Editorial Review
There are winners everywhere... The sidewalks. The backyards. The alleyways. The playgrounds. Except for Zinkoff. Zinkoff never wins. But Zinkoff doesn't notice. Neither do the other pups. Not yet.
Zinkoff is like all kids -- running, playing, riding his bike. Hoping for snow days, wanting to be his dad when he grows up.
Zinkoff is not like the other kids-raising his hand with all the wrong answers, tripping over his own feet, falling down with laughter over a word like Jabip. The kids have their own word to describe him, but Zinkoff is too busy to hear it.
Once again, Newbery Medal-winning author Jerry Spinelli uses great wit and humor to create the unique story of Zinkoff as he travels from first through sixth grades. Loser is a touching book about the human spirit, the importance of failure, and how any name can someday be replaced with hero.
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Customer Reviews
This Book is NOT Very Good 
2007-03-02
It's about a boy who started out in kindergarten. He found out that he would be in school a long time. He had a problem and through-up every were any given moment.
The only thing i liked about this book is that it had a somewhat ok plot. And it it's about a boy and his life.
The main thing i didn't like this book because it was pretty dull and boring. I fell asleep most of the time i started to read it. If you realy realy realy like books that you might think it's ok. It just was not like somthing in real life... but it was not a good fictional story also.
This book was not very interesting. It was pretty much like if you HAVE to read a book for i'd say ok. But if you wanna read it for fun... i wouldn't if i was you.
boring 
2007-02-08
I felt sorry for my daughter this past Summer. She picked this book out of a list of 5 to read for school. The writing was all over the place, the plot went nowhere. Really boring.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.......
Be Who You Want To Be 
2007-02-06
I just finished the book Loser, and it gave me some ideas, like be who you want to be. In the book it is about a kid named Donald Zinkoff. He never got picked on `til [...], because he lost a race for field day. Ever since, he has been called a "loser".
I feel sad for him, because he won a trophy for soccer and somebody stole it. In my head, I thought Zinkoff was going to die, because he was out in the cold looking for a little girl, and Zinkoff had a flashback. The main idea I got from this book is "be who you want to be". If people call you a loser, so what? I thought Loser was a good book.
Loser is the best 
2007-01-31
Loser
I just finished the book Loser and thought that the book Loser was really good. I thought that Donald Zinkoff was a really great boy. It tells Zinkoff's life from kinder to fifth-grade. Zinkoff is really talented at a lot of things. One day he is in field day and lost a race. Everyone started to call him "Loser". The next field day he was on the same team but they told him to find a new team, but no one would take him. I feel really bad for Zinkoff because he only got one A in school. I think Zinkoff shows that you should be your self and you'll find a really good friend. I loved that Zinkoff won a trophy but some one stole it and Zinkoff didn't notice or care. That is why I loved the book Loser. It is just too good for anyone to hate it.
quite good, but confusing! 
2007-01-18
In the begining, the book's quite confusing. I don't know
if the "children" are dogs because Jerry Spinelli called the children "pups". But read on! It soon gets very interesting. Something bad about this book is that it doesn't end, the story doesn't get finished. I wish there was a LOSER II! Some parts are a bit confusing too, you may need to read a sentence a few times to understand its full meaning. Overall, Jerry has written a fantastic book!
Create Your Own Review 2008-04-03
Jentz Z. review of Loser by Jerry Spinelli, March 19, 2008.
Donald Zinkoff is a kid who never fit in. Growing up for him was hard, he was teased and bullied. He grew up in the suburbs all his life. Donald has an internal conflict. Ever sense fifth grade he had the nickname loser. The only people he ever connected with were his dad and a girl named Claudia. Near the end of the book Claudia was lost and found shortly after but Donald didn't know and spent hours and hours looking for her. So when Donald was found everyone loved him because he was looking for a girl that had already been found. From then on everyone started calling Donald, Zinkoff, and they loved him again.
KCS- class loser. 2007-12-12
Have you ever felt as if you were the loser of your class? Everyone in his class thinks of Donald Zinkoff is the loser of there class, but Donald is oblivious to the names he is called. Donald Zinkoff is clumsy,awkward,asks too many questions,laughs too much,and not quite the same as the others in his class. The story takes place in a town from when Donald is in first grade until he is in fifth grade
Its the first day of first grade and Donald loves it. He loves school in general. Everyday is an adventure and he hates being bored. In fourth grade Donald is in the same team as the most athletic kid in class for field day. Their team is in first until Donald messes up and there team loses. By then, everyone seems to notice that he is not like others in the class. People begin to whisper about him and call him names behind his back, but Zinkoff doesn't seem to notice. Donald has never had a best friend, but he is content with himself.
I think that the theme of the book is that everyone deserves a second chance and that you should accept everyone even if they are a little different. Jerry Spinelli writes in a way that really describes how the main characters are feeling. I would rate this book a 4 out of 5. The book was good, but there was no climax in the book, and some might find it a little boring. The pacing is slow to medium throughout the book. I would recommend this book to middle school students and those who like realistic fiction and don't mind slow paced books.
Cornwall Middle School 2007-05-21
I liked this book called Loser. It was about this kid that never really fit in, and threw out his life from when he was a baby to 6th grade. The characters seemed a little more realistic then the other books i have read. I liked the plot, but i thought they could of done a better job with were it took place and a couple other things. I thought there were some parts that I couldnt wait to find out what happened next. I would recomended this book to anyone that likes funny, good books. I enjoyed reading this book and there were alot of funny parts to it. This is deffinatly a book that they could have a sequeal, like when he starts 7th grade and gets a girlfriend of something.
AS
a must read for anyone who is, was, or will be a child 2007-05-05
Jerry Spinelli is probably the greatest young adult novelist (yes, novelist) for a very good reason. Not only are his books incredibly human and powerful, capturing those illusive essential truths of childhood and adolescence, but they are written in an incredible (yet accessible) modernist, lyrical, and, well--beautiful--prose that captures all the emotions, wonders, and confusions of childhood. His stories seem familiar, and yet they never fall into the trappings of predictability or neatly convenient packaging. In all of these ways, he writes novels that really are good for children of every age (from 0 to 118). In Loser, Zinkoff is one of those off-center kids (another Spinelli gem), messy and silly, a klutz and a joke, gets everything wrong and loses every race. And yet, he is an incredibly happy, innocent, and deeply loving creature. The book is really a character study of this kid, how the world views him, how he views the world. As such, it is incredibly beautiful and poetic, dreamy and childlike. It's an incredible novel, for any age. Grade: A-
Loser Left Much To Be Desired 2007-03-23
Loser by Jerry Spinelli could have been an interesting and overall good book but, in my opinion it was not because it was rushed and undeveloped. The book chronicles the life of Donald Zinkoff from his first day of kindergarten to his last day of eighth grade in a mere two hundred pages. Thus no grade is well developed and neither is any character but the loveable loser and main character Donald Zinkoff. This book was attempting to give a good message about the life through school of a loser. Because it is hard to go through your time in school with out true friends or any real interests to speak of let alone to be unatheletic on top of it. But although the message was no doubt an outstanding one, it left much to be desired as a whole.
