Module 3: Verse Novel

 

Starfish

Bibliography

Fipps, Lisa. (2021). Starfish. Nancy Paulsen Books. ISBN: 9781984814500

Summary

Starfish is an award-winning middle grade free verse novel about a girl who struggles with weight and how people treat and react to her because of it.  The book is a collection of titled poems by Lisa Fipps that tells the emotional story of Ellie who feels like the only thing people see about her is her weight and she desires for people to just accept her the way she is including her mother.  Ellie does her best not to be noticed and struggles with being bullied at school, home, the store and out to eat.  She meets a new friend who begins to accept her for who she is and Ellie begins to see a therapist who helps her start to make her feelings and needs known so that she can stand up for herself. The book does not have a table of contents and the only back matter is a short authors note about Starfish being a work of fiction, but also based on the author's experiences growing up.

 

Analysis

This free verse novel is geared towards secondary students, and will especially resonate with middle school students.  The topic of being bullied seems to be at the forefront of life as a middle school student and I believe all students will be able to relate to one or more of the characters throughout this book.  The cover features the main character in a pool in her swimsuit “starfishing” which the reader understands the meaning of as they read through the text.  The book is made up of separate poems that are 1-3 pages in length, but the lines usually only take up half the width of the page which offers lots of white space that will be encouraging to all readers.  The poems are set up in a way that is very sequential, and they smoothly transition from one to the next seamlessly.

The text focuses on meaning and emotional impact in this novel and the vocabulary is very student-friendly.  Even though the text is very focused on Ellie’s feelings and interactions with people, which are typically very negative, the author also sprinkles in positive therapy sessions and activities with Ellie’s new friend, Catalina, and her accepting family to help lighten the heavy emotional impact of the story.  The book does a fantastic job of showing Ellie’s slow development through her therapy sessions to being more assertive and standing up for herself and what she needs.  She makes mistakes at first which will feel more realistic to teens who don’t always make the best decisions the first time, but it shows her growth in realizing that it takes time, effort and courage to stand up for yourself in a positive way.

Poem Excerpt

From Pure Garbage

I tell him my idea.

“The focal point will be a trash can.

Then we can create

a pocket for blank index cards and

a pocket for index cards with

great quotes from books, such as

‘I’m only different

to the people who see

with the wrong eyes’

from Fish in a Tree.

Then the bulletin board sign can say,

‘Take out the garbage.

Stop junking up your mind with

stinky things bullies have said to you.

Toss them into the trash, then

pick up a good thought

to replace it.’”

 

Activity

Ellie’s bulletin board idea would also be a great class activity to go along with the book.  I would begin by reading the poem “Pure Garbage” in its entirety to the class aloud because the poem not only discusses the activity but shows the reader that there are different ways and reasons that people can be bullies.  It also demonstrates that some bullies are also being bullied themselves.  It would be a great class activity to have students write down something negative or mean someone has said to them that hurt their feelings and throw them in the trash can.  Then hand students place a piece of paper with their name written in the center of it to place on their desk and have students rotate around to write only nice and positive statements about each person on these sheets so each person will have a sheet with only nice things written on them.  The teacher could even start the papers for each student with a statement of her own about each student.