Starfish ~ Lisa Fipps

If you teach middle school, I know you work with students who feel like they don’t fit in. I know you have students who are bullied and students who are bullies. Unfortunately, discomfort and cruelty are a part of many people’s middle school experience. Starfish, by Lisa Fipps, makes it so that students don’t need to go through it alone. Middle school protagonist, Ellie, lives in constant fear and shame because whether she is at home or at school, Ellie is bullied about her weight. Her mother is relentless in the way she criticizes Ellie’s every move-- going so far as to put Ellie in front of a mirror and point out every flaw on her body. Ellie’s brother Liam is no better. At school, mean girls torture Ellie by making whale jokes every day. Ellie’s only escape is in her backyard swimming pool, a place where she can drown out the noise of her life and just be. 

This novel is heart-wrenching and sickening, but it’s also extremely hopeful. Over time, Ellie learns to release her intense shame and embrace her whole self with the help of a good friend, a compassionate father, and a skilled therapist. This story will help give any student who is bullied or uncomfortable with who they are, a voice. It is a must-have novel for your classroom library, and its beautiful in-verse language would make the book perfect for a novel study or book club

Buy the title here!

Maturity: 1/4

I would recommend this novel to students 11+. While there is nothing that would be considered inappropriate in the novel, and it may be accessible to younger students, the topic and themes are heavy.

Pages: 244

Lexile: N/A (Lexile is often unavailable for novels written in verse.) 

Lexile is a score that helps educators and parents match students with an appropriate text. A Lexile score is a measure of both a child’s reading ability and a text difficulty. However, Lexile does not take into account the content of a novel. So, pairing readers with a text is a complex process, and knowledge of a novel’s themes and plot is necessary to make a high-quality recommendation.

If you are curious about the grade-level equivalent to Lexile scores, check out the conversion chart here!