Meet wacky, irrepressible Starshine Bliss Shapiro, a girl with an unusual hobby: spiders. She wants to be an arachnologist when she grows up. Too bad everybody thinks that’s weird. But sometimes being different is a good thing….

Books in the series:

Starshine!

Selected for Our Choice by the Canadian Children’s Book Centre

Star might not get to go on the grade four camping trip because her health-nut parents won’t let her sell the sugary cookies the rest of the class is selling as a fundraiser. But Starshine’s interest in spiders gives her an idea. The school is offering cash as first prize in a contest about Greek myths, and Star knows the legend of Arachne, the maiden whom the goddess Arachne turned into a spider. With the help of her best friend, Julie Wong, Star just might figure out a way to go on the trip. Now, if only her pesky little sister Peggy doesn’t foul things up…. 

"Ellen Schwartz has succeeded in creating a family of completely believable, sympathetic and interesting characters who care deeply for each other and the world. I would whole-heartedly recommend this book to middle elementary school readers aged eight to eleven." - Norma Charles, CM, July 1988

ISBN 0-919591-24-8, 160 pages, paperback, ages 8-12

[Top]

Star’s on her way to summer camp for the first time. She’s excited—eager for adventure and hopeful about finding a rare spider believed to be extinct. But she’s also scared—anxious about being homesick, and worried that no one will like her if they find out she has a fondness for spiders. Things start off badly when Starshine’s rival, the annoyingly perfect Miranda Stockton, turns the other girls against her. But as Starshine wins over her cabin-mates and initiates them into a secret plot to hunt for the elusive spider, camp changes from a month of misery into a summer filled with adventure and mischief.

"…an engrossing non-violent mystery—and excellent read-aloud book with culturally diverse and engaging characters—that kept my five- and nine-year-old boys begging for ‘one more chapter.’ Parents may find themselves wanting to skip ahead after the children go to bed!" - NAPRA ReVIEW, American Booksellers Association, 1995

ISBN 0-919591-02-7, 160 pages, paperback, ages 8-12

[Top]

Short-listed for Silver Birch Award, Ontario Library Association

 

Canadian Library Association Notable Book

Star is obsessed with getting on television. After auditioning for a cat food commercial, impersonating a Munchkin and trying out for a nerdy quiz show, she’s no closer to her goal. And her annoying little sister, Peggy, doesn’t help matters by stealing the limelight right from under Starshine’s nose. But an experiment Star’s working on for the American Association of Arachnology—in which she’s feeding her pet Nephila spider a special diet of web-strengthening insects—just might help her get on the small screen in a most unexpected way.

"Ellen Schwartz has now firmly established Starshine Bliss Shapiro as one of the most dependably likable weird little kids in Canadian literature." - Judi Walker, Connecting Classrooms, Libraries & Canadian Learning Resources, October 1996

"Schwartz’s great strength lies in her ability to portray the concerns and feelings of the preadolescent in an authentic and unsentimental fashion. Starshine’s relationships with family members and friends and her struggles to define her own identity are sure to strike a responsive chord in the young reader. Recommended." - Canadian Book Review Annual, 1997

ISBN 1-896095-13-5, 160 pages, paperback, ages 8-12

Starshine’s on a mission: to have the Araneus vampiricus, or fanged vampire spider, named the Provincial Arachnid of British Columbia. All she has to do is convince three thousand people to sign her petition. Simple—with the help of her best friend, Julie, and her friends from Camp Crescent Moon. But then Starshine and Julie have a big falling out and Star is on her own. How will she get the help she needs to make the Araneus vampiricus the most famous spider in the province? And, more important, what will she do without her best friend?

ISBN, 180 pages, paperback, ages 8-12

For a Teacher’s Guide to the Starshine series, click on For Parents and Teachers.

[Top]