Stargirl

Rating:
Summary: Girl from the stars
Review: Stargirl first came to school when she was a sophomore. She had been home schooled before that and no one knew what to think of her. She was very well like until she started cheering the other teams and basketball games. What really through everyone off the edge was when she comforted the star player on the opposing team. After this she was not popular anymore and her only friend was Leo Borlock, her boyfriend. Stargirl did not realize people were shunning her and went on with her regular life. She went to her enchanted place and helped others. Stargirl had many adventures and it was a fantastic book! I definitely recommend the book Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli to everyone young and old. The story teaches a good lesson on being yourself and not what others want you to be. It showed me that I should have self-confidence to do and wear what I want. Stargirl is definitely unique in her own way. I greatly respect her and hope everyone else will read this book and respect her as well. My favorite quote from the book was the one that really described her. " 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 the corkboard like a butterfly, but the pin merely went through and away she flew." Star girl was amazing; she wore peasant dresses and played a ukulele during the day. She had a pet rat named Cinnamon that went everywhere with her. Stargirl truly did not care what others thought of her. Stargirl seemed to be in touch with something that everyone else is not in touch with.

Rating:
Summary: Stargirl
Review: Stargirl isn't an ordinary name and she isn't at all and ordinary girl. She goes to Mica High school where she falls in love with Leo Borlock. She is a rare and unusual child and you never know what she is going to do next. She shows up at her school's athletic games and she cheers for the other team when they score. She walks around singing and strumming her ukulele. She embarrasses people but yet she fascinates them because she is unique and different. Leo Borlock loves her and they do everything together but when Stargirl and Leo are shunned he becomes uncomfortable and not popular. Leo doesn't know what to do and he's afraid of changing Stargirl into something she is not, which would be normal. I didn't like this book very much because the first eighty pages of the book became boring and repetitous. Towards the end of the book it was easy to read because it was more interesting. The only reason I decided to finish this book was becasue it related to my life. I don't speak a lot and I might be weird but I am still different and unique. At first I didn't think Stargirl would be accepted at her school or that she would even have a boyfriend. Her peers judged her as being weird when they didn't even know her. I liked reading about the funny and strange things that Stargirl did. I didn't like Leo because he changed Stargirl into something that she isn't and that's not what a loving boyfriend does. I would recommend this book to teenagers that feel that they have to dress, look and act a certain way.

Rating:
Summary: Sweet and Touching
Review: Your either a Jerry Spinelli fan or your not. I happen to be one. There are some authors that you can count on for certain things. For instance, you can always count on Mary Higgens Clark for suspense. You can always count on Danielle Steele for romance. You can always count on Stephen King for horror...And you can always count on Jerry Spinelli for unique. Stargirl is no exeption. It is sweet and touching, without being to sugary or oppressively emotional. It causes you to re-evaluate your self and the way you look at others. It causes you to wonder just how much of yourself you sacrifice each day, just so you can be deemed "exceptable" or "normal" It causes you to value yourself, and more importantly, everyone else around you.

Rating:
Summary: The Gospel according to Spinelli - bubbly and tangy-sweet
Review: I love this book. I love books that work on lots of levels, for many audiences, and from many starting points. Stargirl succeeds on many levels, yet fails on an important level - it fails to offer something that can be emulated rather than admired from a distance. The comment in an earlier review: "If I was not at school, i would have cried at the end" is very poignant here. The contrast between being fully expressed and being ordinary is beautifully drawn and powerfully explored. Spinelli doesn't make the mistake of making Stargirl strange like a self-absorbed hermit - Stargirl is "for" others, not "like" others, not "better than" others. Still, Stargirl is too unattainable in her perfection, yet too unaware of what it would take to bring others along with her, thus her perfection stays with her and will die with her, living as a memory at best.

I think the book works best as a fable for adults. Best as a way to evoke adolescence as we adults remember it to sound and feel, poor as a gateway into a teenage world. Parallels with the gospel story are easy to draw, the boy Leo in the role of Peter, Archie as John the Baptist, parallels so plentiful they appear deliberate. As a re-telling of a gospel story, making it contemporary, Stargirl is the best I've seen.

Just like we tell our daughters not to wait passively for the prince like Cinderella, just like churches tell their members not to wait despondently till Christ's second coming while the weeds overtake the garden, let's give our teenagers models other than Stargirl to emulate.

I read this book to my teenagers, and they loved this book and were moved by it even if the teenager characters didn't seem quite real to them.

Rating:
Summary: HEART RENCHING
Review: It was so heart renching wonderful. If I was not at school i would have cried at the end. I loved it so much if any one ever asked me what I thought I would say it is the best book ever. I am a huge book reader and only about five books have touched me very deep and this is one of those. I hope other people liked this and i hope people do email me and tell me other books that I should read

Rating:
Summary: Incredible
Review: Someone below said that every teen should read this. Forget that. EVERYONE should read this. I'm 20, and it made me cry. It's a beautiful, touching novel that no one -- NO ONE -- should deny themselves the wonder of experiencing.

Rating:
Summary: She is today She is tommorow.
Review: I can not describe how much I loved this book. I suppose it's because I'm also homeschool and I sometimes feel completely lost among children my age, but I fell in love with Stargirl. This is an absolute must for any teenager, also a wonderful read for any adult. It describes the crazy world of high school to perfection, how everyone strives to be popular, not really knowing why. They just follow the crowd. Stargirl didn't, and that is what makes her so special. I just wish every teenager in high school could read this book. It really gives some profound insight. The only disapointment I found in this book is the ending. I wished that it would have continued.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: This book explains clearly how people in a school often feel about someone who is extremely different from them, even when they change. All of my friends and my mom have borrowed it from me, and everyone, including me, loved it.

Rating:
Summary: OH-My-God
Review: I hated this book! take my advice, do not read it, Irepeat do not, whatsoever, do not read this book. Here I'll tell you why; Its boring, seems to go on, and on and on, I was even wondering if it was ever going to get to the point, and you know what I didn't. It is a very unemotional book, very undesciptive, and strange. I've read almost all of Spinellis other books and when I came to this one, on page 50 where I was almost asleep, I decieded I just wouldn't finish it. I havn't read any of Spinellis other books scince then. DO NOT READ THIS BOOK If you're really looking for a book I would recomend Any of Caroline B. Conney's books, I've read'm all. I would also recomend the book Sirena by Donna Jo Napoli, I would recomend Screen Test and last but not least I would recomend the book Sky Rider or the book The First Horse I See. Good luck on choosing book But DO NOT MAKE THIS ONE OF THE BOOKS YOU CHOOSE!

Rating:
Summary: Very very young adult
Review: The term "young adult" covers a wide range of titles. In the case of this book, the term "young adult" refers to pre-teen and early teen. I (who am in my twenties) was almost embarrassed to read this book. Very childish, cliche at points, and shallow. I'm surprised I even got through it. Obviously for the target audience (which I say to be 10-14 or so), it's right on the money. I'd be lying if I didn't say the book made me smile a couple times, but I couldn't wait to start another book. Young adult? Hmmm...