Book Summary
Jerry
Spinelli’s Stargirl is an interesting coming of age story about a free-spirited
girl named Stargirl Calloway who comes to challenge the conventions of a
lifeless high school, in a book about conformity, empathy, and love. Leo, the
narrator of the book is a 16 year-old boy who falls in love with Stargirl and
reflects on how Stargirl changes the school, revealing its best possibilities
and ultimately its darkest transgressions in how someone different can inspire
and/or be ridiculed and ostracized.
Reference
Spinelli, J. (2004). Stargirl. Laurel Leaf. New
York.
Impressions:
The book
could be believable to middle-school audiences, which this book intends to aim,
but is highly far-fetched in the high school setting the book is written. The
incredibly unbelievable plot development of a girl who somehow storms a
football game, stops gameplay, climbs field goal posts; all without punishment
reveals the little adult supervision in this book.
Most readers
will be intrigued by the conflict between Stargirl and the high school bullies
and how Stargirl maintains her sunny disposition throughout the book, even
under the cruelest mean-spirited incidents she endures.
Spinelli seems to use the Stargirl Calloway
character to reveal the balance of all the other normal high-school characters
in the book, torn with dealing with conformity and acceptance, school spirit
and pride, tolerance and empathy for others.
The book is about finding one’s self in not the
superficial achievements of teenage experiences in school and acquaintances,
but rather a deeper, more meaningful way to look at the world, friendship and
ultimately one’s self as a person.
Professional Review:
Gr 6-10-- Stargirl is eccentric, creative, and kind. She strums her ukulele while
singing in the high school cafeteria. She's the embodiment of creative optimism
and wears her heart upon her sleeve. She is oblivious to the adolescent affront
caused by her idiosyncrasies. Then one day she hears the whispered sneers, and Stargirl is no more. Spinelli captures the
magic of individualism while encouraging readers to honor differences and avoid
the traps of conformity.
Follos, A. (2004). Stargirl
(book). School Library
Journal, 50(11), 65.
Library
Uses:
Grades 7-12:
Stargirl could easily be used by librarians looking to recommend books about
the pressures of conformity, specifically to middle school students who deal
with such pressure. The book is rich with metaphors, and foreshadowing. Nearly every
chapter ends with some allusion to what’s to come in the next chapter. The book
could also be used in search of fictional resources that tie in with lessons about
philosophy. Stargirl, the main character is afforded some long passages about
her philosophical outlook on life.
