So while the story is great, the parts that sing to me are completely different than what captures my 10 year old daughter's attention. At the time of this review, I am in my early forties. I guess the closest I can come to summarizing is- Stargirl is the story of someone who marches to the beat of her own drummer and what happens when she breaks into the rigid structure of conformity that is known as high school.īefore I begin my comments, please keep in mind that I am an adult. Obviously you can read the summaries on Goodreads, Barnes & Noble and Amazon, but they wouldn't come close to explaining what you will take away from this book. I am going to have to extend my all time favorites list to twenty so this makes it on there. Depending on your child's temperament, they may find the 'meanness' and hypocrisy of some of the characters unsettling. I would let my 6th grade daughter read it, but this is probably the first year I would let her. She accepted the rejection of others in favor of being happy, and the other main character - her love interest - wished he could be that strong. The one time she tried to change to make someone else happy, it didn't work out anyway, and she decided that in the end, she just had to be herself.

However, this is the lesson of the book - she was happy being who she was, and she wanted to stay that way. These moments are interspersed with others, where you see the girl's kind, thoughtful nature, and get a glimpse into her life and all its wonders. This is where we see the worst of it - mild and implied violence, social ostracizing, mean talk, name calling, kids ganging up on the girl socially and verbally. The main substance of the book was the battle between the school's status-quo philosophy and the main character's determination to be independent. It was not dwelt on, nor was it a graphic or inappropriate description. There was a little bit of crude language, a mention of alcohol, a mention of making out, and one scene where the main boy and the main girl share a kiss. As such, there were a few more mature elements in the book, but most were generally mentioned in passing conversation or train-of-thought narrative.

This book had a 4th grade reading level sticker on it in our school library, so I was surprised to find that the characters were juniors and seniors in high school.

Audio book stargirl