Picklemania! (School daze) [Paperback]

Jerry Spinelli (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 9 and up | Series: School daze

A fast, fun, friendship read from the Newbery-award winning author of Maniac Magee.

Plumstead Middle School is full of secret plans. Eddie is on a mission to bulk up--he's sick of being the skinniest, scrawniest, runtiest kid in school. Sunny is plotting something that will keep the school bullies from ever bothering her again. Salem is trying to figure out who sent her that mysterious valentine message in the school newspaper. And Pickles has been building his greatest invention yet--and it's almost time to unveil it.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 9 and up
  
• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Scholastic Paperbacks (December 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0590454471
• ISBN-13: 978-0590454476
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 5.1 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #395,741 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Growing up, Jerry Spinelli was really serious about baseball. He played for the Green Sox Little League team in his hometown of Norristown, Pennsylvania, and dreamed of one day playing for the major leagues, preferably as shortstop for the New York Yankees.

One night during high school, Spinelli watched the football team win an exciting game against one of the best teams in the country. While everyone else rode about town tooting horns in celebration, Spinelli went home and wrote "Goal to Go," a poem about the game's defining moment, a goal-line stand. His father submitted the poem to the Norristown Times-Herald and it was featured in the middle of the sports page a few days later. He then traded in his baseball bat for a pencil, because he knew that he wanted to become a writer.

After graduating from Gettysburg College with an English degree, Spinelli worked full time as a magazine editor. Every day on his lunch hour, he would close his office door and craft novels on yellow magazine copy paper. He wrote four adult novels in 12 years of lunchtime writing, but none of these were accepted for publication. When he submitted a fifth novel about a 13-year-old boy, adult publishers once again rejected his work, but children's publishers embraced it. Spinelli feels that he accidentally became an author of children's books.

Spinelli's hilarious books entertain both children and young adults. Readers see his life in his autobiography Knots in My Yo-Yo String, as well as in his fiction. Crash came out of his desire to include the beloved Penn Relays of his home state of Pennsylvania in a book, while Maniac Magee is set in a fictional town based on his own hometown.

When asked if he does research for his writing, Spinelli says: "The answer is yes and no. No, in the sense that I seldom plow through books at the library to gather material. Yes, in the sense that the first 15 years of my life turned out to be one big research project. I thought I was simply growing up in Norristown, Pennsylvania; looking back now I can see that I was also gathering material that would one day find its way into my books."

On inspiration, the author says: "Ideas come from ordinary, everyday life. And from imagination. And from feelings. And from memories. Memories of dust in my sneakers and humming whitewalls down a hill called Monkey."

Spinelli lives with his wife and fellow writer, Eileen, in West Chester, Pennsylvania. While they write in separate rooms of the house, the couple edits and celebrates one another's work. Their six children have given Jerry Spinelli a plethora of clever material for his writing.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's out of print???? The world just lost a great book, August 25, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Picklemania! (School daze) (Paperback)

I rediscovered this book in my basement and the moment I put my hands on it I had to sit down and read it. School Daze is such an incredibly funny and touching 4 book series by Jerry Spinelli. It's about these 4 sixth-graders and their adventures. There's grouchy Sunny, a cheerleader who beats up those who won't cheer; Eddie, an almost neurotic boy with a sensitive heart and a scrawny build who constantly encounters trouble with the eighth-grade Nickleheads; Salem, the aspiring writer and over-reacter whose intellect is similar to an adult but her emotions are very appropriate for her age; and my favorite, Pickles, a.k.a. Dennis Johnson, who is so cool he's almost larger than life. Jerry Spinelli writes these books so well that he makes these 4 different characters seem very natural together. This specific book, Picklemania, has several plots going on at the same time. Eddie tries to bulk up to 90 pounds, Salem tries to find her secret admirer (all in her head), Pickles prays for snow, the bus driver yells a lot, and Sunny wreaks havoc with her martial arts wannabe attitude. I wish Jerry Spinelli had written more than 4 books in this 1991-1993 series because I enjoyed them so much. Regarding anyone who is a fan of Gordon Korman, these are must-reads. Anyone who wants to forget their own problems for a while must read this. And any parent who wants their kid to read must hunt down a copy of this book, or the other 3 in the School Daze series: "Report To The Principle's Office", "Who Ran My Underware Up The Flagpole?" and "Do The Funky Pickle".

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Picklemania a review by Robert, December 18, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Picklemania! (School daze) (Paperback)

Have you ever wanted big muscles because you are scrawny? In the book Picklemania by Jerry Spinelli, Eddie will do anything to be bigger and have muscles. First, Pickles finds a drink mix in the mall, that will give you muscles. It's called Moocho Malt and you put some of it in water. The container says it is just like a chocolate shake. Then later in school Eddie goes in the bathroom so he can try this drink. But two of the nickelheads are right there. One of the nickelheads is hanging up-side down from the stall. The other nickelhead investigates the drink and then makes Eddie drink it. That nickelhead makes Eddie drink about the rest of the container after the first drink. I don't think you are supposed to drink the whole big container right away, but Eddie is forced to. Since he drank the whole thing, is this drink going to make Eddie sick and make his hopes disappear, or is it going to give Eddie what he has wanted forever? Truly this book is hilarious, you will feel like Eddie when he is sick.

5.0 out of 5 stars EXCELLENT SERIES!, April 8, 2008

By 

SabrinaKC - See all my reviews

This review is from: Picklemania! (School daze) (Paperback)

My 11 year old daughter and I read this whole series for Accelerated Reading, and we both laughed our way through each one. It accurately depicts much of middle school life for many students (with some exaggerations). The friendships that form among the four main characters is great fun. The only part that I didn't like was that most of the adult characters didn't react quickly enough to the bullying that went on. Ultimately, though, the main characters were able to resolve the problems with the bullies, and you're left with the impression at the end of the final book that they form some kind of friendship and possibly learn from each other. I HIGHLY recommend this series to anyone with preteen children....even parents will enjoy these books if you like a light-hearted read.