If "have a nice day", the quintessential American greeting, brings out the cynic in us, then it's our loss. Over-used, perhaps, but over there it catches the upbeat, indomitable spirit of America. That same positive, generous feeling pervades Jerry Spinelli's new book, Stargirl.
Leo Borlock, the 16-year-old narrator, has just started 11th grade at Mica Area High School in Mica, Arizona. The school, "not exactly a hotbed of non-conformity", suffers from sameness and lacks school spirit: "We all wore the same clothes, talked the same way, ate the same food, listened to the same music." When Stargirl Caraway joins 10th grade, having been home-schooled until now, this rare bird is the breath of fresh air that challenges and changes perceptions. Named Susan by her parents, she chooses names for herself that fit. "First Pocket Mouse. Then Mudpie. Then Hullygully. Then Stargirl."
Stargirl plays the ukulele, sings Happy Birthday at lunch-break in the school canteen to anyone celebrating a birthday; she "danced when there was no music", wears clothes that her classmates consider outrageous - Indian buckskin, a kimono, a denim miniskirt with green stockings - and wears no make-up. Is she too good to be true? The book's real strength is in Spinelli's handling of the confusion and resentment of her schoolmates as they encounter a kind, caring, unsullied, unafraid-to-be-herself individual.
The school's football team enjoys hardly any support, but when Stargirl joins them on the field, tooting an imaginary flute, pogoing the air and knocking her bare heels together, 1,000 people show for the next home game. Stargirl's little acts of kindness at first perplex and then cause resentment.
Spinelli's well-paced, engaging plot is handled extremely well. There's basketball rivalry, Hotseat (the school TV show), a public speaking competition, the Ocotillo Ball and, when Stargirl opts for convention and calls herself Susan, the reader senses an interesting tension between individuality and collectivity. Leo, "loopy in love", learns the pain of being shunned. The closing chapters are told by a 31-year-old Leo and, though he hasn't seen his first love since the night of the school dance 15 years before, "the echo of her laughter is the second sunrise I awaken to each day".
Published last year in the US, it has already sold 100,000 copies. I read it months ago, my daughter has read it three times, and re-reading it for this review I was struck by how well it stood up second time around. Perhaps the pet rat, Cinnamon, and mentor Archie are too deliberate and the young Leo seems closer to 14 than 16. And, boy, did the marketing strategists get it all wrong with a lurid all-over pink cover that young males, no matter how open-minded, will find a big turn-off.
That said, Stargirl is for boys and girls and should be read both by schoolgoers and those home-schooled. Its fresh ideas will wake you up if you're jaded; it reminds us of the virtues of being positive and it celebrates, without heavy-handed moralising, otherness, difference, eccentricity. Now that mid-term is over, if you're suffering (never!) the back-to-school blues, this is just the tonic.
Niall MacMonagle is a teacher and critic