"You grow up with a kid but you never really notice him. He's just there-on the street, the playground, the neighborhood. He's part of the scenery, like the parked cars and the green plastic cans on trash day.

You pass through school-first grade, second grade-there he is, going along with you. You're not friends, you're not enemies. You just cross paths now and then..

You don't even know his name.

And then one day you do. You hear someone say a name, and somehow you just know that's who the name belongs to, it's the kid, Zinkoff. "

Donald Zinkoff is the one who trips over anything and falls flat on his face, or can't stop laughing, or loses the championship for his team on Field Day, despite the huge lead he has in the relay race, or wants to make a candle out of his own earwax. Find out what happens when Zinkoff enters middle school and meets the biggest challenge of his life in Loser , by Jerry Spinelli.