Stargirl by: Jerry Spinelli

Genre: Contemporary Realistic Fiction

Publisher: Laurel Leaf

Copyright Date: 2000

Number of Pages: 186

Reading Level: Young Adult

Summary:

Stargirl is narrated by a kid in high school named Leo Borlock.

But it is about his experience with a girl that has named herself Stargirl.

It starts off when Leo first moves to a town in Arizona. His mom put an add in the birthday section of the newspaper about him and mentioned that he liked to collect porcupine ties. The next morning, he found a gift bag with a porcupine tie in it.

Then it jumps forward to when he is a Junior in High school. She first comes to the school as a sophomore who has been home schooled all her life up until that point. She is the talk of the school for a long time. She is weird and goofy and some people even think that she is crazy. She would bring a ukulele to lunch and play it while prancing around the cafeteria. She would sing people happy birthday in front of the whole school, she would wear ugly/crazy clothes, she would decorate her desk with a table cloth and a flower, every holiday she would give each person in her class a present, and it doesn't end there. She would attend stranger's funerals, leave cards on people's doorsteps, and much more. No one understood where this person came from. At first everyone thought she was strange... then all of the sudden, she became the most popular girl in school. People adored her, she was asked to be on the cheer leading team and when she said yes, the whole school seemed to turn out for sporting events (when before, the school was lucky to get a dozen people there). At the height of her popularity, Leo and his friend Kevin invited her to be on their school TV show Hot Seat. Unfortunately, things started to go bad at that point. At every sporting event, Stargirl would cheer for the other team. That wasn't a big deal until their high school actually started winning... They were undefeated in basketball, and they were loving it. That is when Stargirl's popularity started to go down. She didn't notice because she was always happy just to be herself but people actually started to hate her. They lost a game and from then on, lost every one after that. The school attributed this loss to Stargirl. It was at this point when Stargirl appeared on the Hot Seat. She was slammed. The people interviewing her bashed her and mangled her verbally so bad, that the show didn't even air.

During the midst of all this, Leo began to realize that he was falling in love with Stargirl. She had singled him out above all the others as the guy that she liked, and he felt the same way back. They started spending weekends with each other. She would show him where she gets all her information about people around town. She taught him how to feel, and how to be one with the world around you. She taught him how to be happy with who he is. They were together all the time. Leo was happy... until he realized that the whole school was shunning them. They were shunning Stargirl, but because he was always with her he was being shunned too. That bugged him so much that he told Stargirl that she needed to learn how to fit in, and be a part of the crowd. She tried it. She became normal, she started wearing normal clothes, there was no ukulele music in the lunchroom, she became obsessed with clothes, she changed her name back to Susan (her birth name).... Leo was completely happy again. All he could think of was Susan... until he realized that they were still being shunned. That still made him very upset. People were still mean to her from he cheer leading days.

During this time, she made it into the state public speaking competition as a finalist. Nothing like this ever happened to anyone at the school and so Leo and Susan thought that surely people would like her after she won the competition. Susan was so sure that she would win and she was so sure that the whole school would welcome her back from the competition with open arms that she actually planned when Leo would take her trophy when they lifted her into the air above their heads. Well, she won alright, but there were only three people there. Two teachers and Dori Dolsen, Susan's only friend.

After that, she became Stargirl again. Everything returned, the clothes, the ukulele, the decorated desk... Leo could not face her again. He was so mad that she had given up trying that he was ready to give up on her. He didn't ask her to the end of the year dance... He avoided her in the hallways... he really had given up on her. He decided not to go to the dance. She went alone. She had made a train of flowers that was pulled behind her bike... She walked up to the dance floor and all eyes were on her. She danced by herself like an angel prancing around the dance floor. Slowly things started to change. IT didn't matter to anyone that she came alone, they all seemed to want to be with her. They were entranced by her. Boys headed her way to ask her to dance... but before that happened she requested the DJ play the bunny hop. HE struck up the tune and pretty soon every single person at the dance had formed a line behind her and were all dancing. Everyone except Hillari Kimble and Wayne Parr, the two people in school who hated Stargirl still. The dance train danced around the dance floor and then broke free from the tennis courts and went bunny hopping into the night. They were gone for a long time.... But eventually they returned still in time to the music of the DJ. Hillari was so angry that everyone liked Stargirl again that she walked up to her and yelled at her, "you ruin everything!" and she slapped her across the face. Stargirl stared at her for a while and then as Hillari closed her eyes for the retaliation blow, Stargirl kissed her on the cheek and left. Everyone remembered that night.

Shortly after that, Leo found out from the old man that gave him lots of advice throughout the book, that Stargirl and her family had moved to Minnesota. Over the next few years Leo never forgot Stargirl and what he learned from her. He still thinks about her and wonders where she is and who she has met. One year on his birthday, he received a porcupine tie in the mail...

Who would benefit from reading this book/ who would you recommend this book to?

I would encourage any teenager who is about to start high school to read this book. It teaches a valuable lesson about being who you are, and the happiness that it can bring. It shows that conforming to the standard of the crowd around you causes unhappiness and often times failure. Especially failure to be who you were meant to be. This is a good book for kids to read when they are trying to figure out who they are and who they want to be.

What problems/conflicts could this book potentially cause?

I believe that this book can only do good for people who read it. It doesn't encourage people to hate people like Stargirl. The overall message is to accept and to love those around you.

My reaction:

This was an amazing book. What a character Spinelli created. This book made me want to do good. It made me want to show only love and kindness to the people around me. It teaches such a valuable lesson of courage. Courage to be who you are supposed to be, not who everyone wants you or expects you to be. The only way that you can be truly happy is to be an individual. To have your own opinion, and to not care what other people think about you. This is an important book for people to read. It can teach lessons to anyone and everyone that reads it. I know that you don't have to be as extreme as Stargirl was to show people that you care, but you don't have to blend in just because that is the social norm. I thought that this was a fantastic book.