Wringer

 Wringer by Jerry Spinelli
2018
Weight: 6 oz
Method of Disposal: Mailing to Mom

I loved this book.  I read it in a day and then just laid there thinking, "wow."  Jerry Spinelli really has an incredible talent, and his children's literature is top notch.  This book dealt with layers of concerns that have an impact on children without you, as the reader, feeling like you were dealing with anything.  I was fully immersed in the world of a young boy named Palmer and learning about gender role expectations, peer pressure, animal welfare, fitting in, growing up, bullying.  What I was learning was valuable and non-partisan.  This book added to my knowledge and understanding.  It did not feel like the author sought to answer the questions that came up so much as he just lived in them and let us live in them.  Both the children and the parents were the real deal.  I felt the problems of a child just as they felt them.  They were huge and important, just like they would have been to me when I was10 years old.  Sometimes, I struggle to relate to children as an adult, despite having been one, like everyone else.  It can be hard to remember what it was like to think when what seems small now felt so big.  When you truly believed your friends turning on you would be the end of the world, that they might actually kill you.  Holding Spinelli's hand, I did not struggle at all. I was full of feeling and it moved me from page to page.  I could not put this book down.  I was full of passion and hope and anxiety and curiosity.  It was a beautiful feeling.  It was an incredible experience.  It is why I read, for moments like last night.