Sunday 18 September 2022 13:00
In September, we are excitedly resuming our Teens Book Club meetings, facilitated by writer Stella Kasdagli.
The book we will be reading together this month is Jerry Spinelli’s Stargirl. Thirty Book Club members aged 12 to 16 will meet online on Sunday, September 25, at 13:00–14:30, in order to discover more worlds that are waiting to be conjured by the readers themselves, i.e. us.
Don’t worry if you haven’t read the entire book, or if you didn’t join our previous meeting: either way, Stella will be giving the cue each month, announcing the book that we will all be reading together over the weeks to follow. At the end of the month, the group of people who have read the book (or at least half of it) will be meeting to exchange thoughts, impressions, feelings and concerns, triggered by what we have just read, whether we liked it a lot or not so much.
A few words about the book for September:
Stargirl is an unusual book that deals with many of our Club’s favorite topics: adolescence, diversity, social conventions and how they affect our lives, cruelty, friendship, our need for acceptance.
The plot
“She was elusive. She was today. She was tomorrow. She was the faintest scent of a cactus flower, the flitting shadow of an elf owl. We did not know what to make of her. In our minds we tried to pin her to a cork board like a butterfly, but the pin merely went through and away she flew.”
Stargirl is mesmerizing like the desert skies. She is strange like her pet rat. Mysterious like her name. From the day she first appears at the peaceful Mica High in an explosion of colors and sounds, only one murmur spreads like wildfire around the school: “Stargirl, Stargirl…” She steals Leo’s heart with a single smile and sets the school’s team spirit on fire with a single cheering cry. The students of Mica High adore her. At first…
A few more words about Stella
Stella Kasdagli is a writer, translator, co-founder of the nonprofit “Women on Top” and an educator of teenagers and adults. She graduated (God knows how) from the French Literature department of the University of Athens and then studied Media Theory in London. She worked for several years as Editor-in-chief at Cosmopolitan magazine, while also writing pieces for several other Greek and English-language sites and publications. Currently, she is designing and implementing activities that empower women, writing about issues that she believes should be discussed more, translating foreign-language literature, and facilitating workshops for teenagers on the subjects of body image, internet, and social change. She is also co-founder of the Mentorkids network and the online reading club Bookworm. She has written the following books (in Greek): Tummy.com, I just wanted to fit in; the Princess Athena series and 30 women who changed the world (and how you can change it too), which was awarded the 2021 Greek National Knowledge Book Award for Children and Teenagers. She has two daughters and is growing up with them in Athens.
Sunday 18/09 | 13.00-14.30
Via ZOOM
For boys and girls 12-16 years old
Participation with online pre-registration
Pre-registration starts on Wednesday 24/08, at 12.00
To participate in the Reading Club, it is necessary for those who hold a position to have read the book of the month (at least, half!).
The book Stargirl is available in Greek from Patakis Publishers.
