No writer guides his young characters, and his readers, past these pitfalls and challenges and toward their futures with more compassion. In this celebration of nonconformity, Newbery Medalist Jerry Spinelli weaves a tense, emotional tale about the perils of popularity and the thrill and inspiration of first love.ĭon’t miss the sequel, Love, Stargirl, as well as The Warden’s Daughter, a novel about another girl who can't help but stand out. Stargirl is suddenly shunned for everything that makes her different, and Leo, panicked and desperate with love, urges her to become the very thing that can destroy her: normal.

She sparks a school-spirit revolution with just one cheer. From the day she arrives at quiet Mica High in a burst of color and sound, the hallways hum with the murmur of “Stargirl, Stargirl.” She captures Leo Borlock’ s heart with just one smile. We are, for a few brief moments, anything and everything we could be.ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE’S 100 BEST YA BOOKS OF ALL TIME Ī modern-day classic from Newbery Medalist Jerry Spinelli, this beloved celebration of individuality is now an original movie on Disney+!Īnd don't miss the author's highly anticipated new novel, Dead Wednesday! She captures Leo Borlock’ s heart with just one smile. We are untitled, unnamed, natural, suspended between was and will be, the tadpole before the frog, the worm before the butterfly. From the day she arrives at quiet Mica High in a burst of color and sound, the hallways hum with the murmur of Stargirl, Stargirl. We are not the people we know as ourselves, but creatures more in tune with a tree than a keyboard. For those few moments we are unformed, uncivilized.

We have just slept the sleep of our most distant ancestors, and something of them and their world still clings to us. I thought that necktie was just about the neatest thing in the world. For those few seconds we’re something more primitive than what we are about to become. Stargirl Jerry Spinelli To Eileen, my Stargirl And to Loren Eiseley, who taught us that even as we are, we are becoming And to Sonny Liston PORCUPINE NECKTIE When I was little, my uncle Pete had a necktie with a porcupine painted on it. You know, there’s a place we all inhabit, but we don’t much think about it, we’re scarcely conscious of it, and it lasts for less than a minute a day It’s that time, those few seconds when we’re coming out of sleep but we’re not really awake yet. She seems to be in touch with something that the rest of us are missing. Sometimes I thought she should be teaching me.

How did this girl come to be? I used to ask myself. And her parents, as ordinary, in a nice way, as could be.

Star Girl by jerry-spinelli