Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Crash by Jerry Spinelli

As part of my preparation for my readers response project, I got to enjoy a few more Spinelli books that I wanted to share with all of you. One of my favorites that I read was Crash by Jerry Spinelli. What I love about this story is that it explores the topic of bullying from a unique perspective. Typically, books about bullying are told from the perspective of the victim, like in Wonder by R.J. Palacio. But in Crash, Spinelli tells the story from the perspective of the bully himself. Although I think that the victim's perspective creates a powerful emotional reaction from the readers, I enjoyed reading from the bully's perspective because it allowed me to get a sense of where the bully was coming from. Furthermore, I liked how the story was told from this perspective because it allowed me to really see how the character, John "Crash" Coogan developed and changed over time. I really liked seeing him mature and grow into a more empathetic and kinder person and to see what kind of things impacted this change. It reminded me a lot of how I felt reading The Julian Chapter. Not only was it a different experience, having to understand who the bully was, but it was so interesting to see their transformation into a more compassionate and gentler individual.

1 comment:

  1. Christina, it would be great if you could elaborate here. As you know a great deal more about what it means to use literary elements wisely and how they can affect a reader's level of engagement, what else could you say to elaborate your comments on this text?

    ReplyDelete