Knots in My Yo-yo String

         Knots in My Yo-yo String by Jerry Spinelli is a great memoir that is relatable to children.  When I first picked this book up to read, I thought it would be like most autobiographies I have read which tend to be very chronological, historical, and focusing on the person’s major achievements which tend to be later in life.  Jerry Spinelli did not write like that at all!  His memoir starts off at an older age and then goes backwards.  While this may be difficult for some younger students to follow, it offers great variety and excitement for older students who can follow it.  He focuses most of the pages, I would say 90% on his childhood up until he was 18.  This is great for children as they can read over 100 pages about someone else’s life.  Jerry had a lot of things go right, but he also had his fair share of things go wrong, both of which are interesting for children to read about.  He talks a lot about the little every day moments that made up his childhood.  He talks about his discussions with his brother, playing outside, running for class president, and just what happened in his life on a daily basis.

                Not only does Jerry Spinelli talk about his personal life growing up, but he also talks about his development into being an author.  Now I just finished describing how the book is mostly about his childhood, yes he relates his development of becoming an author to his childhood.  He in fact discusses how he did not like aspects of school and writing.  This is great for children to see that not all writers grew up wanting to be writers or planning to be writers.  And not all writers liked to write as children.  This perspective will give students hope for their own futures and possibly open their minds to paths that right now they think are not the right ones, but maybe they will be later on.  While this book tackles this heavy topic, it does so in a lighthearted way that many upper elementary students would love to read!