Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli

Daring to Be Different

Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli

Orchard Books, 2001, 189 pages

I've been staring at the cover of Stargirl for about two years. I don't know what it is: the lack of a title? The curious promise of the jaunty little stick figure? The magpie silver colour? But it wasn't until two days ago that I finally sat down and turned over the page, past the glowing reviews from trusted sources, and settled in, ready to be amazed. And maybe that's the problem, maybe I'd waited too long.

Life is pretty normal for sixteen year old Leo in Arizona, until the new girl starts school. From the beginning, she is different. She calls herself Stargirl. She carries a pet rat and a ukulele. She knows everyone's birthdays and serenades them in front of the whole school at lunch. She wears unusual clothes. She is that rarest of things: a teenager who doesn't care about fitting in - and her classmates begin to hate her for it. Leo is transfixed but torn between his impulse to be with her and his fear of standing out and being excluded. Stargirl can handle unpopularity, but can Leo?

Nowhere is 'the mob' more obvious than in highschool. Opinions form and turn like the tide; one minute everyone loves you, the next they've turned their backs on you. It's an impossible time to be truly yourself for all but the very strongest. And that's one reason why this is an important book, because the more stories we have telling us it's ok to be different, the better. Not only that, but if you lose friends because of it, you're better off without those people anyway.

There's a lovely sequence in the book where Leo tries to explain to Stargirl that most people know better than to mark themselves out as unique, that being a conforming part of a group is the norm. 'You don't seem to know what everybody thinks.' he says. 'And it matters?' she answers, baffled. Every teenager should absorb a little of Stargirl's magic individuality.

And yet, something stops me from truly embracing this book. Maybe it's all too black and white: perfect, shining, kind, generous Stargirl against the world, with her unlikely ukulele-playing and the sweet, if far-fetched office-managed kindnesses. If I was looking for some more subtlety and depth, I felt unrewarded.

Still, if books can change, and we know they can, I'm hoping a bit of her has rubbed off, and I'll still be giving my niece a copy.