Love, Stargirl

samanthamaroon5 - I finished Stargirl around last month. I say it is a realistic fiction book because it has everyday people doing everyday things. The protagonist in the story is Leo Borlock. Leo goes to Mica High school. The book is actually revolves around one peculiar girl named Susan or Stargirl or HullyGully whatever suits her. Stargirl is very strange and... different. I like this book because it shows how we, as people, like to shun others because they are different. We see some one act a certant way and asume that everyone should be like that. Instead of being ourselfs we try to be like everyone else. And when we do see someone act as they should we make fun of them or not enclude them in our groups or clicks. I think this book can really help us treat others right. Just like Archie says in the book, "she is us more than we are us. She is , I think, who we really are." I believe this book is amazing and it moved me hopefully it moved anyone who read it.

July 16, 2007
In Newbery Medalist Spinelli’s sequel to his 2000 novel Stargirl
, readers join the eponymous heroine and find out how she is coping after being dumped by Leo Borlock. Having moved from Arizona to Pennsylvania, Stargirl records her thoughts, observations and emotions in near daily (unsent) missives to Leo, as she works to move beyond her sadness. Her entries are peppered with poetry as well as little pep talks she writes to herself whenever her spirits are low. (“You have your whole life ahead of you, and all you’re doing is looking back. Grow up, girl. There are some things they don’t teach you in homeschool.”) Stargirl spends most of her time with a talkative six-year-old, Dootsie, a grumpy girl named Alvina, and a handful of older locals with their own quirks and problems. She also meets a boy with a mysterious past; their brief romance and other events combine to lift Stargirl out of her doldrums, as she reconciles her feelings about Leo (“You be you and I’ll be me, today and today and today, and let’s trust the future to tomorrow”). Readers should embrace Stargirl’s originality and bigheartedness, and may be inspired to document their own emotional ups and downs in the Stargirl Journal
, available the same month, which consists of blank lined pages with quotations from both novels. Ages 12-up.

September 1, 2007
Gr 6-10-This brilliant sequel to "Stargirl" (Knopf, 2000) takes place a year later. Now living in Pennsylvania, Stargirl, 15, continues to pine for Leo, who dumped her, and struggles to make a place for herself in her new community. Fortunately, her eclectic neighbors, who include Dootsie, a five-year-old "human bean"; Betty Lou, an agoraphobic divorcée; and Perry Delloplane, an amiable thief, draw her back into life and happiness. Written in diary format-the "world's longest letter," as Stargirl calls it-this novel is as charming and unique as its sensitive, nonconformist heroine. Addressing loss, growing pains, and staying true to oneself, this stellar follow-up is both profound and funny."Terri Clark, Smokey Hill Library, Centennial, CO"

Copyright 2007 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2007
Stargirl (Stargirl, 2000) is disappearing. She and her family (including pet rat Cinnamon) have moved to Pennsylvania, leaving her boyfriend, Leo, behind in Arizona. Can you lose your favorite person without losing yourself? she writes in one of the many letters to him that comprise an epistolary companion to Spinellis first story of the eccentric, large-hearted, happy-to-a-fault teenager. The questions abound: Will she be reunited with her Starboy, or will he be replaced by Perry, the petty-thieving, dangerously attractive new boy in her life? How will she help her new friends (five-year-old motormouth Dootsie, angry Alvina, agoraphobic Betty Lou, grieving widower Charlie, developmentally disabled Arnold)? And are the many genuinely nice moments in this novel buried under too much sentimentality, whimsicality, and self-conscious cuteness? The answer lies with individual readers. The many teens who loved the first book will embrace this sequel. Those who didnt, wont. Its as simple as that.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)