Loser

Written by Jerry Spinelli

Scholastic, 2002

Genre: Children's contemporary fiction

Reading Level: Ages 9-12

224 pages

Loser is the story of a rambunctious young boy and his love of school. The book starts out with Donald Zinkoff's first day of school. He is so excited he runs there all by himself in his giraffe hat. He really likes his teacher, and he really likes the kids at school, even the ones that are mean to him. Though he is hyper and has horrible penmanship his teacher seems to like him too. The book introduces Zinkoff's family, his loving mother, and father who likes used cars because they are cheap. His father is a mailman and Zinkoff wants to be one too. One day at school Zinkoff's teacher makes up a word and Zinkoff cannot stop laughing he gets in trouble, but he is still happy, optimistic, and giggly. By the end of chapter seven Zinkoff has finished first grade.In the next section of his book it talks about Zinkoff's time in the summer before his second grade year. He gets a new baby sister, and a new friend, Andrew. Who doesn't say much and is upset he had to move to this new home, but Zinkhoff does what he can to be nice to Andrew. The author also tells about Zinkoff's soccer games and how he doesn't know how to react when they lose and is disliked by his teammates until he accidentally scores the winning goal. Zinkoff's second grade teacher doesn't like him very much because of his horrible penmanship, rowdiness, and his constant throwing up. In the next section of the book it is take you child to work day but since Zinkoff's father is a mailman he's not allowed to take passengers. So he helps Zinkoff write 100 letters and they pretend to be mailmen and deliver them all around the neighborhood. He meets a nice old lady, and his dad tells him about the "waiting man" who stands in his window and stares out of it all day waiting for his brother to come back from the war after he has been declared MIA. Soon after Zinkoff has surgery to fix his throwing up and is stuck home from school. He decides to give himself a test and not be scared of the cellar. He goes a little farther down into it each day darker and darker until he can stay for x amount of minutes, he gets scared and can't stay very long and believes he has failed, but at least he wasn't as bored. In the fourth grade Zinkoff is "discovered" at school. His teacher likes him but the students start to notice all his faults and decide that he is weird. It all goes down hill at field day where there is a bunch of competitive games and Zinkoff keeps his team from winning, he is now known to his classmates to be a loser, and it hurts his feelings. Then it jumps to fifth grade, Zinkoff doesn't believe in a lot of childish things, such as Santa Claus, he can basically ride his bike where he pleases and he meets new friends in doing so. And one day during a test he decides that a boy in his class is his best friend, and does everything he can to be his best friend. But the other kid isn't very willing and they soon grow apart. Then all too soon field day comes again and Zinkoff is despised by his classmates, he is so upset he skips that day of school and spends it with his old lady friend. Then the author jumps forward to Zinkoff's graduation day. He graduates from fifth grade and starts sixth grade in a new school, no one recognizes his existence and he is never picked to play basketball with the other boys. One day when it was snowing a lot Zinkoff hears that his friend, a little girl down the street is missing, he goes out to help look and ends up being lost and found again by a snow plow man at 1 in the morning. His parents were very worried and tell him that the girl was found soon after she went missing. Zinkoff is grounded but the next day at school some new boys learn his name and seeing that he is a boy that won't give up tells him to play basketball with them, seeing no other option.

I would recommend this book to any kids, especially those who feel like outcasts in their school.

I think that the only controversy that could come from this book would be parents worrying about their children acting like Zinkhoff did.

I liked this book ok, i thought it was well written and entertaining but it went a little slow. Though i'm sure any child could relate to it, and enjoy it a lot from that standpoint.

My rating 3 out of 5