I had to read the book Crash by Jerry Spinelli to teach the book to a small group of 7th grade students. Jerry Spinelli is a Newbery Award winner for Maniac Magee, a book I'm sure you've heard of. But this book, Crash, which won a few respectable book awards is just awful!
The book is about a boy named Crash, a nickname he received after he "crashed tackled" into his cousin when he received a new football helmet for Christmas. Crash torments his neighbor, Penn Ward - a nerdy vegetarian Quaker who doesn't believe in violence, gets his clothes from a thirft shop, and has a pet turtle who rides around in Penn's only toy, a wooden train or something. Throughout most of the book, Crash is boasting about his football abilities and when he's not doing that, he ridicules Penn Ward while feeling entitled to dance/befriend the prettiest girl in school to the point at which he resorts to force to get her attention. UGH!
The supposed "redeeming" point for Crash is when he makes a connection between his ailing grandfather and Penn's great-grandfather who wants nothing more than to see Penn run at the Penn Relays. Crash, who is faster than Penn, purposely loses a qualifying race to Penn so that Penn can go to the Penn Relays. Great, so for 120 pages, Crash is a huge, egotistical, ignorant ***hole and the reader is supposed to feel happy that he's changed for the remaining 30 pages. NO. I hate this character with a passion. I hate what he stands for and I hate how I'm supposed to believe this character has really changed! Please...it was nice that he lost the race, but there's no way in hell that these guys are going to be friends. Crash will continue to harass Penn for being a Quaker and a vegetarian. And if he is nice to Penn, it's only for the sake of keeping the prettiest girl in school as his girlfriend. How shallow.
I felt this book almost taught intolerance and selfishness to my young reader's minds. For example, Crash criticizes Penn for being Quaker and not believing in violence of any sort. He takes advantage of the poor guy, soaking him with a watergun and Penn just stands there and takes it. During the literature circle discussions that occurred after reading the first 8 chapters, one of my students exclaimed, "Penn deserved it. We live in a violent world! Learn to live with it!" What a good way to teach kids religious tolerance let alone peace!
I give this book a 3/10. It's a complex story and a fast read, but it has a lot of bad blood that's hard to overlook.
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