My Stargirl

For the past four years or so, I have required my ninth-grade students to read a young-adult novel called Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli. It's about a high-school-aged girl who is so impossibly different from the rest of her peers that some of them believe she is an alien. She has no TV in her house. She neither knows nor cares anything about pop culture. She wears home-made, floor-length dresses with no designer labels. She does not wear make-up. She plays the ukulele and sings to her classmates during lunch. She smiles and says hi to people she doesn't know. She makes greeting cards for the most unusual occasions. The narrator of the story says she has no ego, and she is completely unmoved by peer pressure -- at least in the beginning of the novel. Oh...and her name is Stargirl.

The book is not a challenging read in terms of vocabulary, reading level, or literary elements; in fact, most fourth graders could easily understand every page. But fourth graders wouldn't like it because the ideas underneath the simple writing and structure appeal to teenagers, particularly those who are about to move on to high school, those who are just a little bit nervous about how they will fit in, who they will befriend, and how much of themselves they dare expose. It is a book that delves into the essential questions for most young teenagers: Who am I really, and how many people know? What matters more: who I am or who everyone thinks I am? That's why I read it with ninth graders just as they prepare to leave junior high and move on to something closer to "real life." It offers lots of opportunity for discussion and reflective writing about issues that are very close to what most of them are going through. Regardless of how they feel about the character of Stargirl (or, for that matter, about the book itself), they can all find at least one character or issue for which they have a personal understanding. Not only that, most of them (even the boys) seem to enjoy the book.

Stargirl was recommended to me by a former student who, for the year she was in my class, was my Stargirl: that rare bird who comes along every few years and finds that she can be both kind and truthful with others, including teachers. She visited me often after school, shared openly her joys and successes as well as her disappointments and failures. Sometimes she asked for advice; other times she offered it, particularly when it came to which books my students and I should be reading. When she moved on to high school, I was genuinely sad to see her go, but she kept in touch regularly for three or four years afterwards, and I'd like to think that when I run into her someday in her adulthood, it will still feel like talking to a friend. Stargirls are usually more than just students.

And I had a new one this year. Taller than most of her classmates, she breezed into class each day with a confidence and self-possession uncommon to most ninth graders, her willowy frame and wide blue eyes often drawing the unspoken attentions of classmates. She was not giddy like many girls her age, and she never seemed to seek the attention of anyone, yet she was never without someone to converse. She wasn't boisterous or outrageously vocal, but neither was she introverted, shy, or angry. I noticed over the course of the year that while her friendships with other girls were often fleeting or inconsistent, she always seemed to get along well with most of the boys, and they seemed to enjoy her company. In fact, they seemed to welcome it because, unlike many of her female classmates, she was not working to impress them and thus making an ass of herself. Some people were intimidated by her confidence, but those who dared to get to know her were pleasantly surprised.

At school dances and stomps, this year's Stargirl didn't wait for the boys to ask her; she approached them. In fact, sometimes rather than asking a boy to dance, she simply told him that he was going to. No one ever turned her down. While there were many boys she "liked" over the course of the year (not to mention the unknown multitudes who "liked" her but were too shy to approach her), she was never any one particular boy's girlfriend. It was not uncommon for her to go "hang out" with seven or eight guys at a time; they welcomed her company because she was good at Guitar Hero, competent on the trampoline, free of the usual female affectations, and cute too. Of course they were all terrified of her father, a sinister ogre of the first order, so there was no opportunity for or threat of inappropriate behavior, which she was perfectly content with.

Despite a grueling schedule of honors courses, including a college level algebra class more difficult than anything I ever took, Stargirl maintained straight A's all year. She had two poems published in teen anthologies. Because she cared enough to say things that mattered, her writing was always among the most intriguing and grammatically precise, although she was prone to occasional sentence fragments. She was a two-year member of the advanced symphonic band, and while she grew tired of the flute near the end, she performed a short solo as part of the final concert. In the foreign-language plays, she portrayed both the Big Bad Wolf and the Evil Stepmother to rave reviews from everyone except her Spanish teacher, who felt she had developed something of an attitude near the end of the year. (And she had.) Despite her political differences with her science teacher, she completed various creative projects illustrating scientific principles, many of which have since gone into collections to be shared with future students.

Having played a year of school basketball but fearing that she would get little playing time as a ninth grader, she opted instead to swim for the high school. She and a handful of her ninth-grade friends proved excellent additions to the girls' team, not only racking up the points in various team relays, but placing in the top ten in state in individual events. She lettered as a ninth grader. The high school swim season allowed her to experience, for the first time, what it is like to have friends who drive. She felt very important during those months when she was associating daily with seniors (especially the boys, about whom she felt the same distant shy affection that so many of her classmates likely felt for her), but it was good to get back to her growing circle of friends at the junior high for the final months of the year.

At the end-of-year awards assembly, this year's Stargirl was one of five (out of 350) ninth graders selected by her teachers as an all-around outstanding scholar.

The final project for the Stargirl unit in my class offered three options designed to get the students to put themselves in the place of the main character, just to see how much courage it takes to be different. This year's Stargirl chose the least popular: to serenade someone in the class (like the character in the book did). Few ninth graders have the confidence and security to sing solo, let alone to someone else in front of a class, but Stargirl lived up to her namesake by playing the ukulele and serenading not just one boy in her class, but all of them, one at a time, boldly approaching each, making eye contact, and loudly singing a few lines of "You Are My Sunshine" before moving to the next lucky kid. By the end of her song (all four verses), the boys were hiding under their desks, blushing uncontrollably, all secretly thrilled with the momentary attention of such a unique and wonderful girl.

For most of the week leading up to yearbook day, her last in junior high, she "hung out" with her closest friends, some of whom she has known since kindergarten and others she only recently discovered were not the "skanks" she originally thought they were.

While she has applied for summer jobs, she has yet to be hired because she is still only 14 and most employers are looking for students who can drive. Surely Stargirl would make an excellent employee, as she is conscientious and a hard worker, but she'll have to age into those jobs at the burger joints. Shortly after school was out for summer, she dyed her hair pink, much to the chagrin of her mother, whom she did not bother to ask for permission. Inspired by the new color in her mirror, she painted her bedroom lime green and butter yellow, complete with pink highlights, hand painted peace signs, and flowers. It's still the tiny room she has lived in since she was five, but it's much brighter now.

In preparation for the approaching high school swim season, she is going to morning workouts most days, hoping to drop seconds in all events. She has yet to pick out her high school letter jacket, but she'd like to get it soon so she can enjoy it for all the years of high school. She'd also like to add at least one more letter to it each year.

Thanks to the magic of the Internet, instant messenger software, MySpace, and her new cell phone (which her mother finally provided when she realized that Stargirl was spending so much time away from home), she is in constant contact with her friends. She has been to some fun parties and has identified one particular boy among the multitudes that she "likes" enough to consider kissing. (Her dad drives up at the most inopportune moments!)

She goes to all her brother's little league games. No one on the bleachers makes more noise.

My Stargirl has grown and changed so much over the past few years that sometimes I barely recognize her as my daughter Elizabeth, whom I took swimming for the first time when she was ten months old, a sagging swim diaper weighting her rear end as she screamed to go back into the pool when we fished her out after an hour. The attitude has always been there in one form or another, but I saw this year as I watched her that she's got what it takes to grow into that attitude. She puts her money where her mouth is: confident as well as competent, intelligent as well as kind, beautiful inside and out.

That's my Stargirl!