Quote of the Day- April 17, 2011

"It's the morning, for most of us. It's that time, those few seconds when we're coming out of sleep but we're not really awake yet. For those few seconds we're something more primitive than what we are about to become. We have just slept and sleep of our most distant ancestors, and something of them and their world still clings to us. For those few moments we are unformed, uncivilized. We are not the people we know as ourselves, but creatures more in tune with a tree than the keyboard. We are untitled, unnamed, natural, suspended between was and will be, the tadpole before the frog, the worm before the butterfly. We are, for a few brief moments, anything and everything we could be."- Stargirl

Book Summary courtesy of Amazon:

"She was homeschooling gone amok." "She was an alien." "Her parents were circus acrobats." These are only a few of the theories concocted to explain Stargirl Caraway, a new 10th grader at Arizona's Mica Area High School who wears pioneer dresses and kimonos to school, strums a ukulele in the cafeteria, laughs when there are no jokes, and dances when there is no music. The whole school, not exactly a "hotbed of nonconformity," is stunned by her, including our 16-year-old narrator Leo Borlock: "She was elusive. She was today. She was tomorrow. She was the faintest scent of a cactus flower, the flitting shadow of an elf owl." In time, incredulity gives way to out-and-out adoration as the student body finds itself helpless to resist Stargirl's wide-eyed charm, pure-spirited friendliness, and penchant for celebrating the achievements of others. In the ultimate high school symbol of acceptance, she is even recruited as a cheerleader. Popularity, of course, is a fragile and fleeting state, and bit by bit, Mica sours on their new idol. Why is Stargirl showing up at the funerals of strangers? Worse, why does she cheer for the opposing basketball teams? The growing hostility comes to a head when she is verbally flogged by resentful students on Leo's televised Hot Seat show in an episode that is too terrible to air. While the playful, chin-held-high Stargirl seems impervious to the shunning that ensues, Leo, who is in the throes of first love (and therefore scornfully deemed "Starboy"), is not made of such strong stuff: "I became angry. I resented having to choose. I refused to choose. I imagined my life without her and without them, and I didn't like it either way."

 My Review

I read Stargirl over Christmas break and I loved it. If you are in high school then you will relate to the school in this story. Deep down inside, no one cares about anyone else. Every day is the same and people hide their true feelings. People tear others down to build each other up. Then, one day Stargirl enters the school. Leo Borlock narrates the story as we travel through Jerry Spinelli's magical writing. The character of Stargirl is specially interesting. Among other things, she plays "Happy Birthday" on her Ukulele at lunch, sends cards to strangers, and creates a scrapbook of a young boy's life. At first everyone loves the fact that she's different then everyone else, but that amazement soon turns to hatred. I believe that the other kids in the High School thought that Stargirl was just too different to be part of their society. Stargirl, we learn, only cares about other people. Never does she care about herself. Even when she decides to not be Stargirl anymore for awhile, she does it for Leo.The writing is beautiful and makes us fall in love with Stargirl because she is the person that we each want to be, but hate when we actually meet.

Stars 5 out of 5