Spinelli, as a kid, was a far cry from the classic library-haunting, pencil-wielding writer in the making. He excelled in reading comics, the sports section of the newspaper, and cereal boxes, and his dreams focused on playing professional baseball when he grew up.
When I was growing up, the first thing I wanted to be was a cowboy. That lasted till I was about ten.
Then I wanted to be a baseball player. Preferably shortstop for the New York Yankees. I played Little League
in junior high and high school. I only hit two home runs in my career, but I had no equal when it came to
standing at shortstop and chattering to my pitcher: C'mon, baby, hum the pea. Unfortunately, when I stood
at the plate, so many peas were hummed past me for strikes that I decided to let somebody else become
shortstop for the Yankees.
It was about that time that our high school football team won a heart-stopping game against one of the best teams in the country. While the rest of the town was tooting horns and celebrating, I went home and wrote a poem about the game. A few days later the poem was published in the local newspaper, and suddenly I had something new to become: a writer.
That published poem celebrating the victory of his high school football team set Spinelli on the journey that ultimately led to a career in children's literature. After high school he attended Gettysburg College where he got his Bachelor?s degree of Arts. At John Hopkins College University, he got his Masters of Creative Writing. Then came over twenty years in magazine editing, and marriage to children's writer Eileen Mesi, whose five children from a previous marriage provided Spinelli with a ready-made family. He wrote, over the years and during stolen lunch hours, four unpublished adult novels. But the children he inherited through his marriage to Mesi soon proved an inspiration in a different direction.
"Early one summer morning," Spinelli explained in an autobiographical essay for the Web site Embracing the Child, "I opened the refrigerator to get the fried chicken I had left there the night before. I had left the chicken in a bag. Five pieces. I planned to take them to work for my lunch that day." "Well, the bag was still there," he continues, "and so was the chicken. Chicken bones, that is. It seems that one of our angels sleeping upstairs had had a little snack the night before." The morning he discovered the missing chicken was the morning he was driven to take up pen and paper to describe the incident. "Spinelli started to write about the incident from an adult's point of view, just as he always had," Jennifer M. Brown stated in a Publishers Weekly assessment. "But then a thought came to him: it might be more interesting to write the story from the kid's point of view."
The writing inspired by the chicken incident ultimately became Spinelli's first published book, Space Station
Seventh Grade, a novel that details the trials and tribulations Jason Herkimer experiences through puberty.
In his debut young adult novel are the trademark Spinelli elements: the use of adolescent vernacular, confused
racial and gender stereotyping, and edgy situations as well as humor and empathetic characters. Jason is a
person readers can identify with, a protagonist who grows through his experiences.
In 1990 Spinelli published one of his most popular titles, Maniac Magee. In some ways, Maniac Magee has become the work most identified with his success, as well as with the author's own life. He has "admitted that he and Maniac Magee are one and the same.`Childhood that is remembered takes on a quality that is practically indistinguishable from what we think of as myth,' the author says."
Jerry Spinelli regrets that he didn't enjoy every moment of his childhood: Each of us, in our kidhood, was a Huckleberry Finn, drifting on a current that seemed tortuously slow at times, poling for the shore to check out every slightest glimmer in the trees the taste of Brussels sprouts your first forward roll cruising a mall without a parent overnight it making your own grilled cheese sandwich the thousand landfalls of our adolescence . And now we know what we did not know then: What an adventure it was!
Today Jerry Spinelli is living in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. He lives with his wife, Eileen, and two of his sons Sean and Ben. Currently, Spinelli is now in his sixties. He enjoys listening to country music, tennis, pet rats, and traveling.
1982 Space Station Seventh Grade Space Station Seventh Grade follows the first year of middle school for Jason Herkimer- a suburban Pennsylvanian everykid. The book follows Jason from the sad end of summer to the terrors of middle school where 9th grade monsters prey upon 7th graders, where one has to take a shower after gym, where Home Economics is a subject, and where his teenage hormones start to wreak havoc upon him- creating pimples, making him act up and become a discipline problem, and making him go ga-ga for cheerleader Debbie Breen.
1984 Who Put That Hair in My Toothbrush Who Put That Hair in My Toothbrush? details the lives of two suburban Pennsylvannian middle-schoolers: ninth grader, Greg Tofer, and his seventh grader sister, Megin. Each character has alternating chapters to allow Greg and Megin to discuss their lives. Greg's life revolves mainly around girls- his desire to impress his crush, Jennifer Wade, with a body toned and tanned by a summer of weightlifting and healthy eating, and his relationship with a much more available girl, Sara Bellamy. However, most of the book is about the rivalry between Greg and Megin.
1985 Night of the Whale
"School is over and Wags just graduated from high school. There are no parents anywhere. Wags has got a permission to take five friends to her family's beach house. The senior week for Wags is going to be great. Wags is going to take five of her friends: Digger, Mouse, Timmi, Lauren, and Breeze. Mouse's nickname comes from his size.
On night their happy week was interrupted when they saw a whole group of whales stranded along a deserted section of the beach. So, everyone wants to save the whales by returning them back to the sea, but they are wondering if it is worth doing it.
1986 Jason and Marceline
Jason Herkimer and Marceline McAllister have been friends since Space Station Seventh Grade, though Marceline embarasses Jason with her trombone playing, goofy sunglasses and general refusal to conform. Thus, Jason is surprised to find himself in love with Marcelineand even more surprised when she rejects him. He indulges in sort of macho behavior until being part of the crowd is no longer satisfying. One day in the lunch line, a naive seventh grader, Rudy, starts choking. When Jason saves him using the Heimlich maneuver, Rudy grabs him in a grateful hug and won't let go. Jason is horrified at first because everyone in the cafeteria is watching, but understanding Rudy's terror, he gently hugs him back. Marceline is touched by Jason's kindness. They are reconciled, and their friendship/romance is ready to move to a new level. Spinelli's teenagers are fresh and funny, sometimes crude, sometimes poignant, and always very real.
1988 Dump Days J.D. and Duke have just finished sixth grade and have the entire summer before them to conjure up ways to earn enough money to finance their Perfect Day, which is plotted out in detail: they begin with zeppolis in the morning, more zeppolis in the evening, and Italian ices, video games and comic-book buying wedged in-between). They soak up their West End neighborhood offerings, from rat hunting at the local dump to dealing with prejudice against a talented Vietnamese girl who plays the violin, to standing up to the local bully. Spinelli spins a story that weaves together the shared conversations and small-town adventures of a friendship based on trust, humor, compassion and imagination.
1990 Maniac Magee Maniac Magee is a folk story about a boy, a very excitable boy. One that can outrun dogs, hit a home run off the best pitcher in the neighborhood, tie a knot no one can undo. "Kid's gotta be a maniac," is what the folks in Two Mills say. It's also the story of how this boy, Jeffrey Lionel "Maniac" Magee, confronts racism in a small town, tries to find a home where there is none and attempts to soothe tensions between rival factions on the tough side of town. Presented as a folk tale, it's the stuff of storytelling. "The history of a kid," says Jerry Spinelli, "is one part fact, two parts legend, and three parts snowball." And for this kid, four parts of fun.
Maniac Magee won the 1991 Newbery Medal.
1990 The Bathwater Gang Eleven short chapters plus black-line illustrations develop a slight story about Bertie Kidd. She tells her energetic grandmother that she is bored on the second day of summer vacation, and her grandmother suggests that she start a gang. Fifty-nine girls gather for free pizza but only two show up at the first club meeting; the boys form a counter gang and mischief ensues. Finally, a free-for-all mud fight (with Granny improbably unrecognized under all that mud) convinces everyone that it is more fun to do things together. The title refers to the new gang's purpose: providing a mobile pet washing service. A book that's light and entertaining.
1991 There's a Girl in My Hammerlock Maisie Potter knows what she wants, she knows why, and she knows how to get it. So when her teenage hormones begin acting up around Eric Delong, she abandons girls' field hockey for cheerleading. And when she doesn't make the squad, she patiently waits for next season's sports to begin, and to the horror of almost everyone in the school, tries out for wrestling. Of course, this is an all boys' team, and Eric Delong is one of those boys. Maisie makes the team and surprises everyone with her endurance and skill. She also makes more than her share of enemies, including Lizard Liz Lamply, Eric's aggressive girlfriend, and Holly, her fickle best friend. But Maisie has heart and determination--she's a female Maniac Magee with an intact, nurturing family, and she picks up more well-wishers along the way, as pockets of strength appear in refreshingly whole supporting characters. Maisie's is an original and vibrant adolescent voice--curious, confident, and very alive. She tells a story of sexism and challenges that is fresh from the headlines and perfectly integrated into the everyday events at a suburban junior high school.
1991 Fourth Grade Rats Narrator Suds (so called because a warm bath is his most effective solace) is having a tough time complying with best- friend Joey's demand that he give up baby stuff like peanut- butter sandwiches and his treasured elephant-covered lunch box; macho behavior--such as being mean to little kids and creating chaos in his room--is even harder, while saying ``No'' to his mom proves almost impossible. Still, Joey's new behavior--especially his stoicism after a bee-sting--have such a dramatic effect on friend Judy's affections that Suds makes the effort, to the dismay of parents and teacher. Judy's regard turns out to be as fickle as it is self-serving; she literally leaves Suds up a tree after he rescues her cat. After Mom comes to the rescue, she and Joey's mother call a halt to the premature adolescent behavior-- to everyone's relief.
1991 School Daze: Report to the Principal's Office t's the first day of school at Plumstead Middle School and already there's trouble. It starts with Sunny, who is determined to do whatever it will take to get herself suspended. Then there's Eddie, who has a three-point plan for fitting in, but still gets beaten up on the morning bus. Salem is all too pleased to witness Eddie's troubles--as a future famous writer, she's drawn to drama. And on top of it all, there's Pickles Johnson, who is just...well...Pickles.
These four sixth graders have only one thing in common. They're all about to report to the principal's office.
1992 Who Ran My Underwear up the Flagpole? It's football season at Plumstead Middle School, and everything is up in the air. Sunny has become a cheerleader--the first ever to wear a frown and beat up fans who refuse to cheer. Eddie has gone out for football to prove that he's grown up despite his superhero underwear--and to try to impress a certain cheerleader. Salem has become the football team's manager, and she's starting a new time-out tradition that the team will never forget. And Pickles is leading Plumstead's pathetic marching band...to a very unusual beat.
1992 Do the Funky Pickle Eddie Mott has a problem. He is completely and hopelessly in love with his friend Sunny...and he's way too wimpy to tell her. But the school dance is approaching quickly and Eddie knows it's time to act. He has to find a way to make Sunny notice him...but how? Eddie and Pickles come up with a plan that's sure to attract attention. But the girl who falls for Eddie at the dance isn't Sunny-- it's Angelpuss, the girlfriend of the toughest, meanest eighth grader around. Eddie is in big, big trouble-- unless he and Pickles can come up with some new moves...fast.
1992 The Bathwater Gang Gets down to Business The sequel to The Bathtub Gang this book finds the kids struggling to drum up business for their pet-cleaning enterprise so they can earn enough money to go to the circus. However, when they have trouble attracting customers, they resort to some outrageous tricks to ensure that their neighbors will want to have their pets washed.
1993 Picklemania Plumstead Middle School is full of secret plans. Eddie is on a mission to bulk up--he's sick of being the skinniest, scrawniest, runtiest kid in school. Sunny is plotting something that will keep the school bullies from ever bothering her again. Salem is trying to figure out who sent her that mysterious valentine message in the school newspaper. And Pickles has been building his greatest invention yet-- and it's almost time to unveil it.
1995 Tooter Pepperday On the day her family moves to Aunt Sally's farm, Tooter handcuffs herself to the bathroom sink. How will she exist without fast food and pizza delivery? She thinks farm life stinks, literally and figuratively. Sabotage is her style, and she doesn't change her attitude until she's given an egg to incubate. Not surprisingly, the chick hatches and Tooter comes to love the farm, but along the way, there are enough farm jokes and silly scenes (Tooter steps in goat poop) to keep readers turning the pages. It's a bit like Ramona meeting Ma and Pa Kettle.
1996 Crash Ever since first grade "Crash" Coogan has been tormenting dweeby Penn Ward, a skinny vegetarian Quaker boy who lives in a tiny former garage with his aged parents. Now that they're in seventh grade, "chippy chirpy perky" Penn becomes an even better target: not only does Penn still wear outdated used clothes, he joins the cheerleading squad. But even though Crash becomes the school's star football player and wears the most expensive togs from the mall, he still can't get what Penn has?his parents' attention and the admiration of the most gorgeous girl in school. And when his beloved grandfather Scooter is severely disabled by a stroke, Crash no longer sees the fun in playing brutal pranks and begins to realize that there are more important things in life than wearing new sneaks and being a sports star.
1997 The Library Card As is true of the omniscient librarian who appears in some of the stories, the library card is supernatural. It imposes itself first on Mongoose, or Jamie, who with his 12-year-old friend shoplifts candy and makes mischief until he is pulled into an intoxicating world of learning. In ``Brenda,'' broadly comic events occur when a TV-crazy teen has the plug pulled for a week. After such desperate moments as when she puts the rabbit ears of an absent television into her mouth, hoping to pick up signals, she begins to catch up on her life. In ``Sonseray,'' a homeless drifter pays back his mean and lonely nephew by withholding details of the boy's dead mother, an unusual and powerful piece of cruelty. The last story shows two unlikely friends making a match.
1997 Wringer In the popular fund-raiser that caps the town of Waymer's annual, weeklong Family Fest, entrants gun down thousands of live pigeons, while, under the guidance of a ``wringmaster,'' ten-year-old boys are enlisted to break the necks of birds that are only wounded. Even after winning acceptance (and a nickname, ``Snots'') from neighborhood bully Beans, and learning to join in the relentless harassment of his one-time friend, Dorothy Gruzik, Palmer regards his fast-approaching tenth birthday with dread. Then, like the Ancient Mariner's albatross, a pigeon appears at his bedroom window and moves in, calmly ignoring Palmer's halfhearted efforts to shoo it away. ``Nipper'' provides comic relief, both in its own behavior, and in Palmer's frantic attempts to conceal it from his parents and from Beans. He finds a--more or less--sympathetic ear in Dorothy, who, after some fence-mending, gives him the support and impetus he needs to make his true feelings known. She even spirits Nipper out of town as Family Fest approaches, but unknowingly leaves the pigeon where it can be captured for the shoot--and the stage is set for a dramatic rescue.
1998: Blue Ribbon Blues: A Tooter Tale Ever since her family moved to Aunt Sally's farm, Tooter's known that farm life is definitely not for her. There's no pizzeria for miles, her nearest neighbor is a dumb boy, and even her own pet chicken hates her! So Tooter decides to show everyone what she's made of by winning the blue ribbon at the County Fair's goat show. Now all she has to do is keep her little brother--and his paint brush--away from her prize goat! "Tooter is a real-life, plucky, resourceful heroine."
1998: Knots in My Yo-Yo String: The Autobiography of a Kid This is a loving reminiscence of childhood. Spinelli takes small, seemingly insignificant snippets of the 10 years he lived on George Street on the West End of Norristown, PA, and explains from his adult viewpoint how they were stepping-stones to his success as a popular children's book author. Even though he only read cereal boxes and comic books as a child, he displays and describes his "early leaning toward language." Phrases such as "music's bunkhouse" to define an old crank phonograph, and using "picturing" to "co-create the moment" to show how listening to the radio was interactive, are evidence of his talent with words. In a conversational tone, Spinelli fondly recalls neighbors, pastimes, and events of the 1940s and 50s. Black-and-white photos present amusing images from his past. Readers may not be familiar with all of the lingo (Bonomo's Turkish taffy) or personalities (Lash La Rue), but they will enjoy the humorous episodes. In the last chapter, the author states, "I mixed my memories with imagination to make stories, to make fiction, and when I finished writing, I had a book, my fifth novel....It became my first published book....I continued to write stories about kids and to rummage through the attic of my memories." Lucky for his readers!
2000: Stargirl Stargirl. From the day she arrives at quiet Mica High in a burst of color and sound, the hallways hum with the murmur of “Stargirl, Stargirl.” She captures Leo Borlock’s heart with just one smile. She sparks a school-spirit revolution with just one cheer. The students of Mica High are enchanted. At first.
Then they turn on her. Stargirl is suddenly shunned for everything that makes her different, and Leo, panicked and desperate with love, urges her to become the very thing that can destroy her: normal. In this celebration of nonconformity, Newbery Medalist Jerry Spinelli weaves a tense, emotional tale about the perils of popularity and the thrill and inspiration of first love.
2002Loser Donald Zinkoff has a problem and it isn't just his name. His main problem is his happiness; his enthusiasm - particularly for school where he arrives early every day. His happiness leads to laughter - loud laughter. It gets him into trouble and it sometimes gives people the wrong impression.
2003: Milkweed Jerry Spinelli paints a vivid picture of the streets of the Nazi-occupied Warsaw during World War II, as seen through the eyes of a curious, kind, orphan with many names. His name is Stopthief when people shout "Stop! Thief!" as he flees with stolen bread. Or it's Jew, "filthy son of Abraham," depending on who's talking to him. His new friend and protector Uri forces him to take the name Misha Pilsudski and to memorize a made-up story about his Gypsy background so that no one will mistake him for a Jew and kill him. Misha, a very young boy, is slow to understand what's happening around him. When he sees people running, he thinks it's a race. Nazis (Jackboots, as the children call them) marching through the streets appear to him as a delightful parade of magnificent boots. He wants to be a Jackboot!
2007: Love, Stargirl Love, Stargirl picks up a year after Stargirl ends and reveals the new life of the beloved character who moved away so suddenly at the end of Stargirl. The novel takes the form of "the world's longest letter," in diary form, going from date to date through a little more than a year's time. In her writing, Stargirl mixes memories of her bittersweet time in Mica, Arizona, with involvements with new people in her life.
We hear the voice of Stargirl herself as she reflects on time, life, Leo, and - of course - love.
2007 Eggs Nine-year-old David has recently lost his mother to a freak accident, his salesman father is constantly on the road, and he is letting his anger out on his grandmother. Sarcastic and bossy 13-year-old Primrose lives with her childlike, fortuneteller mother, and a framed picture is the only evidence of the father she never knew. Despite their differences, David and Primrose forge a tight yet tumultuous friendship, eventually helping each other deal with what is missing in their lives. This powerful, quirky novel about two very complicated, damaged children has much to say about friendship, loss, and recovery.
2008Smiles to Go "I looked at the clock.10:15. Saturday. September 26. And for me, the start of a new calendar: PD1 (The Day I Heard of the Proton's Death)." When Will, a high school freshman, learns about proton decay, he realizes that nothing lasts forever. Will doesnwant things like his Saturday night pizza-and-Monopoly tradition with his best friends to change, but he would love it if his little sister, Tabby, weren't such a brat anymore. Then Tabby is badly injured, and Will sees that, like the world around him, he may need to change, too.