stargirl

Book: Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli
Pages: 186
Finished: April 2009
Challenges:
**Spring Reading Thing
**New Author
**Read and Review Challenge
** Support Your Local Library
** 20 in 2009
** Unshelved Book Challenge

First Sentence: "When I was little, my uncle Pete had a necktie with a porcupine painted on it."

From Amazon review:
"....In time, incredulity gives way to out-and-out adoration as the student body finds itself helpless to resist Stargirl's wide-eyed charm, pure-spirited friendliness, and penchant for celebrating the achievements of others. In the ultimate high school symbol of acceptance, she is even recruited as a cheerleader. Popularity, of course, is a fragile and fleeting state, and bit by bit, Mica sours on their new idol. Why is Stargirl showing up at the funerals of strangers? Worse, why does she cheer for the opposing basketball teams? The growing hostility comes to a head when she is verbally flogged by resentful students on Leo's televised Hot Seat show in an episode that is too terrible to air. While the playful, chin-held-high Stargirl seems impervious to the shunning that ensues, Leo, who is in the throes of first love (and therefore scornfully deemed "Starboy"), is not made of such strong stuff: "I became angry. I resented having to choose. I refused to choose. I imagined my life without her and without them, and I didn't like it either way."


At first, when I began to read this book I thought, "What a cute, quirky little book. But there came a point when this book became personal to me. Not only personal, but out and out painful.

You see, way back in 1975, there was an outgoing young 14 year old girl named Kim, who belonged to a fun group of girls, in the middle of her junior high years. She loved lunch where they all sat and chatted and giggled and had fun together-they all had various classes together--she liked them all--Kaaren, Allison, Crystal, Laurel, Julie, Christine--you know the type. Young girls on the cusp of adulthood. Then, one day, for no apparent reason that Kim could see, she was the object of shunning. No one would talk to her, or look at her for that matter. Mean notes appeared in her home-ec locker. The lunchtime cafeteria became a time of torture. She was so lonely and confused and embarrassed. Going home each afternoon would find her crying and sobbing on her mother's shoulder.

...page 131
"But the rest was silence, a second desert imposed upon the one I already lived in, where "Hi" was rare as rain. I came to the courtyard in the morning before opening bell, and all I saw were backs of heads. People shouldered past me, calling others. Doors closed in my face. There was laughter, there was fun, but it skipped over me like a flat stone on water."

Then after about 5 weeks, the shunning began to end, a bit awkwardly at first but then it just seemed that none of it happened. Kim was never able to ascertain what had happened, or what she had done to warrant the shunning and after awhile she stopped trying to figure it out. This was the same group of girls she went all through high school with and graduated with in 1980, always the best of friends, the shunning long forgotten. But not forgotten by me. The memory and hurt of it was buried, but still there under the surface of my relationships with them. Me wondering, "Could it happen again? Would it happen again?"


Reading Stargirl brought that experience right back to me, 34 years later--the hurt, the confusion, the frustration! What a credit to Jerry Spinelli's writing! Even though it hurt to read, I enjoyed this book and recommend it--especially to the age group it was written for, ages 10-14.

As a side note, there is a sequel being released this month, called Love, Stargirl.