Team Info:

• McDougle Elementary School
• Lisa Myles
• Paige, Noah, and Sam

Summary of Novel:

Crash by Jerry Spinelli

Crash is a 7th grade bully who likes to play football with his friend Mike Deluca and play pranks on a skinny kid named Penn Webb. One prank that Crash plays on Penn is that he puts mustard in Penn’s shoes. Crash goes to Penn’s house and eats their family dinner which is oat burgers because they are vegetarian. He also eats candied mushrooms and likes them but doesn’t say anything. Crash also finds out that Penn is a Quaker. Crash squirts Penn in the face with a squirt gun knowing that Penn won’t fight back.

When Crash’s grandpa, Scooter, arrives in the hospital, Crash realizes he needs to be a nicer person and not a bully.  Mike kidnaps Penn’s turtle and tries to use the turtle as a ransom so that Penn will drop out of the Penn Relays; which he is named after. Crash finds the turtle and gives it back to Penn. Later in the Penn Relays Crash and Penn are neck-in-neck but Crash tells Penn to “lean” so that Penn can win the race, and he does.  At the end of the story, Crash becomes Penn’s best friend and all is well.

Hoot by Carl Hiaasen

Hoot is a realistic fiction book written by Carl Hiaasen.  Roy is a 6th grade boy who lives a normal life, except for his exceptional amount of moving houses. He is brave, curious, often willing to help and most of all, a social activist.

When Roy moved to Coconut Cove, Florida, his life changed. He saw a barefoot boy running outside the bus window while a 7th grade bully, Dana Matherson was smashing his face to the window. Later, he chased the barefooted boy and found out he was living in the woods with the nickname Mullet Fingers (Mullet Fingers told no one his real name). Roy later met a girl named Beatrice who stood up to Dana. She became Roy’s friend. After bonding, Roy found out that Mullet Fingers was Beatrice’s step brother.  Mullet Fingers had run away from home because his parents fought and his mother bullied him.

After Roy got to know Mullet Fingers, he started to help him solve the problem of the burrowing owls. The Mother Paula Pancake House was building a pancake house over the owl dens. Mullet Fingers wanted to stop them so Roy and Beatrice decided to help him.  After trying to stop the building overnight, Mullet Fingers got seriously injured. Roy knew there would be consequences but he gave Mullet Fingers his name so that he could be treated in the hospital without revealing his real name. After Mullet Fingers ran from the hospital it was discovered that he was really not Roy.  

Roy had a conversation with his mom after she found out that he tried to help Mullet Fingers.  Roy’s mom told him, “Honey, sometimes you’re going to be faced with situations where the line isn’t clear between what’s right and what’s wrong. Your heart will tell you to do one thing, and your brain will tell you to do something different.”  

At the end of the story, Roy used his heart and brain to save the burrowing owls.  He had to stand up for what he believed in and be brave in order to help them. Roy came up with an idea to protest the building of the pancake house.  He got lots and lots of people to participate until the building of the pancake house was canceled and the owls were saved.

 For Challenge 3, we wrote and created a movie called “Crash Cash”.  The main characters in our movie are Crash Coogan (from Crash) and Roy Eberhardt (from Hoot).  In the movie, Crash and Roy are adults and Crash is now the principal of his own school. Crash asks Roy for help because there is a bullying problem and Roy used to be bullied when he was in school and Crash was the bully (but in a different school).  The biggest bully in Crash’s school is the daughter of Roy’s childhood bully, Dana Matherson. Roy and Crash discuss how to solve the problem and create a reward system called Crash Cash. At first, the school’s bully, Chloe, doesn’t like the new reward system but after she finds out she can win a skateboard she tries harder to be kind (like Crash did with his friend Penn).  Chloe helps different kids in the school by doing good deeds and earns Crash Cash. At the end of the movie, Chloe wins the skateboard and isn’t a bully anymore.