Stargirl is a novella for young adults by Jerry Spinelli published in 2000. it is about a character named Stargirl Caraway, who arrives at Mica High School and brings a burst of color and sound to the otherwise quiet school. The book explores themes of individuality, conformity, popularity, and first love.
air and knocked her bare heels together. The cheerleaders gaped from the sidelines. A few people in the stands whis-ted. The rest–they barely outnumbered the band–sat there with What is this? on their faces.
The band stopped playing and marched off the field.
She was twirling down the forty-yard line when the players returned. They did a minute of warm-up exercises. She joined in: jumping jacks, belly whomps. The teams lined up for the second half kickoff. The ball perched on the kicking tee. She was still on the field. The referee blew his whistle, pointed to her. He flapped his hand for her to go away. Instead, she dashed for the ball. She plucked it off the tee and danced with it, spinning and hugging it and hoisting it into the air. The players looked at their coaches.
The coaches looked at the officials. The officials blew their whistles and began converging on her. The sole policeman on duty headed for the field. She punted the ball over the visiting team’s bench and ran from the field and out of the stadium. Everyone cheered: the spectators, the cheerleaders, the band, the players, the officials, the parents running the hot dog stand, the policeman, me. We whistled and stomped our feet on the aluminum bleachers. The cheerleaders stared up in delighted surprise. For the first time, they were hearing something come back from the stands. They did cartwheels and backflips and even a three-tier pyramid. Old-timers-or as old as timers got in a city as young as Mica- said they had never heard such a racket
I choose this extract of the text because I love how she decides to deal with genre-roles. She showed everyone that even though, she’s a girl, she can play as good as any other guy, or even better.
She didn’t succumbed to the anger and yelling of the ones trying to kick her out of the spotlight. She fought demonstrating that she can make crowds go wild with her sport’s abilities and skills.