LITERARY ELEMENTS

SETTING

The setting for Stargirl was Mica, a made-up town in Arizona. It was a fairly new town, developed around an electronics business park a decade and a half earlier.

Arizona is a fascinating state, quite different from northern states and eastern states. The soil is sand. Cactuses grow easily. A grassless front yard is common. Summers are very hot and dry in the mostly desert-like environment.

CHARACTER LIST

Major Characters

Stargirl
Her real name is Susan Julia Caraway. She was a 10th grade girl with blonde hair and freckles. She called herself Stargirl. Stargirl was mysterious. While the reader does become acquainted with her during the reading of the book, she maintains her mysterious quality. She was different from the other students at Mica High School. If she transferred to another high school, she would still be considered different there as well.

Leo Borlock
Leo Borlock, the narrator of the story, was a student at Mica High School. He found himself thinking about Stargirl much of the time. He wanted to understand her. He and his friend, Kevin, set up and ran a popular program at the school called Hot Seat.

Archie Brubaker
Archie was a retired professor who had known Stargirl for years, since long before she started going to Mica High School.

Kevin Quinlan
Kevin was a student at Mica High School. He was a good friend of Leo Borlock. Together they ran a popular program at school called Hot Seat.

Hillari
Hilari was the developer of Hilari's Hypothesis, as Kevin called it. She stated that Stargirl was a plant. She was famous for her mouth; The Hoax, in which she tried out for the cheerleading squad, was chosen, and then did not join; and her boyfriend, Wayne Parr.

Minor Characters

Alan Ferko
Stargirl sang to him on his birthday, the second day of school.

Cinnamon
Stargirl's pet rat. Cinnamon traveled with Stargirl.

Dori Dilson
A ninth grade poet who nobody knew until, one day, she sat with Stargirl in the lunchroom.

Mallory Stillwell
The captain of the Mica High School cheerleaders.

Anna Grisdale
A senior whose grandfather died during the school year.

Danny Pike
Danny Pike was a nine-year-old who had an accident while riding his bicycle.

Brent Ardsley
Brent Ardsley was the leading scorer on the Mica Area High School basketball team.

Mr. Robineau
The faculty advisor for Hot Seat.

Chico
The Hot Seat close-up camera and its operator. Chico was the real name of the first close-up camera operator. The current cose-up camera operator only had that name while he was using the camera.

Jennifer St. John, Damon Ricci, Mike Ebersole, Becca Rinaldi, Renee Bozeman
Along with Hillari Kimble, these five were on the Hot Seat jury the day that Stargirl was the guest.

Ron Kovac
Sun Valley basketball team superstar who was injured during a game with the Mica Electrons.

Barney
This was a Paleocene rodent skull.

Señor Saguaro
This was a thirty-foot-tall giant cactus.

Clarissa, Betty, and Adam
Three people who Stargirl and Leo followed one day. The names were not their real names, just used for them by Stargirl and Leo.

Peter Sinkowitz
A five year old neighbor of Stargirl. She took pictures of him that she planned to save in an album to be given to him when he was older.

Renshaw
A fellow student whose name Leo yelled in the courtyard one day to see if he would respond to him or shun him.

Susan Julia Caraway
Stargirl's given name.

Mr. McShane
Faculty representative who drove Stargirl and Leo to the Arizona state oratorical contest in Phoenix.

Raymond Studemacher
The Mica High School student who asked Stargirl to dance at the Ocotillo Ball.

Guy Greco
The leader of the Serenaders. He and his musicians continued to play the bunny hop after the conga line disappeared into the desert and did not stop until after the line returned, even though Hillari insisted that they play other dance music.