Schooled, by Gordon Korman

Cap (short for Capricorn) Anderson has never been to school. Home-schooled on Garland Farm, a farm commune now populated by only Cap and grandmother Rain, he has never watched TV, never faced comptition, never seen a doctor for people. (Doc Cafferty, the local vet, stitched Cap up once.) Cap knew nothing of modern life.

When Rain broke her hip and ended up in rehab, Cap was sent to live with a social worker and attend the local middle school. There he learned about classmates, lockers, cafeteria lunches, spitballs He learned what it was like to be considered odd, for his haircut, clothes, straw sandals, and to feel ridicule from classmates.

Almost immediately Cap was nominated and elected class president. He had no idea that the most geeky student was always targeted for 8th grade class president, or that responsibilities went with the job -- planning the 8th grade dance and managing class funds. He did not realize people were laughing at him.

Suddenly powerful, with a check book and several thousand dollars, Cap wrote checks to charities and worthy people, not knowing he should pay for the DJ and refreshments. Suddenly the principal discovers that class funds are gone. . . and Cap disappears. Classmates have questions; the school is in an uproar. Read Schooled and meet a boy similar to Stargirl Caraway.

Submitted by Mrs. Stone Dec. 2007

Jerry Spinelli's Stargirl Novels

Stargirl, by Jerry Spinelli

The new girl at Mica Area High School could not possibly be real. She claimed her name was Stargirl Caraway. Home-schooled previously, she carried a ukulele at lunch and serenaded total strangers. She wrote a song about isosceles triangles and sang it to her geometry class. She cheered for both teams at games and carried her pet rat Cinnamon in her pocket. She dressed oddly, danced in the rain, left candy hearts on the desk of classmates.

A nonconformist, Stargirl attracted attention and changed people’s outlook in unexpected ways Then suddenly, without explanation, she disappeared, taking her magic with her. Her boyfriend Leo wonders if she were real, as he tells of Stargirl’s impact on the school and the town.

Love, Stargirl, by Jerry Spinelli

Stargirl, in “the world’s longest letter,” writes to Leo about the next year, after she moved so suddenly to Minnesota from the Southwest. Her happy wagon, usually filled with twenty pebbles, dwindles to almost none. Life is sad for Stargirl; she wonders if she will ever see Leo again. But, being Stargirl, she notices people sadder than she, and works her magic of care and concern. She befriends an older woman who has not left her house in more than nine years, and an angry little girl who hates everyone. She notices an old man who goes daily to the cemetery, to talk to his wife now dead four years, and brings him donuts. She celebrates the winter solstice and reveals sunlight to the entire town.. Stargirl brings her magic to another area as she deals with her loneliness in this new book by Jerry Spinell. This sequel is too good to miss.

Posted by Mrs. Stone, Nov. 2007