Mrs. Butcher's Jerry Spinelli Links
CRASH
Crash Coogan is the seventh-grade football star and he's been crashing into anything that's in his way from the time he started walking. Penn Webb, his nerdy, vegetarian peace-loving neighbor, has always been his favorite target. Crash has always been a winner and things have always come easy for him. But now he has met the girl of his dreams and she's not impressed with him at all. Then his grandfather has a stroke, and his best friend, Mike, takes a prank against Penn a little too far…Crash takes a good look at what really counts. Crash, the football star, has to choose which side he's really on.
LOSER
Donald Zinkoff is a loser but he doesn't know it. He's the kid who wore a giraffe hat on the first day of first grade and giggles uncontrollably. He's the kind of kid others will often say is a "geek" or a "dork". But Donald Zinkoff doesn't car. When Donald Zinkoff is happy he likes to shout "Yahoo!" One day, a little girl is missing in a blizzard and Donald gives his all to try and find her. Is Donald Zinkoff really a loser? You decide. Read Loser by Jerry Spinelli.
STARGIRL
Stargirl was like a breath of fresh air, but we were so used to pollution we didn't appreciate her. In the lunchroom she serenades people with her ukulele on their birthday. She does nice things for total strangers. When Stargirl joins the cheerleading squad she cheers for the other team as well. Perhaps the strangest thing is that she seems to like me. At first I'm too nervous to notice Stargirl’s noticing me. Once I get up the courage to acknowledge her the world seems to take on new meaning. Until the school turned on Stargirl, and by association, turned on me. It was hard having people ignore me. So hard that I convinced Stargirl to become like everyone else. Unfortunately, that meant she was no longer Stargirl. She loved me for what I was, but I couldn't love her for herself. I couldn't be brave enough to love her when it meant others despised me. I let myself down.
EGGS
Someone didn’t follow the rules and David’s mother died.
Now he’s going to follow every rule so nothing else could go wrong. He knows it isn’t possible logically, but maybe if he’s good it will bring his mother back.
And he definitely doesn’t want to risk someone else’s love, so he does everything he can to keep his grandmother at a distance.
He does develop an unlikely friendship with bossy and sarcastic Primrose A girl who breaks ALL the rules. Should he risk letting someone this unpredictable into his life?
4th GRADE RATS
Fourth grade rats don't cry. They aren't afraid of spiders, they push little kids off of swings, they say no to their mothers, and they eat real meat like bologna instead of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Unlike his friend Joey, Suds Morton wishes he was still in third grade so he could keep being an angel. For Suds, being a rat isn't easy. It takes a lot of practice. He snatches Twinkies from little kids, lets a spider crawl up his arm, and climbs onto the roof to prove he's not afraid. He even gets detention for laughing during Silent Reading. But is this enough to make a rat out of Suds? To find out read Fourth Grade Rats by Newbery Award winning author Jerry Spinelli
THERE’S A GIRL IN MY HAMMERLOCK
Can a girl really play on the boy's wrestling team? Maisie is a good enough wrestler to win the admiration of her coach, but will the boys on her team and those in her community who write the awful letters to the paper ever let her fit in with the wrestling team? Will Maisie ever be able to get closer to Eric? Find out by reading There's a Girl in My Hammerlock , by Jerry Spinelli.
KNOTS IN MY YO YO STRING
When he was young, Jerry Spinelli wanted to grow up to become a professional baseball player, a shortstop. He was known as a sports nut as well as the fastest runner. The last thing young Jerry, who didn't like to read, would expect to be was a writer.
In this book you can see how Jerry Spinelli got he ideas for Zinkoff, from Loser, Maniac Magee , Maisie in There's a Girl in My Hammerlock , and Crash . Find out how Jerry Spinelli became a writer in this autobiography, Knots in My Yo-Yo String.
