Jerry Spinelli
1941-
"If you had asked me what I would grow up to be, I would have answered, 'A baseball player.'"
Jerry Spinelli never set out to be a writer. During his first 16 years he wanted to be, among other things, a rock skipper, a yo-yo tangler, and above all a baseball player. When he was 12 years old, Spinelli played shortstop in the Connie Mack Knee-Hi League, and his team won the state championship. His favorite book at the time was The Baseball Encyclopedia. In high school, however, things changed. Spinelli's family moved, and he no longer did well in school or in sports. Then, when he was in the tenth grade, he saw his high school's football team score an upset victory. He went home and wrote a poem about the game, which was published by the local newspaper. After that, he was determined to become a writer. He attended Gettysburg College and, later, writing seminars at the Johns Hopkins University. Spinelli published his first novel, Space Station Seventh Grade, in 1982. Since then, he has written 19 books, including Maniac Magee, a Newbery Medal winner in 1991, and Wringer, a Newbery Honor Book in 1998.
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