How Homeschoolers are Portrayed in Books

There are lots of ways people view homeschoolers. Sometimes they view them as abnormally smart, or really unsocial, or very sheltered. What sculpts these stereotypes? Books, movies and TV shows. While they are funny, they often show the population of homeschoolers at its extreme. Unless we know homeschoolers, we believe the image that these books and movies project. I have read a few books that feature homeschoolers in the past few weeks, here is what I thought.

Schooled (by Gordon Korman for middle schoolers) was about a boy about my age named Cap. He lives with his grandmother on a farm and he has no other relatives. When his grandmother was picking cherries she falls out of the tree and her injury was so bad that Cap drove her to a real doctor instead of to the veterinarian they normally go to. His grandmother has to stay in the hospital for awhile while Cap stays at his grandmother's old friend's house and goes to school. Cap is very ignorant and antisocial and the the story is mainly about his trying to survive in school The other kids are not very accepting because he does yoga outside of the school every morning, and he wears stuff like tie-dye shirts and bandanas in his dreadlocks. Even though he doesn't know better, to me its like he is just asking to be picked on.

I found the book Schooled to be very disappointing. The homeschooler they portrayed in this book was a hippy farm boy who knew nothing about technology or the outside world. Rain, Cap's grandmother, states on page 21 “You know what television is, but you've never watched it. You know what pizza is, but you've never tasted any. You know about friendships, but you've never had a friend.” Then Cap says that shes his only friend. This is the type of book that paints these misconceptions of homeschoolers on the public. Not only wasn't it fair for homeschoolers, it wasn't fair to anyone. It relied on a bunch of nasty stereotypes. No homeschooler I know is that ignorant about the real world. And no schooled kid I know is that nasty a person.

Stargirl (by Jerry Spinelli for middle schoolers) was about a fourteen-year-old girl who acted about half her age. Stargirl was told by the point of view of one of the schooled kids, so we, as readers, don't get much of her background but she is new to the school. She wore really old fashioned clothes, didn't know how to socialize and played a ukulele while singing during lunch. Despite, or maybe because of these things, she became one of the most popular girls in school. Not because she was pretty, or anyone wanted to date her. But because she was different and kept the kids on their toes. She develops her first crush on a boy in her class and tells him. There is a whole little love story intertwined into this, hmm, interesting book.

I also didn't like Stargirl as much. I did think it was sweet that she was so nice and caring. But really, they described her as an alien freak. As they also did in Schooled. It does make a nice, funny story. But it paints stereotypes of homeschooled kids, which isn't fair for us. On page 10 in the book the writer was describing Stargirl's unusual dressing habits, “Several times in those early weeks of September, she showed up in something outrageous. A 1920s flapper dress. An Indian buckskin. A kimono. One day she wore a denim miniskirt with green stockings, and crawling up one leg was a parade of enamel ladybug and butterfly pins. “Normal” for her were long, floor-brushing pioneer dresses and skirts.” I really don't appreciate the fact that those writers view us homeschooled kids as freaks, either that, or they don't do their research!

Alice, I Think (by Susan Juby for middle schoolers.) I wasn’t sure if I was going to like Alice at first. I started to like her in the first pages because her parents weren't hippies, she was not from a small town, and she didn't have any mental problems. Alice’s weirdness was amazing, I think I grew to love her as a character, and I appreciated her somewhat alternative perspective on life, which struck me as both naive yet incredibly perceptive at the same time. She wasn't like the other books, but she wasn't normal in the usual sense. She was more like a homeschooler than any of the other characters I have read about because she wasn't afraid to put herself out there and say what she was really thinking. She seems like she could have been a real human.

As I read Alice, I Think, I laughed out loud a lot but I also found myself cringing with embarrassment quite alot. It was like I was in her shoes. Especially when Alice is caught having used makeup to make her bruised face look worse or when she tells the story of when she was babysitting and was caught going through the parents’ CD collection and making a tape of Britney Spears. I would recommend Alice, I Think.

Kensuke's Kingdom (by Michael Morpurgo for upper elementary.) Michael, his parents and their dog Stella set sail around the world in their yacht the Peggy Sue after Michael's dad loses his job. Michael is very happy, studying all the lands they see, and drawing every animal they find. About halfway though the trip he and his dog are swept overboard with his football and find themselves stranded on an island where he discovers Kensuke, a former Japanese soldier. Kensuke seems to be determined to thwart any attempt Michael makes to be rescued. He is very nice though, giving Michael food and water, and watching over him like any father would do. They get to know and understand each other and bond of trust builds. Kensuke had lost his own family in the war and he realizes he must do all he can to help Michael find his own family even though he desperately wants to keep his island secret from the outside world he has turned his back on.

I liked how in Kensuke's Kingdom the writer focused more on the studying and schoolwork of Michael instead of how weird he was, or how ignorant of the real world. They took the curriculum that the school gave them and taught it to Michael in a way he would actually learn well. Michael also had to draw every animal they saw and write an essay about every place they saw. Unlike all of the above books he was taken out of school instead of put in. My ten-year-old sister read and enjoyed it greatly.

What I found was that most of the books I read for this blog focus on the social aspect of homeschooling, not the educational part. While I do believe that being social is a really important aspect of being human, it's not the only part. Here are some more books that include kids that don't go to school! I haven't read them, but you can read them and share with me how much of the homeschooler's life you think is real, and how much is totally alien!

Surviving the Applewhites by Stephanie S. Tolan

Summer at Steller's Creek by Anne Cernyar

Skellig by David Almond

Who, Me? by Johnny Elow

Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

Hoot by Carl Hiaasen