Deering High School student becomes novelist

Anna Kendrick’s rise to the New York Times bestseller list

Anna Kendrick’s novel Scrappy Little Nobody is a collection of short stories centering around Kendrick’s life–and her rise to stardom. Kendrick is an acclaimed actress, singer, and now, writer, and is most popularly known for her role as Beca Mitchell in the films Pitch Perfect and Pitch Perfect 2. She is witty, hilarious, and real, and she grew up in Portland, Maine.

Scrappy Little Nobody takes the reader into the life of Anna Kendrick, with stories ranging from her first recital as a child, where she stomped off stage and promptly said, “well, that was stupid,” to the Kendrick we know now, a famously successful stage and screen actor. Throughout her novel, Kendrick takes on the tone of a sarcastic, down-to-earth girl who may be thriving in Los Angeles, but who remembers the days of being a student at Deering High School. The novel is captivating and entertaining, and very difficult to put down!

Perhaps one of the most amazing and weirdest aspects of the novel for Kennebunk students is the fact that Kendrick references Biddeford so frequently. She recalls performing Annie in the Biddeford Community Theater. She remembers driving around the city with her friends in high school. She tells stories of southern Maine that we, too, have probably told about our own lives. It is mind-boggling to realize that the Target any one of us will drive to on any given day (and the Target that I bought Kendrick’s book in) is the same store that she recalls from red carpets in Los Angeles. But the remarkable thing is, Anna Kendrick, a once average girl from Portland, Maine, was able to make a name for herself in the vicious world of show biz–and still keep her head. It may seem impossible for us small town students to become famous or rich, but it happened to Kendrick, and she too was once a scrappy little nobody.