Synopsis
Jerry Spinelli's beloved character, Stargirl, returns and reflects on time, life, Leo, and of course love. What happened to Stargirl? A year has passed and Stargirl returns to reveal her new life. Taking the form of, as Stargirl calls it, "the world's longest letter," Stargirl tells her story in a journal/diary. Going from date to date, Stargirl mixes memories of her bittersweet time in Mica, Arizona, with involvements with new people in her life: Dootsie, her five-year-old "best friend"; Alvina, combative tomboy-turning-girl; Betty Lou, sage agoraphobic; Arnold, who wanders town in a solitary game of hide-and-seek; Margie of Margie's Donuts, self-proclaimed "World's Best!"; Charlie, who spends his days in a folding chair at the grave of his wife Grace; and Perry Delloplane, who lays his own claim to Stargirl's heart.
KLIATT
In this sequel to Stargirl, the free-spirited, openhearted title character gets to tell her own story in the form of "the World's Longest Letter" to her ex-boyfriend Leo. It's really more of a series of journal entries as delightfully offbeat Stargirl tells of events over the course of a year in her new home in a small town in Pennsylvania, far away from Arizona and Leo. She's lonely and pining for him, but soon meets some entertainingly wacky neighbors, from impudent five-year-old Dootsie to angry adolescent Alvina, kind but agrophobic Betsy Lou, widowed Charlie, who talks to his dead wife in the graveyard daily, and handsome Perry, a thief who almost steals Stargirl's heart. The winter solstice project that this kind, home schooled, hippie-ish 15-year-old undertakes brings together all her new friends, and helps to bring hope back into her life, too. Fans of Stargirl will be charmed by this satisfying sequel.