Common Sense Note
There is so much to discuss here that a family, or a class, could spend days talking it over, which is why it is already a favorite with discussion groups. Two of the biggest topics are what it means to be human, and what it means to grow up. Try combining it with a movie about growing up, such as Wide Awake, or one about not growing up, such as Peter Pan.
Common Sense Review
Reviewed By: Matt Berman
Few writers could pull this off -- a book with no villains, no heroes, little real conflict, that is basically a child development text turned into a novel, yet it's moving, funny, lyrical, and has powerful appeal for both children and adults. Spinelli gives his readers a careful, at times humorous, portrait of a kid who is only special to his family, and scatters penetrating insights into growing up along the way. Zinkoff's (no one calls him Donald except his teachers) mistakes and quirks are endearing, since we're seeing them from the inside. And his one real talent, a sunny disposition, keeps his life from seeming cruel when he's not picked for teams, when he's ridiculed and taunted, when he, in short, loses, again and again.
This type of story, of course, has been done often before, though rarely with Spinelli's wit and craft. And we all know the formula -- eventually there will be some great dramatic event, the hero will have his moment to shine, and everyone will realize that he's not a loser at all. But that doesn't happen here. There's a moment when it might, but it's not something a Zinkoff, or a real child, can pull off. And therein lies Spinelli's unusual point -- not that losers are really winners, I'm ok, you're ok, but that the measuring sticks we chose may not be the only ones there are. And Spinelli has the courage to stick to his point right to the end -- no losers or winners, no heroes or villains, no happy endings or sad, just children, and their confusing ability occasionally to connect.
From the Book:
By the end of third grade most of the kids' baby teeth were gone. The permanent ones had arrived in their mouths. Around fourth grade something similar happens with eyes. The baby eyes don't drop out, nor are there eye fairies around to leave quarters under pillows, but new eyes do arrive nevertheless. Big-kid eyes replace little-kid eyes.
Little-kid eyes are scoopers. They just scoop up everything they see and swallow it whole, no questions asked. Big-kid eyes are picky. They notice things that the little-kid eyes never bothered with: the way a teacher blows her nose, the way a kids dresses or pronounces a word.
Twenty-seven classmates now turn their new big-kid eyes to Zinkoff, and suddenly they see things they haven't seen before.
Plot Summary:
Donald Zinkoff is Below Average, a condition that most adults would like to pretend doesn't exist, and that far too many children think applies most especially to themselves. He's not disabled, in danger, or orphaned; just clumsy, sloppy, not overly bright, and cheerfully clueless. He is, in the callous summation of his classmates, a Loser.
Spinelli follows him from early childhood through middle school. It is a story made up of small moments: going to work with his dad, trying (and failing) to make a best friend, answering questions in class, working up the nerve to go into the darkened basement. It's the story, in short, of a perfectly ordinary child.
Related Books:
Other Books by Jerry Spinelli
Fourth Grade Rats
Maniac Magee
The Library Card
Wringer
Stargirl
Milkweed
Watching Children Grow Up
What Hearts by Bruce Brooks
Thursday's Children by Rumer Godden
The Facts and Fictions of Minna Pratt by Patricia MacLachlan
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
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