Knots in My Yo-Yo String: The Autobiography of a Kid

by Jerry Spinelli

"A master of those embarrassing, gloppy, painful, and suddenly wonderful things that happen on the razor's edge between childhood and full-fledged adolescence" (The Washington Post), Newbery medalist Jerry Spinelli has penned his early autobiography with all the warmth, humor, and drama of his best-selling fiction. From first memories through high school, including first kiss, first punch, first trip to the principal's office, and first humiliating sports experience, this is not merely an account of a highly unusual childhood. Rather, like Spinelli's fiction, its appeal lies in the accessibility and universality of his life. Entertaining and fast-paced, this is a highly readable memoir-- a must-have for Spinelli fans of all ages.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Biography, Autobiography, Biography Memoir, Middle Grade, Childrens

Paperback

First published May 1, 1997

About the author

When Jerry Spinelli was a kid, he wanted to grow up to be either a cowboy or a baseball player. Lucky for us he became a writer instead.

He grew up in rural Pennsylvania and went to college at Gettysburg College and Johns Hopkins University. He has published more than 25 books and has six children and 16 grandchildren.
Jerry Spinelli began writing when he was 16 — not much older than the hero of his book Maniac Magee. After his high school football team won a big game, his classmates ran cheering through the streets — all except Spinelli, who went home and wrote a poem about the victory. When his poem was published in the local paper, Spinelli decided to become a writer instead of a major-league shortstop.

In most of his books, Spinelli writes about events and feelings from his own childhood. He also gets a lot of material from his seven adventurous kids! Spinelli and his wife, Eileen, also a children's book author, live in Pennsylvania.

Reviews

[Josiah · Rating 4 out of 5]

"(R)adio was a partnership. The radio furnished the sounds, and the listener supplied the pictures. TV and movie screens have shaded us from the evocative power of sound. Our eyes enslave us. 'Seeing is believing.' In contrast to TV, which asks us to merely turn it on and become a passive dartboard, radio asked us to meet it halfway, to co-create the moment. The resulting pictures in our heads had a depth of reality possible only when the camera is the person."

—Knots in My Yo-yo String, P. 43

Wow. Throughout the 1990s, I really don't know if there was an author on the planet who could touch Jerry Spinelli as a writer on a good day. Every single book that he produced during that particular stretch of years, even books that were short or at first glance seemed relatively unambitious, packed a potent jolt that I haven't consistently seen the likes of from anyone since that time. That's not to say that Jerry Spinelli doesn't still reach that rarified air with an absurd regularity that dwarfs the success of almost any other author, but it seems to me that the 1990s for Jerry Spinelli served as the power source decade for everything that he has ever written or will eventually write, and his golden reputation as one of the greatest novelists in recent memory for young readers was forever set in stone by such classics from that time as Maniac Magee, Fourth Grade Rats, Crash, The Library Card, Wringer and yes, Knots in My Yo-yo String, too. All of those books changed my fundamental perceptions of writing and instilled within me a deeper sense of the awesome power that words can have. In a major sense, the writing of Jerry Spinelli is what confirmed for me the rich potential artistic rewards that could come from creating stories, and gave me the desire to do some of that myself.

Where does one begin in describing a book that captures an era (America in the 1940s) to such perfection? The low-key descriptions of the time are greatly enhanced by Jerry Spinelli's personal recollections of what he was thinking and feeling as the events of his day were going on around him, and no one is better at that kind of description than Jerry Spinelli. He talks about a very early memory of hearing an air raid siren go off during the period of America's involvement in World War II, and his fascination from an early age with sports; the types of friends he had, and the kind of student he was in school. I don't know how he manages to skip around in the narrative of his life as he does in this book without getting confused about what needs to go next to keep up the smooth flow of the story, but Knots in My Yo-yo String never falters in this respect for a single moment. Every one of the tales that he has to tell has that luminosity about it that can be found in everything that Jerry Spinelli writes, that unmistakable glow that leaves me literally breathless each time as the action reaches its boiling point. Knots in My Yo-yo String is all true, but the deeply magical sense of wonder surrounding the entire story is, somehow, exactly the same as for the mesmerizing fiction that Jerry Spinelli writes. Will he never cease to amaze me?

The emotional content and perceptiveness of this book is incredible. Jerry Spinelli is quite obviously a thinker, and the types of insights that he has gleaned about his own childhood to provide deeper meaning to this book are remarkable in their wisdom. From ideas in retrospect about the ways that he interacted with his younger brother and the memories from their short time as kids together that most stayed in his thinking, to an inside perspective on his own competitive nature and how that shaped his view of sports, the thoughts that Jerry Spinelli shares in Knots in My Yo-yo String are phenomenal in their graceful revelation of the parts of our own selves that we may never have fully understood until having the light shined on them in this way. It's impossible not to run into forms of ourselves in Jerry Spinelli and other characters throughout this book, and so often the wraiths of Jerry Spinelli's past end up reflecting crucial truths in our own, which is what really supplies the story with its power to profoundly affect any type of reader.

I love this book. I love it in a way that I somehow keep in reserve exclusively for books authored by Jerry Spinelli; to compare the works of anyone else to him would be a disservice to the creative powers of those other writers. The way I see it, Jerry Spinelli is that good. Knots in My Yo-yo String will always occupy a special place in my soul, I am sure, and even if I'm incapable of describing the book here as well as it deserves, when I think back on the story and remember how it changed me, the uncatchable thoughts inside my own my head will always be adequate for me, at least, to understand why I love it so.

Marvelous. Absolutely marvelous. I would give at least three and a half stars to Knots in My Yo-yo String.

[Tim Park · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book sitting dustily in my shelf and decided to give it a reread. I wasn't disappointed. Jerry Spinelli's Maniac Magee was one of my favorite books in elementary school. I didn't pick up his autobiography for the first time until much later. Reading of his childhood did everything to put me into his past without literally blasting me there. I saw his neighborhood, ran along his train tracks, waded in his creek, raced with his friends, played baseball on his field, and listened through his classes. I cried after his dog died without ever having had a dog myself. I felt free from inhibition in the outfit of a cowboy. I sat through his awkwardness with girls. I squeaked my new sneakers and conquered the town on my bike. I remembered the excitement of finally learning to throw a curveball. It's hard for me to reasonably describe how much I wanted to live his life, or even just be his friend, without sounding like a fool. He creates not so much a picture as a movie, a movie that has not just sound and sight but smell and taste and touch as well. Spinelli made me nostalgic for a time I had never truly experienced.

I'm extremely glad I found this book again. It's a quick read and I recommend it to anyone who was ever a kid and has a single hour to spare.

[Clarissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Knots in My Yo-Yo String Biography/Non-Fiction/Childhood/Coming of Age/Sports

I love this book. Jerry Spinelli talks about his life as a kid, but he also weaves his experiences into how being a kid has helped him as a writer. Spinelli has said his best experience as a writer was being a kid and growing up. He beautifully captures what it's like to be a carefree kid. I long to return to those days even though they are far gone, but I find myself somewhat satisfied when Spinelli helps me revisit my own childhood through his stories. He covers the gamut from neighborhood games and legends, to first kisses and school dances. I would consider this a must read for any aspiring young adult novelist.

[Amanda · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought that this book was meh. It wasn’t the most interesting and there was nothing that really excited me or made me want to keep reading. There was no plot and at times I found the book dragging on. I wouldn’t recommend this book to someone who is looking for something interesting and captivating to read.

[Lucien L · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book was amazing and had great taste to it. it was good because it pretty much talked about the kid's life and the yo-yo string. Id recommend this to people who like non-fiction or biography stories.

[Daniel Asay · Rating 4 out of 5]

An autobiographical piece by Jerry Spinelli covering mostly his formative years in grades K-12. Its mostly separated into chapters which each teach a specific life lesson through a personal anecdote or two and only occasionally spends time describing the how’s and why’s of Spinelli’s family and career. I personally enjoyed that it taught life lessons in parables and thus did not have to didactically confront the lessons head on. He gets the messages across by example and the personal nature of it makes it easy to feel at home. Spinelli is actually opening up his life to the reader and that creates a friendly, trusting atmosphere that gives greater force to the morals. It covers his infancy through high school at a brisk pace, giving the reader a chance to grow up with him and see a lot of personal reflections. The post high school chapters are brief and highly abridged but give some idea as to his process of becoming a writer. Only marginally useful as an informational text, but a great personal read for youth who may need a solid character model or, by selecting a specific chapter it can be used to target an appropriate life lesson.

Genre: autobiography, moral lessons, childhood reminiscences
fulfills non-fiction requirement, author presentation novel

[Marc Bisson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this book with my students because we were starting personal narratives and I wanted to use it as a mentor text for my students. We ended up reading a majority of the stories, but I felt like the stories were all over the place. Instead of being small moments, the stories were made up of multiple scenes and moments that sometimes didn't seem like they went together. I really tried to hype up this book with my students as far as using some of the stories as a mentor text, but my students seemed disengaged with the stories and couldn't relate to them all that well.

Will I use this book again? Probably not the whole book, but I may pull out some stories that I find somewhat useful.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jerry Spinelli, the popular and award-winning children's book author, recounts the story of his life through this engaging and charming autobiography.

I pretty much adore Spinelli. His writing style is so simple, so easily accessible to kids and yet there are times when his prose is just dripping with beauty. His turns of phrase sometimes are pure poetry. This is pretty much straightforward autobiography but I love that he presents it as a series of vignettes, snapshots of his life. I think this is further proof of how conscious he is of writing for a young audience. Very well-done.

[Susan Katz · Rating 5 out of 5]

I identified with much in this book since it describes a small-town Pennsylvania childhood during the same general time frame as my own childhood. I like the way the book's arranged by topics like girls, neatness, Spinelli's relationship to words, rather than being simply a chronological narrative; this approach goes deeper and gives the reader a thorough introduction to the author's likeable boyhood self.

[Claire · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just finished this one with a group of 10 and 11 year olds. It was entertaining for me to read, because many of the stories reminded me of stories my own parents and aunts and uncles told about their childhood. It was a quick, fun read, but there was not really a "lesson" to the book...not that it is needed, but I was hoping for one for the sake of the my class. :)

[Andrewp · Rating 2 out of 5]

I would not read this book. It is an autobiography about a kid who live in the 50s. It was a bunch of things that happen to most kids except he exaggerated it to make it sound interesting. After I finished the book, Jerry Spinelli came across as a person who sits on the coach and talks about the “glory days” of 9th grade. All in all I would not recommend this book because it is REALLY BORING.

[Joshua Hikida · Rating 1 out of 5]

I usually like autobiographies, but I found myself not caring at all about any of the characters, and annotating it took it down from 3 stars to 1, because I learn absolutely nothing from it, and it is useless, and I understand the book without those darned annotations. They just ruin good books.

[Katherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

man im so looking foward to this book after what sammi told me about the first chapter ~loads and loads of sarcasm included~

[Vishal G. · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was okay. I liked reading all of the vignettes, but sometimes it felt like a bit of a drag. I would recommend it as a book to read when you have nothing else to do.

[Jack · Rating 3 out of 5]

IT NEEDS A PLOT. Even though its a biography, it needs a PLOT.

[Carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

Memories are precious things. I can’t image how bleak the world would be if we suddenly lost the ability to return to happy, simpler times that we all have. This little book allows most of us…at least those of us over thirty… to take a trip back in 148 pages of pure bliss. The author is just a few years older than I am… but we share a lot of those same memories. For me it was a time when summer never seemed to end…Saturdays were taken up with Roy Rogers and Hopalong Cassidy reruns, Leave It to Beaver and Sky King…all in black & white pre-techno glory…everyone I knew lived in a house with only one bathroom and one telephone, which was plugged into the wall somewhere…one TV that maybe got 3 channels clearly if you were lucky…and only one car…not per person but for the entire family. However did we survive? I revisited those memories with every chapter. Chapters, by the way that are short….some really short. It’s just a book about growing up and the fun and disappointments, and mistakes, of being a kid. Teachers will find it perfect for their classes from 3rd grade up…and teachers beware: if you can relate to any of it…you can count yourself a part of history not to mention that your class will know just how old you really are :)

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars

[DaNae · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every year I have a class, or few, wander in with the assignment of reading a biography. We have a pretty nifty selection in the 921s here in my school, if I do say so myself, but a good many of the choices fall in the picture book variety. The teacher in an effort to raise the bar for her students will usually demand the chosen book have a mandatory number of pages, usually 100. It is still no problem to fill the bill when it comes to matching books of this description at least 2 to 1 against the students at hand. The issue is finding choices that will excite the readers. Sometime ago I realized that authors of children’s books tend to write by far the most enticing autobiographies. Bill Peet: an Autobiography, How Angel Peterson Got his Wings by Gary Paulsen, and Boy: Tales of a Childhood by Roald Dahl have always been sure fire hits in my arsenal. Not to mention the definitive King of all Kid-Lit autobiographers, the Honorable Jon Scieszka, with Knucklehead. Jerry Spinelli’s Knots in My Yo-yo String, arms me with yet one more weapon for the collection.

Knots in My Yo-yo String is a loose collection of essays about the big and small events of Spinelli’s all-American, mid-twentieth century childhood in Norristown Pennsylvania. He regales his readers with his desire to become a cowboy, his prowess as an athlete, and tours us around his west end neighborhood. Readers familiar with his bibliography will be hit with glancing bouts of Déjà vu, has they read of his neighbor’s mother who whistled her six children home to dinner, or about baseball games played in a vacant lot close to a creek, or as he runs down the rails of the train tracks. When he describes the alley network of his neighborhood it is easy to flash on Loser Daniel Zinkoff running with misguided determination through them on a winter’s night.

While many readers check out Knucklehead voluntarily for its outrageous content, I don’t see this happening with Spinelli’s offering. There are many moments tucked in Knots in my Yo-yo String that will elicit a smile, and perhaps a chuckle or two. It is far from the guffawfest of Knucklehead. Knots is far more nostalgic and thoughtful. In fact, like many of Richard Peck’s books, it may have more appeal to the generation depicted, than for young readers. I’ve yet to run across a tween who is ready to wallow in nostalgia. It would be a great match for an aspiring writer, especially if she were familiar with the author’s books. And as for those mandatory biography readers, it is a much more painless choice than 100+ pages on Ferdinand Magellan.

[Roger · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked his writing style - he really told his own childhood well. *Slightly Spoilers* the end is a bit tragic, but it tells the reader that no one’s life is perfect.

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is an autobiography about Jerry Spenelli. It talks about what lead him in his life tom what he is now. This book is a collection of short stories that were big moments of jerry's life. It gives you insight on what he has done and what he has accomplished to get as far as he is. Some of the things that he writes about Is his love for baseball which I haven't know before about him. I though this was a really good book even though I know it has been around for quite a while.
I really think that if you have a project on autobiographies or biographies I would use this book if possible. The wording is easy to understand and also there are pictures :) who doesn't like pictures? Hardly there are odd facts about him in this book for this book is basically his hardships, struggles and achievements that he went through so that he can become a super popular children novelist.

[Thomas]

This was a great book about how Jerry Spinelli writes about how he grew up. What I also like about this book is that even though he is explaining about his life of growing up, he also gives you hints that explain what led him to become an author of children’s books. Its amazing how personal experiences influenced so much of his writing. He really shows connections between his life and his books. Overall I feel that this was a very interesting book that if your going to start to read his books, this is the first one that you should read. It starts you off from where he grew up and how his life was then when you start reading his other books, you pick up on them from hints that he gave you from personal experiences in his autobiography.

[Thais · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a delight to read for many reasons. Although he is from a different generation from me, it was nostalgic and brought back a lot of my fun childhood memories. I also really enjoyed reading this because throughout the books he gives subtle hints that explain what led him to become a writer. As someone who dabbles with the idea of being a writer, I found this interesting. Last, it was fun to see how many of his own childhood memories he has incorporated into his other books and how he tweaked them. A fun and light autobiography.

[JD Waggy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although it's really simple and very different from what I grew up with, this memoir is wonderful. Perhaps because of its simplicity, the kids that Spinelli talks about are people I could relate to others I knew, and he absolutely captures the magic of the boundless enthusiasm of kids. Also, it's a great window into the 50s and growing up with such exciting things as new televisions, the slowing railroad business, and a neighborhood where kids were perfectly able to run where they liked.
Very fun and very quick; I'm hanging on to this one to remind myself never to grow up too much.

[Jillian · Rating 3 out of 5]

A nice, casual read that covers the memories of a kid from "I empty my head like a box of cornflakes" (pg 13) to "I blew my prayers like bubbles into the air..." (pg 112) with the craft expected in the autobiography of a Newbery Medalist. The description of one of his acquaintances ("the little man who hands you soap") still lingers with me thanks to this statement: "...I have come to learn what he never knew he taught, that Garfield Shainline was not the teacher but the lesson." The more the collective words from the book simmer, I find that statement could be said of Spinelli as well.

[Marcia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this peek into the childhood of one of my favorite authors. Funny, short chapters help paint the picture of how Maniac Magee, Wringer and his other books came to be. Rather than follow a chronology, he relates the stories that had the greatest impact on him. Hard to pick an audience for this book though--he is a children's author, but adults will enjoy the remembrances.
Particularly poignant is his discussion of not reading as a child. He was a good reader, and when he picked up comic books he enjoyed them. Reading just wasn't something he choose to do and he regrets that now.

[Yudeli · Rating 3 out of 5]

To be quite honest I did not enjoy this book. I thought it was sweet but it seems like a story that has been told 1,000 times already. Though it is about Spinelli's life I found it to be generic with little depth. It seemed as if he was trying to make nothing something. I'm sure he could have told his story in a more interesting way or had used experiences that let us connect to him. It just felt like he wanted to give the readers the bare minimum and not let the readers truly get to know his life story or him.

[Hana · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was very fun and relatable, and hearing about his childhood was fun. A lot of books about kids don’t just tell about the ordinary parts of their life, and this one did. It was interesting and new because no one has written about anything ordinary before.

The connections within the story were fun too. For example, the beginning was reapplied in the middle and so forth.

Overall, this was an amazing, creative book and I think you should read it. It is made up of multiple vignettes, or stories, of his childhood.

[Marilyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love memoirs. This is a short intimate look into the idyllic boyhood of Jerry Spinelli spent in Norristown, PA. It's a perfect window into post-war life of the 50's. I have read probably 85% of Spinelli's books and even met him once. This would be a perfect classroom example of autobiography writing. I know for a fact that I will read the chapter on his first love to my 7th graders next Fall when we do our "annual" intro paper on twitterpation--my favorite essay of the year!

[Nat · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am startled that I am only giving it 3 stars. Maybe it really should be 4. However, I will leave it at 3 because I was expecting this book to be super, awesome, laugh-out-loud-funny, etc. I really did enjoy reading it. It's a memoir of a Newbury Medal writer. I loved the conclusion at the end that being a kid helped him be a writer. And yes, you can see that it did.

[Reina Santillanes · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was so interesting. Jerry Spinelli is such an amazing writer as it is, and to hear how he remembers his life is just so cool. He wrote it in a book form, but not from age to age, but series in his life; from obsessions to family. I loved hearing his point of view and this makes me want to read more autobiographys and Jerry Spinelli books. (: