Star Girl

Star Girl
Jerry Spinelli
Dell Laurel-leaf, 2000
Pages: 186
Reading Level: 9-12
Genre: Realistic Fiction

Leo is a high school boy. One day a girl named Stargirl moves in, and she is very very different. She sings happy birthday with her ukulele to people during lunch. She cheers for both teams, and does other strange things. At first, her strangeness makes her popular, but when the basketball team starts losing, they blame it on stargirl because she was rooting for both teams. She becomes very unpopular. Meanwhile, Leo has fallen in love with her. He personally feels the repercussions of startgirls unpopularity, and he tries to change her. It fails miserably, and all it achieves is making stargirl feel terrible about herself. She goes back to being herself, which makes Leo terribly mad. Stargirl ends up going to the dance by herself, where people start liking her again for who she is. But then one of the girls, who still doesn't like her, slaps her. Stargirl kisses her on the cheek in return, leaves, and never comes back. Leo ends up devastated.

I would recommend this book to middle-schoolers, especially if they feel like they don't fit in.

I think this book could show kids that it is okay to run away from problems like stargirl does in the end, which would be a problem.

My reaction: I loved this book, except for the ending.

My rating: ****