Sunday, October 16, 2016

Module 7 - Stargirl


Book Summary
Jerry Spinelli’s Stargirl is an interesting coming of age story about a free-spirited girl named Stargirl Calloway who comes to challenge the conventions of a lifeless high school, in a book about conformity, empathy, and love. Leo, the narrator of the book is a 16 year-old boy who falls in love with Stargirl and reflects on how Stargirl changes the school, revealing its best possibilities and ultimately its darkest transgressions in how someone different can inspire and/or be ridiculed and ostracized.

Reference

Spinelli, J. (2004). Stargirl. Laurel Leaf. New York.

Impressions:

The book could be believable to middle-school audiences, which this book intends to aim, but is highly far-fetched in the high school setting the book is written. The incredibly unbelievable plot development of a girl who somehow storms a football game, stops gameplay, climbs field goal posts; all without punishment reveals the little adult supervision in this book. 

Most readers will be intrigued by the conflict between Stargirl and the high school bullies and how Stargirl maintains her sunny disposition throughout the book, even under the cruelest mean-spirited incidents she endures.
 
Spinelli seems to use the Stargirl Calloway character to reveal the balance of all the other normal high-school characters in the book, torn with dealing with conformity and acceptance, school spirit and pride, tolerance and empathy for others.

The book is about finding one’s self in not the superficial achievements of teenage experiences in school and acquaintances, but rather a deeper, more meaningful way to look at the world, friendship and ultimately one’s self as a person.

Professional Review:

Gr 6-10-- Stargirl is eccentric, creative, and kind. She strums her ukulele while singing in the high school cafeteria. She's the embodiment of creative optimism and wears her heart upon her sleeve. She is oblivious to the adolescent affront caused by her idiosyncrasies. Then one day she hears the whispered sneers, and Stargirl is no more. Spinelli captures the magic of individualism while encouraging readers to honor differences and avoid the traps of conformity.

Follos, A. (2004). Stargirl (book). School Library Journal, 50(11), 65.

Library Uses:


Grades 7-12: Stargirl could easily be used by librarians looking to recommend books about the pressures of conformity, specifically to middle school students who deal with such pressure. The book is rich with metaphors, and foreshadowing. Nearly every chapter ends with some allusion to what’s to come in the next chapter. The book could also be used in search of fictional resources that tie in with lessons about philosophy. Stargirl, the main character is afforded some long passages about her philosophical outlook on life.