Stargirl, Book

Stargirl by: Jerry Spinelli

Spinelli uses a variety of meanings to show how a girl named Stargirl, struggles her way through the tenth grade as an abnormal teen. He uses imagery, diction, tone, and voice to narrow down how Stargirl relates to everybody else. The way Spinelli uses imagery is to make a picture with words. For instance, Spinelli makes Leo describe Stargirl; “ She wore an off-white dress so long it covered her shoes. It had ruffles around the neck and cuffs and looked like it could have been her great-grandmothers wedding gown.” He also said, “ Her hair was the color of sand. It fell to her shoulders. Something was strapped across her back, but it wasn’t a book bag. At first I thought it was a miniature guitar. I found out later it was a ukulele.” Spinelli uses diction to describe Stargirl’s word choice. When she sang happy birthday to Alan Ferko, she sang “ Happy birthday, dear Alan Fer-kooooh.” Stargirl’s diction was different from everybody else’s diction. Leo says “ there were individual variants here and there, of course, but within pretty narrow limits we all wore the same clothes, talked the same way, ate the same food, and listened to the same music.” The tone Spinelli uses when he was writing Stargirl was a romantic yet comedic tone. The reason it was a romantic tone was because Leo finds himself dating Stargirl. He started seeing people avoiding him throughout the story while he was dating Stargirl. Also, the comedic part of the story was when the little boy cried for his “Banana Roadster toy”. Throughout the story once again, Spinelli had a romantic yet comedic tone. To show how Stargirl’s diction was different from everyone else’s. Imagery to paint an image with words throughout the story, and