Stargirl -- Jerry Spinelli

She appeared at the beginning of the school year, as if out of nowhere. She wore long, flowing skirts; brought her pet rat Cinnamon to school with her every day; and she sang “Happy Birthday” to every student on his or her birthday while strumming her ukulele in the lunchroom. In the community, she attended the funerals of strangers, she made anonymous cards for people celebrating, though she didn’t know them, and she bought gifts for community members she would never meet. She never got credit for her kindness, but then, she never wanted credit. She was not a typical teenager or student, but she changed the community, the school, and its students forever by being herself. When she was born, her parents named her Susan, but by the time she showed up at Mica High School, she had changed her name to Stargirl.

When Stargirl began the school year, she was an anomaly to the other students. None of them had ever before encountered anyone like her. Most students avoided her but were still mesmerized by her – awestruck by her odd behavior. Soon, Stargirl was the talk of the school – her name was upon everyone’s lips: “Did you hear? Stargirl decorates her desk in each class with a flower in a vase.” “Did you see? Stargirl was cheering atop the goalpost at the football game.” The more Stargirl did, the more the students paid attention. School spirit soared to new heights from the lackluster indifference that existed before she attended school sporting events. Before long, Stargirl had a following. Students dressed like her, bought pet rats like her, and hung on her every word. Stargirl was even invited to join the cheerleading squad, which she did. For the first time in anyone’s memory, Mica High’s basketball team was undefeated; and for the first time, the students were excited. Stargirl became the most popular student at Mica High, and Leo became enamored with her. Leo soon learned that Stargirl likes him as well, and before long, their relationship blooms.

But when Stargirl started cheering for the opposing basketball team as well as her own; when Stargirl hurried to the side of another team’s injured player, Stargirl’s status dropped among Mica High-schoolers. And when Mica High started losing games and was no longer undefeated, Stargirl was blamed for destroying the players’ spirits by cheering for the opposing team. Soon, Stargirl was shunned. Nobody in school would talk to her, and because Leo was now her boyfriend, he was shunned by association. Leo loved Stargirl, but he wanted to be accepted by his classmates as well. The time Leo and Stargirl spent together outside of school was wonderful, but for Leo, the week of school was something to be dreaded. Though the shunning did not seem to bother Stargirl, Leo was deeply bothered. So Leo set about to make things right by explaining to Stargirl that she needed to be “normal.” She needed to fit in with “them.” He assured her that doing so would end the shunning and that she would be accepted. But at what cost? And would it work? If she didn’t conform, what then? For Stargirl, the answers lie in a choice.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time -- Mark Haddon

Christopher is not a typical fifteen-year old boy. He excels at physics and math - in fact he knows every prime number up to 7,057. He finds people confusing for two main reasons: “the first main reason is that people do a lot of talking without using any words” and “the second main reason is that people often talk using metaphors,” which Christopher feels are lies. Christopher does not like jokes because he does not understand them, and he therefore refuses to include any jokes in the book he is writing about the murder of a neighborhood dog. Christopher does not hug to show affection - he and his father show their love for each other by spreading their fingers apart and touching fingertips. This is because Christopher does not like to be touched; and this is because Christopher is autistic.

When Christopher discovers a neighbor’s dog stabbed to death with a garden fork, he feels it is his responsibility to solve the murder and to write a mystery book about it as he solves it. For Christopher, the murder of a dog is the equivalent of the murder of a human being; therefore, he worries about his own safety in the wake of the horrendous discovery. Using a logic that is so straight-forward as to seem unfamiliar, Christopher pursues his plan to find the dog’s murderer, sharing his ideas with the readers in diagrams more than in description, because Christopher pictures everything in his mind and takes everything at face-value.

Because of Christopher’s relentless detective work, the guilty party feels forced to admit to the crime. But when Christopher finally has his answer, he must face a fear he could never have imagined. When an admission of guilt to the murder is made, more secrets are uncovered, and Christopher learns that he has trusted people who have lied to him for years. No longer feeling safe in his own neighborhood, he journeys, alone, into the big city of London to find the safety he feels he has lost. With this goal in mind, Christopher must overcome his disability and deal with society in a way that has never been required of him before.

Can someone who murdered a dog be trusted to not murder a human? Can trust in people be restored when logic is the governing factor in one’s life? For Christopher, these answers are not easily attained, and he can only find the answers as he struggles to accomplish his dreams amid a world where nothing is as straightforward as he always thought it was.