Do you ever judge a book by its cover? Raising my hand high over here! During our extended staycation due to the Coronavirus, I sat down to watch the new Disney+ original movie, Star Girl. The picture for the film recently caught my eye when it popped up as a new movie offering and I wanted to make sure watch it with my girls. I knew nothing about the story line and was judging based on the picture, it would be worth watching.
The movie takes place in small town USA. Without giving away too much of the plot line it contains a powerful message to tweens and teens to stand out from the crowd with all their quirks and the positive power and energy one person can bring to a community and school by not being afraid of who they were made to be.
As we were watching the credits roll, I noticed the movie was based on a book called Star Girl by Jerry Spinelli. As a former 5th grade teacher, I had an instant flashback to remembering the cover of this book. I could visually remember a simple cover with yellow and blue. We looked up the book online and discovered it was published in 2000 and sure enough it was a simple teal cover with a hand drawn green girl and yellow star. We looked among the chapter books lining our book shelf, but couldn’t find it. No doubt I ordered this book through the Scholastic Book Club as I was building my own classroom library from 2002 – 2006 when I was teaching 4th & 5th grade. After moving boxes and boxes of classroom books at least 5 times, I finally sold and let go of 100s of children’s books this past year. I imagine I looked at the cover of this book, having never read it, and tossed it aside because I didn’t think I needed it or my girls would never pick it up to read on their own.
How many times do we miss out on great books and powerful messages because we simply don’t look past the packaging/front cover. Even worse, how quick are we to judge someone based on their appearance that we miss out on the value they could add to our life?
“She was bendable light: she shone around every corner of my day.”
― Jerry Spinelli, Stargirl
While you are enjoying your own Corona staycation this Spring, I highly recommend watching Star Girl on Disney+ with your family or even better order the Star Girl book for your 5th grade+ student to read on their own first and then watch the movie.
I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments after you read Star Girl or watch Star Girl on Disney+!
