The novel Loser by Jerry Spinelli is a dreadful book. It is concerning a young boy named Donald Zinkoff who is a very positive person and lets nothing pessimistic affect him. He knows about all the negative things going around him. He is disliked among the students in
…more school and addressed the name “Loser”. This book seems to take some readers into the depth of it in Zinkoff’s so-called journey through school, except me.
While Zinkoff grows up, he encounters many troubles in his journey through school life. He is detested among the students at John W. Satterfield Elementary School and considered a laughing stock also known as a Loser. He has a very odd behaviour towards his “bullying”. He does not reply verbally or even physically. Zinkoff just ignores the facts pretending not to know them. Donald gets fascinated by first-time experiences like, the first day of school, writing his full name, the furnace monster in his basement, and also pleasing himself to become a mailman just like his father. Zinkoff has many ups and downs in his life but still, he faces them no matter what. Despite not liking this book, I still learned a lesson, like every reader would probably get; never try to fit in a group or with the popular kids. You will get nowhere with that. There is no problem of being yourself; you should not have to change yourself even a bit to someone’s desire.
I can not connect with this book because I have never been
bullied. But I can still sympathize with the affected people, however I can not empathize. Problems mentioned in this book occur in schools everyday. It has hurt many students and still is. It is very mean to upset someone. We should prevent it from happening in our school. If one sees someone getting pushed around, don’t be one of the people from the crowd to watch the scenario, be the one to consult for help. I perceive that this type of behaviour is awful.
Jerry Spinelli, the author hasn’t shown a lot description about Donald. He should have at least shown a picture of Zinkoff. If that wasn’t promising, then an explanation could have been included maybe telling he is a tall boy with brown eyes etc. If this was contained in the book, it might have made a difference in the portrayal of the novel. The book didn’t seem to have any action in it. It simply wasn’t the type of book that would keep me on the "edge of my chair". It also changed subjects too often. Another reason would be that Jerry Spinelli could have kept this book ongoing or something like another book that continues and concludes it. You obviously can not disclose a child’s life during 1st Grade to 6th Grade in a merely 200 page book. It should absolutely have another book ending it. Even though I didn’t like this book, I still would have wanted to know about the end. That’s just my habit.
I would like to mention it again that Loser is an atrocious book. It should have been taken off the shelves of book stores that have this novel. I would under no circumstances ever recommend this book to readers who are fond of action books. But the ones who like the s-l-o-w type, yes I would recommend it to them. (less)
.png)
