Jerry Spinelli

Jerry Spinelli, began writing when he wasn’t much older than Jeffrey Lionel Magee, the main character in his 1991 Newbery Medal winning novel Maniac Magee. When Spinelli was sixteen years old, his high school football team won a big game, and the whole town celebrated the victory. While his classmates raced cheering through the streets, Jerry raced home to mark the occasion in his own special way. He wrote a poem that was later published in the town paper.

Having had a house full of children, six to be exact, Jerry Spinelli has a wealth of real life characters and situations to draw upon. He is also gifted with the ability to recall his own childhood and turn those memories and experiences into marvelous books for young readers.

Jerry Spinelli reflects on the power of childhood memories and their effect on his work: “Isn’t it a magical, wonderful thing that our childhoods are not irretrievably lost to us, like the juice squeezed forever from an orange, and that without moving so much as an eyelash we can call back Buddy Brathwaite’s bare, rat-proof feet, or Ginny Sukoloski’s dungaree nipping duck, or Joey Lapella’s green teeth?

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…overnighting it…making your own grilled cheese sandwich…the weird way you felt when Sally Duffy scrunched next to you in the mob coming out of the movie…the thousand landfalls of our adolescence. And the current flows faster and faster, adulthood’s delta looms, and one day we look to get our bearings and find that we are out to sea.

“And now we know what we did not know then: What an adventure it was!”

Jerry Spinelli lives with his wife Eileen and two of their sons, Sean and Ben, in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania.

Copyright Little, Brown and Company

Selected books by Jerry Spinelli

Maniac Magee : A Novel
by Jerry Spinelli
Maniac Magee is a folk story about a boy who can outrun dogs, hit a home run off the best pitcher in the neighborhood, tie a knot no one can undo. It's also the story of how this boy 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. Maniac Magee won the 1991 Newbery Medal.
Reading level: Ages 9-12

For Teachers!
A Guide for Using Maniac Magee in the Classroom
by Michael Levin

Crash
by Jerry Spinelli
Now available in paperback is Newbery Medalist Jerry Spinelli's hilarious, poignant story of cocky seventh-grade superjock Crash Coogan.
Reading level: Ages 9-12

Knots in My Yo-Yo String : The Autobiography of a Kid
by Jerry Spinelli
Newbery medalist Jerry Spinelli pens his early autobiography with all the warmth, humor, and drama of his bestselling fiction. From first memories through high school, this is not merely an account of a highly unusual childhood. Rather, like Spinelli's fiction, its appeal lies in the accessibility and universality of his life. Entertaining and fast-paced, this is a highly readable memoir.
Reading level: Ages 9-12

The Bathwater Gang
by Jerry Spinelli, Meredith Johnson (Illustrator)
Bertie's all-girl gang becomes involved in a harmless but heartfelt war with an all-boy gang, until Bertie's grandmother steps in with a perfect solution.
Reading level: Ages 4-8

Space Station Seventh Grade
by Jerry Spinelli
Seventh-grader Jason narrates the events of his year, from school, hair, and pimples, to mothers, little brothers, and a girl.
Reading level: Ages 9-12

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