297. Crash Book Report

About the Author

Jerry Spinelli, who is a world-renowned author, has written over 30 books!! He initially wanted to write for adults, but changed his writing for kids.

When Jerry was a child, he wanted to be a cowboy, but, during 11th grade, his ambition changed to be a baseball player. When he wrote a poem about a football game, it was published in his hometown, Norristown, PA. This was the first start for Jerry to become an author. 

Jerry Spinelli, now, 76 years old lives in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, with his wife and six kids. Even though Jerry is an older author, he's still cooking up some more juicy books for his young readers. 

Vocabulary

 1.   Infantry- “First, you wipe out all the infantry with the machine gun, then you go after the tanks.” (23)

      -Soldiers or military units that fight on foot, in modern times typically with rifles, machine guns, grenades, mortars, etc., as weapons. (noun) (dictionary.com)

2.   Tinsel- “And the lights on our tree will be all different colors, and there’ll be all kinds of balls, and tons of tinsel, you’ll think there was silver. (109)

•  A glittering metallic substance. (noun)

             (dictionary.com)

     3.     Dinkiest - “In fact, I found out since then that it really was a garage once, until someone changed it into the world’s dinkiest house.” (7)

• Small, unimportant, unimpressive, or shabby. 

              (adjective) (dictionary.com)

     4.   Claptrap - I guessed I was getting a little tired of all this claptrap.” (21)

•   Pretentious but insincere or empty language. (noun)

            (dictionary.com)

5. Juking - “We started thumping each other, juking, throwing body blocks.” (39) 

• To make a move intended to deceive an opponent. 

             (verb) (Dictionary.com

 Character Analysis:

        Crash- 

                      Crash is a boy who is aggressive and competitive. It shows when he was six years old and he makes fun of Penn, and he shows his aggressive side. When Crash was fighting with Mike Deluca in the cafeteria, he showed a bit of his competitiveness.

         Webb- 

                          Webb is the opposite of Crash. He is very sportive. When Crash was making fun of him, Penn didn’t care, and kept being nice to Crash.

          Scooter-

                            Scooter, who is elderly, played flag football with Crash, Abby, and Crash’s dad, and Scooter forgot about being older, and he was playing like a little kid.

Summary

 In the story, “Crash,” a six-year-old boy named John Coogan, also called Crash, meets a boy named Penn, who, unlike Crash is quiet. Crash soon dislikes Penn, and tries to prank him in any way. Crash eventually gives up on pranking until someone new comes to town.

     Mike Deluca, who's exactly like Crash, tries to convince him, to continue playing pranks on Penn. Mike's idea backfires when something happens to Crash’s grandfather, Scooter. 

    As Penn, Crash and Mike head into 7th grade, Crash starts to change, and everyone around him notices. 

Literary Devices

In the book, Crash, Jerry Spinelli uses metaphors, repetition, and imagery. 

Metaphors - 

            Page 30, “it was like watching a cat watching a squirrel.” 

Repetition - 

             He uses, “Bam! Bam! Bam!” on page 14.

Imagery -  Page 102 - 103 when Crash accidently tackles Scooter.

Theme

 The book Crash, had many themes, but one main theme in the book is friendship between Crash and Mike. On page 29, Crash says that he knew that he and Mike were going to be best friends from the moment they met. And later in the book when Mike and Crash were in the cafeteria, they began fighting! So, the principal said that Mike and Crash were known for their competitiveness and they both have the same interests.