She was unique. She marched to the beat of a different drummer. She came like a whirlwind into the high school in Mica, Arizona, dressed like a Victorian bride, playing her ukulele in the lunch room, and no one in the whole school knew what to make of her. Leo certainly didn’t, but he sure wanted to figure her out.
She chose the name “Stargirl” for herself, feeling that it more closely resembled who she was than her own given name of “Susan.” She wore what she felt like wearing. She did what she felt like doing. She was her own person, completely unaware of the judgmental opinions of others. If the mood struck her to do something, she did it.
The popular girls thought Stargirl was just trying to get attention. They mocked her fashion sense and even said she must be a plant, sent in by the school board to inject some school spirit into the place. The more Leo studies her, the more he’s convinced that she’s absolutely real.
They start dating, and he’s blissfully happy. She opens his mind to concepts he’s never examined before. Her love of life, and of people, rubs off on him and together, they go around town leaving notes in mailboxes to cheer up someone’s day. But the peer pressure is getting to Leo. Stargirl is just too weird, and soon, everyone in school is shunning her. By association, they shun Leo, too.
Unable to take the loneliness, Leo pulls back from Stargirl. She’s disappointed, but she understands. She continues to sing in the lunchroom every day, until one day when she simply doesn’t come anymore, and Leo finds out that she has moved. She never was accepted in the school, but years later, her influence is still felt.
I really enjoyed this book. It was heartbreaking to see this girl, so full of life, be battered and torn down by the other kids, but wonderful to see how she never lost her sense of wonder, her unique way of expressing herself, and she never allowed her circumstances to turn her bitter. It was also interesting, as a homeschooler, to read that Stargirl had been homeschooled and to see the author’s perception of it, which, surprisingly, was fairly positive. This is a young adult novel you’ll think about long after you finish it.
(This book was published in 2000 by Alfred A. Knopf.)
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