Crash

**Summary/Review**
A young boy who goes by the name of Crash Coogan is known as the trickster and star of the football team. He lives with his hard-working parents and his earth-loving little sister. Crash is the partner in crime of the bully Mike Deluca. Year after year, the boys pull pranks on Crash's loving neighbor Penn Webb. Crash excels on the football field due to his competitiveness. Crash is ecstatic when his Grandpa Scooter moves in with them. However, one day something happens and everything Crash has ever lived by begins to change.

**Author Bio**
Jerry Spinelli was born in Pennsylvania in the year of 1941. He is known for his books about and for children. He first wanted to become a writer when his high school football team won a big game. He wrote a poem as soon as he got home and a few days later it was in the newspaper. He married Eileen Mesi in 1977, who also writes children's books. Together, they had seven children. He first started writing books that were targeted for adults, however, they were rejected by the publishers. His direction of readers changed when his son accidentally ate the fried chicken he had been saving for the next day. He decided to turn this story into a novel, //Space Station Seventh Grade,// which lead him to choosing children as his target group. Throughout the years, Spinelli has written many popular children's novels.

**Other Children's Literature**
//The Bathwater Gang, The Bathwater Gang Gets Down to Business, Blue RIbbon Blues, Crash, Do the Funky Pickle, Dump Days, Eggs, Fourth Grade Rats, Jason and Marceline, The Library Card, Loser, Maniac Magee, Milkweed, Night of the Whale, Picklemania, Report to the Principal's Office, Smiles to Go, Space Station Seventh Grade, Stargirl, There's a Girl In My Hammerlock, Tooter Pepperday, Who Put That Hair In My Toothbrush?, Who Ran My Underwear Up the Flagpole?, Wringer (4).//

//Boston Globe/Horn Book// Award, 1990, Newbery Medal, American Library Association (ALA), and Carolyn Field Award, both 1991, and Dorothy Canfield Fisher Award, Indian Paintbrush Award, Rhode Island Children's Book Award, Flicker Tale Award, Charlotte Award, Mark Twain Award, and Nevada Young Readers' Award, all 1992, and William Allen White Award, Pacific Northwest Award, Massachusetts Children's Book Award, Rebecca Caudhill Award, West Virginia Children's Book Award, Buckeye Children's Book Award, Land of Enchantment Award, all 1993, all for //Maniac Magee;// South Carolina Children's Book Award, 1993, for //Fourth Grade Rats;// California Young Readers' Medal, 1993, for //There's a Girl in My Hammerlock;// Best Book for Young Adults, ALA, and Best Books, //School Library Journal,// both 1996, both for //Crash;// Best Books, //School Library Journal,// 1997, Newbery Honor Book, 1998, Carolyn Field Award, and Josette Frank Award, all for //Wringer;// Golden Kite Award for fiction, Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, and Carolyn Field Award co-winner, both 2003, both for //Milkweed;// Dorothy Canfield Fisher Award, 2004, for //Loser;// Children's Literature Citation, Drexel University, and Milner Award (Atlanta, GA), both for body of work. Spinelli's works have garnered Readers' Choice Awards from more than twenty American and Canadian states and provinces (5).
 * Awards **

**Historical Contexts**
This book was written as a chapter book for grade school literacy learning.

**Major Themes**
Major themes include family relationships, the meaning of true friendship, growing up, doing the right thing.

**Citations**
1. http://misssettle5thgrade.wikispaces.com/file/view/Jerry_Spinelli.jpg/218591028/Jerry_Spinelli.jpg 2. http://www.goodsearch.com/searchimage.aspx?keywords=crash+by+jerry+spinellli 3. http://www.biblio.com/jerry-spinelli~127847~author 4. http://www.fictiondb.com/author/jerry-spinelli~41894.htm 5. http://biography.jrank.org/pages/1468/Spinelli-Jerry-1941-Awards-Honors.html