Jerry Spinelli’s 1997 Wringer is a middle-grade novel intended for a young adult (YA) audience.

This study guide uses the 1997 HarperCollins edition.

Plot Summary

Palmer LaRue is young boy living in the small town of Waymer, the home of Family Fest. Family Fest is a week of fun, games, and fried food, but the event culminates with the mass shooting of 5,000 pigeons. Shooters pay to kill the birds and the money pays for the town’s park maintenance. Palmer’s father explained this to Palmer, but ever since witnessing his first pigeon shooting, Palmer has been haunted by his inability to reconcile the death of so many pigeons.

Many 10-year-old boys in the town become wringers: the people who wring the necks of the pigeons who are wounded but don’t die from a shooter’s bullet. Even at nine-years-old, Palmer is terrified of turning ten because he doesn’t want to become a wringer. He’s too afraid to tell anyone that he doesn’t want to be a wringer because he feels like he’s expected to become one. This is especially true since his father was once a wringer, and his newfound friends want to be wringers, too.

For much of the novel, Palmer is friends with Beans, Mutto, and Henry—the toughest and most popular boys on the street. He is grateful they’ve accepted him after years of being a social outcast but being accepted comes at a great cost: He must pretend to be tough like them, and he can’t ever reveal the secret that he doesn’t want to be a wringer. This becomes impossible after he takes in Nipper, a pigeon, and reacquaints himself with Dorothy—a former friend who he engaged in bullying with the Beans Boys. Nipper and Dorothy’s genuine friendship ultimately gives Palmer the strength he needs to stand up for himself and his convictions.