Then Hillari slaps her and Stargirl leaves, never to be seen again. The school dance is totally different.Īt the end of the book, Stargirl leads the school in “The Bunny Hop” (random). You can’t get anything past me, movie! I see your tricks. In the movie, she makes that decision in the middle of the speech competition.which I guess is more dramatic because she can put that realization into her speech. Stargirl puts a bizarrely academic effort into becoming popular in order to get back into everyone’s good graces but decides it isn’t worth it when she wins the speech competition and, still, nobody cares. Maybe she’s a little jealous of Stargirl’s individuality too. Hillari does hate Stargirl, but it’s because she thinks she’s being weird just for attention and therefore fake.

In the book, the boy whose bike Stargirl returns is not Hillari’s brother and it’s not that big of a deal. The movie combines Hillari’s distrust of Stargirl with one of her good deeds. (Aug.Dale Robinette // Disney The bike incident is less intense in the book. For Leo, caught between his peers and his connection to Stargirl, the essential question boils down to one offered to him by a sage adult friend: ''Whose affection do you value more, hers or the others'?'' As always respectful of his audience, Spinelli poses searching questions about loyalty to one's friends and oneself and leaves readers to form their own answers. As her cheerleading antics draw record crowds to the school's losing football team's games, her popularity skyrockets, yet a subtle foreboding infuses the narrative and readers know it's only a matter of time until she falls from grace.

Having been homeschooled, Stargirl appears at Mica High dressed as a hippie holdover and toting a ukulele, which she uses to serenade students on their birthdays she marks holidays with Halloween candy and Valentine cards for all. By describing the girl through the eyes of a teen intermittently repulsed by and in love with her, Spinelli cunningly exposes her elusive qualities. Even before she appears at Mica High, Spinelli hints at her invisible presence readers, like Leo, will wonder if Stargirl is real or some kind of mirage in the Sonoran Desert. As narrator Leo Borlock reflects on his junior year in a New Mexico high school, Stargirl takes center stage. Part fairy godmother, part outcast, part dream-come-true, the star of Spinelli's latest novel possesses many of the mythical qualities as the protagonist of his Maniac Magee.

Star Girl by jerry-spinelli