Crash Spinelli Crash by Jerry Spinelli Identify

Crash Spinelli

Crash by Jerry Spinelli

Identify the quality that makes Penn a good friend. Support your answer by using examples from the text.

Kids can be spoiled and materialistic without ever really realizing it. In the book, Penn is a Quaker that lives a relatively simple lifestyle; this also makes him different from the other kids. This also makes Penn the target for much teasing and criticism from the other kids his age and nobody teases him more in the book than his friend Crash. Crash is constantly pulling pranks or making fun of him in one way or another.

Despite the constant harassment that is common for many kids his age, Penn does not become defensive as a lot of kids would. Even though he does not like many of the pranks that are being pulled on him, he still tolerates them and keeps a good attitude. He also continues to do nice things for Crash even though Crash does not always return the sentiment. For example, Penn invites Crash over for a family dinner even though Penn gets made fun of for about pretty much everything, including being a vegetarian.

2. Identify the quality that makes Crash a Bully. Support your answer by using examples from the text.

Crash is a bully in pretty much every sense of the word. He is constantly pulling pranks on Penn throughout the duration of the book and much of the plot. For example when Penn first moves close to Crash, Crash rips off his buttons from his shirt and buries them. Crash takes Penn's pet turtle for a bike ride which does not please Penn at all.

Crash makes fun of Penn and his whole family for being vegetarians. Before that time Penn did not even know what a vegetarian was. The entire story is filled with such events and they are told in a way that definitely makes Crash seem like a bully; especially earlier in the story.

3.Identify how Crash changed by giving examples of what he was like in the beginning of the book and what he was like at the end of the story.

Crash was pretty simple and bullish in the beginning of the story. He was a football star that could be viewed from the stereotypical jock perspective. He would bully other kids and hang out with the other jocks. Crash was friends with Mike, and the two of them would often team up to play pranks on others. This caused Crash and Penn to eventually begin to split apart their friendship.