya’s experiences. My older daughter, who has survived middle school and is now facing high school, commented that Maya’s depiction of school life, societal pressures, and community attitudes was very accurate. Both girls found the story to be relatable and tangible. We enjoyed laughing at Maya’s humor and situations, but we also noted what makes an individual unique and special. This would be a perfect book for a mother-daughter book club as well.