Stargirl

by Jerry Spinelli

Image from: www.goodreads.com

Jerry Spinelli has written tons of books and I haven't read very many of them so I'm trying to fix that. Stargirl is the main character of the book and she is certainly a unique character. She dances around the high school cafeteria and plays her ukulele, she cheers for both teams at sporting events, she goes to funerals for people she has never met, she gives out cards and presents to strangers. . . and, while most of these things are very well-intentioned her over-the-top ways work against her and many people in the school start to hate her. 

I think this book is a good study of how we treat people who are different than us and how we expect people to conform to certain social norms. I think it's the kind of book a teacher would love to read to the class to talk about how we treat each other and I think there are some great messages in this book. I would probably recommend it for Grades 6 and up, although it looks like it could be for Grade 4 and up.

On Jerry's website -www.jerryspinelli.com - you can find out how to start up your own Stargirl society and apparently this book is going to be made into a movie so I imagine we will keep hearing about it once it hits the theatres!