Book Worm: a Sort of Autobiography

Stargirl

There's one event that I know of that really brings people together for the love of reading. That's the Scholastic Book Fair. It's been going on at least since I was a kid, and it has made an appearance at every school at which I've taught. I'm curious how widespread this is, if it comes to schools in other provinces or states or countries, or perhaps you have something like it.

It concerns me when I see cohorts of students who openly despise reading. When I joined my current school, I had a grade 8 class in the morning for library supervision. Several of the boys would grab children's books from the shelf and make obscene jokes while the girls would talk and none of them signed out books. It was a sort of unwritten code amongst them that reading was uncool or whatever they call it these days.

What's the opposite of lit? Extinguished?

Or sick? Healthy?

Generation gaps are interesting. We distinguish ourselves from our elders by doing the same precise things - defining our social elite by esotera such as slang, music, and fashion (something so awful it needs to change every season).

All things change, but the Book Fair appears to be an obdurate feature of the school world. And it's the first place I found the book Stargirl. It was in a collection sold as a 3 pack. The other books were Rules, and Flipped (decent books, both, though not by the same author). I was starting to stock my classroom library, and this set was appealing to many of my students and the books remain popular to this day.

Jerry Spinelli wrote Stargirl, and is also responsible for Maniac Magee (also on my list of 100 books that are totally dope and that you should read before your inevitable untimely demise {that would be a cool title for this autobiographical collection but perhaps I'll stick with Book Worm for now}). I don't know anything about the author, but these two books were fabulous.

It's been awhile since my days of early teenage infatuation, yet I remember it well enough. Sometimes with fondness and nostalgia, more frequently with embarrassment. The objects of my affection were as fickle as Prairie clouds.

I once spent two months slipping poetry through the ventilation slits of one girl's locker, working up the nerve to ask her out, till one day she started dating my best friend. I was melancholy for about a week but then they parted and my friend told me how relieved he was. Neither had any idea I'd been writing the poetry before and I left it there.

Teenage years are a confusing time.

The protagonist is a boy named Leo, a creative type who produces the school TV program with his friend. Deeply relatable, easy to immerse myself in the narrative. I was this kid.

And Stargirl is the brilliant nonconformist new kid who steals his affection. She subtly subverts the entire schooled system, the social order, and ultimately the community itself with her free spirit and targeted acts of unrelenting kindness. Predictably, those at the top of the hierarchy work to preserve their power and privilege with their own targeted acts of unscrupulous cruelty.

But a beautiful change comes over the student's of Leo's school. A gradual willingness to be themselves without fear. Idealistic, perhaps, but beautiful all the same.

The most powerful and moving bit of writing in this book is an allegory about mud frogs. The sort that lie dormant for years without food or water. Then the rain comes and they wake and come back to life. This alone makes this book worth reading, so sweet and hopeful is it.

It reminds me of the students at my school who formed a GSA, demonstrating immense courage but also opening the door for others to be themselves without fear. Or even if they are afraid, to live with courage in their truth.

I like the word courage. It's from the French word coeur - heart.

Courage does not mean facing danger without fear or doubt. It means living whole-heartedly. The characters in this story face themselves - some with courage and some without. I remember facing myself without courage, and am fortunate enough to have known times since then when without became with.

Is Stargirl YA feel-good fiction? Indeed. But it's beautifully written and a welcome reprieve from the cynicism we see so often in popular literature. If you see it at a book fair, especially in a collection, give it a chance.