“She laughed when there was no joke. She danced when there was no music. She had no friends, yet she was the friendliest person in school. In her answers in class, she often spoke of sea horses and stars, but she did not know what a football was… 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. We did not know what to make of her. In our minds we tried to pin her to a cork board like a butterfly, but the pin merely went through and away she flew.”

– Jerry Spinelli, Stargirl

You know the type of stories that take hold of your hand and pull you right in? It is as if it is saying, “Yes, yes, I know who you are. Come in, come in, settle down, make yourself comfortable.” And as soon as you start, it’s as if you were there all along, all cozied up. Stargirl is that type of story. As soon as I knocked on its door, I just couldn’t stop. Just one more chapter. The character of Stargirl is one my favorite characters. She’s always out there, being our inner us. Dancing in the rain during school hours, singing Happy Birthday songs during lunch hour, cheering for the opposite team during games or even caring when someone from the opposite team gets hurt. She shows that she is just a human being. Her caring nature shines through so much that she does not see that there are “social rules” that everyone follows. To be honest, she reminds me of Luna Lovegood from Harry Potter. Luna also didn’t have a lot of friends because everyone thought that she was so out there, but those that took the time to understand her, became some of her closest and dearest friends.

I have a love and hate relationship with Leo, the male protagonist in this story. He supports Stargirl when they are to themselves but abandons her when his peers isolate him from everything. Although I do feel sorry for him when Stargirl leaves; he realizes too late of what really mattered. But, as the years passed by, he seems to have picked up some of Stargirl’s quirks such as dropping a quarter in the street, walking in the rain without an umbrella, reading the newspaper all over, etc. But in the end he knows that he is not alone and that just like he did not forget about her, she did not forget about him.  Because a day before his birthday, he received a gift-wrapped package in the mail. It was a porcupine necktie.