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General
- Aluminum Christmas Trees: In Love, Stargirl, Stargirl writes in detail about two of the yearly events in her Pennsylvania town as she experiences them for the first time: the Dogwood Festival, which welcomes springtime with a parade headed by a Dogwood Queen, and the Blobfest, a summer celebration honoring the town's cinematic heritage as the shooting location of the 50s B-movie The Blob. Though they sound a bit strange, both are actual events that happen annually in Jerry Spinelli's hometown of Phoenixville, Pennsylvania.
- Stargirl also noted at one point that unlike the Dogwood Festival, Blobfest does not have a royal court. In recent years, though, a Mx. Blobfest pageant has become part of the regular festivities of the celebration.
- Defictionalization: The book inspired the creation of a program called the Stargirl Society
, where teachers form clubs that focus on "dialogue and meaningful activities relating to issues faced by girls today, service learning projects, and a focus on the arts, creativity, and problem solving." - Similarly Named Works: The film based on the Spinelli book was released two months prior to the debut of the DC Universe/CW series of the same name (based on the DC Comics series). Possibly to avoid any confusion, DC Universe and The CW emphasized promoting the latter "DC's Stargirl".
Film
- Non-Actor Vehicle: The film version is this for Grace Vanderwaal, a winner of America's Got Talent.
- Saved from Development Hell: Stargirl's adaptation began development in 2015 but wasn't released until 2020.
- What Could Have Been: The film started development in 2015 and was going to be directed by Catherine Hardwicke and star Joey King as Stargirl and Charlie Plummer as Leo. Nothing ever came out of this iteration and it restarted production three years later with Julia Hart directing and Stargirl and Leo played by Grace Vanderwaal and Graham Verchere respectively.
