The new girl to Mica Area High School is Stargirl Caraway. She marches to a different drummer with her wacky clothes, her rendition of Happy Birthday to students on their special days and her constant companion pet rat, Cinnamon. At first, the school embraces her non-conformity, but then she does the unthinkable……….she cheers and comforts the opposing basketball team when they lose their best player due to injury for the season. It proves to be too much for these teenagers and they begin to shun her. Leo Burdick, a popular student, has fallen in love with her, but because of his attachment to her, he has encountered the wrath of the students and is also avoided. Leo begs Stargirl to become ‘normal’. She does. Yet, these immature students show no mercy, nor acceptance and redemption is not forth-coming for Stargirl, even when she brings a great honor to Mica High. Leo is torn with his feelings for her and for his need for peer approval. She disappears from his life, and as the years go on, there is always a nagging question of where she is and what she is doing.
Told from the point of view of a 31 year old Leo, the memories of this girl named Stargirl evoke days of laughter, days of sadness, acts of kindness and an ability to see this crazy world as one that can be filled with wonder and joy, if only one will let the “starlight” shine through.