From: Barbara Scotto <Barbara_Scotto>
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 1998 21:46:38 -0500

I couldn't agree more with Walter about Wringer. As I read the book, I was struck by the accurate way Spinelli has depicted the desperation that many children feel to be accepted by the group. As a sixth grade teacher, I have watched this kind of thing happen, and although I have tried to intervene in a variety of ways, I generally feel about as effective as the boy with his finger in the dike.

Certainly Wringer is a grim book, but it is one which brings the issues of conformity and peer pressure out into the open. Spinelli uses the pigeon shoot to set up a parallel between the choices the boy makes regarding the loss of his own soul and the choice he must make about killing pigeons. It's so clear to him that killing pigeons is the wrong thing to do, but at the same time he is willing to sell his soul
(to kill himself, metaphorically speaking) to be part of the gang. What Spinelli does in a masterful way is to keep the tension building until the suspense is almost unbearable.

Having said that, I will admit that there is a certain suspension of disbelief that has to occur for this book to work. Why, for example, would Nipper peck on exactly that window? This is not an issue for me because as one must do with any work of fiction, I have chosen to believe in the world that Spinelli has created. His emotional tone is so powerful that I simply want to see how the story plays out.

Barbara Scotto Driscoll School Brookline, MA barbara_scotto at brookline.mec.edu
Received on Mon 19 Jan 1998 08:46:38 PM CST