In the section "East End" at the beginning of his tale, Spinelli relates his first memories of his home located in the East End section of Norristown, describing his father's first attempt to introduce his son to the sport of baseball. As Spinelli explains in describing the comparison between him and the adult-sized baseball bat his father first purchased for him, "It reminds me how small I once was." Watching the ball he had hit with the baseball bat go over into the neighbor's yard, Spinelli recalls, "The gate facing the sidewalk was metal, and I used to grip those bars in my tiny hands." Spinelli uses adjectives such as "small" and "tiny" to convey not only his small size but also to show the feelings of a child in an adult world.
Growing up in the years prior to the Vietnam War, Spinelli describes how as a child he had played ceaselessly at becoming a soldier. The fascination carried into his adolescence, despite a developing awareness of its realities. In the section "War," he relates preparing himself for the inevitability of the draft by having daydreams of being interrogated by enemy forces. Spinelli describes himself in these fantasies as a "good American soldier" who will not give up the information requested until faced with torture. However, even in his daydreams he becomes the antithesis to what he sees as a "good American soldier"; when confronted with torture, he spills all the imaginary secrets. Spinelli uses the phrase "good American soldier" to show the archetype of bravery for American boys during the period and the difficulty of living up to such expectations even in his dreams.
In the chapter "Lash La Rue," Spinelli describes his common desire with other boys his age to become a cowboy. However, while all the other boys want to be Roy Rogers, Spinelli writes of wanting to be the fictional cowboy Lash La Rue. With his black attire and skill with a whip, La Rue becomes Spinelli's ideal of what a cowboy should be. In describing his affinity for La Rue, Spinelli writes of feeling "'cool' before I ever knew the word." While he has the same daydreams as other boys, he finds himself identifying with an outsider of the world of fictional cowboys and comes to see himself as set apart from other boys.
Spinelli's autobiography has received attention from reviewers and educators alike. In describing "Knots in My Yo-Yo String," Scholastic contributes its own description of Spinelli in the tale of his young life. As Scholastic notes in reviewing the book, much of the adventures of Spinelli are of the everyday variety, but his "curious" nature and contemplation of these events are humorous and informative of the development of a creative mind.