Date: January 13, 2024

Book Title: Loser

Author: Jerry Spinelli

Response: Book Blog Entry (Technological)

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    The book Loser tells the story of a six year old boy named Donald Zinkoff, who is an enthusiastic, hyperactive, and goofy kid who enjoys school but is not very good at it. In fact, he is not very good at a lot of things which leads to him being called a loser by his classmates. Donald happily stumbles through school mostly without friends before becoming a hero in middle school. 

    The novel follows Donald from first grade to sixth grade and showcases him to be rather clumsy and awkward but oblivious to what others think of him. He often misinterprets situations, for example, in second grade when his teacher called his handwriting atrocious, he misunderstood and thought it was a compliment. In fourth grade during Field Day, Donald, slow and uncoordinated, loses the one leg race for his entire team. This is where the nickname "loser" originates and sticks with him all the way to middle school.

    Though not much changed in the opinion of the other kids, Donald is seen as a hero by some people (mostly adults) when he helped in the search for Claudia, a little girl who went missing. Donald searches for more than seven hours but has no luck in finding Claudia. Instead, he hallucinated, fell asleep, and had to be found and rescued himself. While the failed search highlighted another misadventure, it demonstrated his courage and kindheartedness.

    In my opinion, this was not my favorite book in the challenge. Though there were certain parts that were funny, I found the overall book to be slightly boring. This book may be greatly appealing to some, but I feel that this was not my type of book. I felt no connection to the main character, Donald. I also did not enjoy the author's style of writing. I do, however, think that the book taught very important lessons such as to have courage, resilience, and a kind heart. Because even though Donald Zinkoff has a hard time achieving success in anything he does, he proves to be very successful at being a good person.