Reader Response to Loser by Jerry Spinelli
Inside cover reads:
"Zinkoff is like all kids--running, playing, riding his bike. Hoping for snow days, wanting to be his dad when he grows up. Zinkoff is not like the other kids--raising his hand with all the wrong answers, tripping over his own feet, falling down with laughter over a word like "Jabip." The kids have their own word to describe him, but Zinkoff is too busy to hear it."
My Rxn:
ok. i started reading this way back in may whilst i was substitute teaching... i found it on the shelf with various other Jerry Spinelli books, and it looked interesting. I polished at good 3/4 of it in one day, but i didn't go back to washington the next day to sub, and i couldn't find it at the manitowoc public library right away. ok. so now that i have it... i don't have very great things to say about it.
the protagonist is an interesting child with a solid family unit. his parents love him for who he is.... but his schoolmates do not. there really isn't much to the plot... it's just pretty much a glimpse in the life of this kid every year in school... and how things change over the course of time.
kids are little bloodsucking beasts, and this book proves it. Zinkoff's classmates are pretty accepting of him up until 4th grade... and then
"By the end of 3rd grade, most of the kids=s 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 kid dresses or pronounces a word" (99).
it shows just how smucky kids can be to one another. there are a few points of tension, and some interesting parenting skills involved, but this book was an unfortunate disappointment. no word nerd seal of approval. it's cute. but that's all it's got going for it.
Inside cover reads:
"Zinkoff is like all kids--running, playing, riding his bike. Hoping for snow days, wanting to be his dad when he grows up. Zinkoff is not like the other kids--raising his hand with all the wrong answers, tripping over his own feet, falling down with laughter over a word like "Jabip." The kids have their own word to describe him, but Zinkoff is too busy to hear it."
My Rxn:
ok. i started reading this way back in may whilst i was substitute teaching... i found it on the shelf with various other Jerry Spinelli books, and it looked interesting. I polished at good 3/4 of it in one day, but i didn't go back to washington the next day to sub, and i couldn't find it at the manitowoc public library right away. ok. so now that i have it... i don't have very great things to say about it.
the protagonist is an interesting child with a solid family unit. his parents love him for who he is.... but his schoolmates do not. there really isn't much to the plot... it's just pretty much a glimpse in the life of this kid every year in school... and how things change over the course of time.
kids are little bloodsucking beasts, and this book proves it. Zinkoff's classmates are pretty accepting of him up until 4th grade... and then
"By the end of 3rd grade, most of the kids=s 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 kid dresses or pronounces a word" (99).
it shows just how smucky kids can be to one another. there are a few points of tension, and some interesting parenting skills involved, but this book was an unfortunate disappointment. no word nerd seal of approval. it's cute. but that's all it's got going for it.
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