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Why doesn't Jess have many friends and why does he initially avoid Leslie Burke?
Quick answer:
Jess has few friends because he doesn't share the typical interests of boys his age, such as sports, preferring drawing and art. This makes him an outsider, and he trains hard to win races to gain respect and friends. He initially avoids Leslie Burke because she is a girl, which could lead to teasing, and because she defeated him in a race, shattering his dreams of being the fastest runner.
I think that Jess doesn't have a great big group of friends for the same reason that he and his father are not super close. Jess isn't extremely interested in the things that most other boys his age are interested in. Jess loves to draw and pursue art, and that's awesome; however, most boys his age are interested in sports like football and baseball:
Jess had written about football, which he really hated, but he had enough brains to know that if he said drawing, everyone would laugh at him.
Jess is smart enough to know that he needs to fake interest in those things, but my guess is that the other boys can tell that Jess just isn't quite as interested as they are or as interested as they believe he should be. His love for art or lack of love for sports makes Jess a bit of an...
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oddity, and I think that is why he trains so hard for the running races. He believes that winning the races will earn him some athletic respect from the other boys. That in turn will earn him friends, as well as make his father proud.
Jess avoids Leslie at first for a couple of reasons. First, she's a girl. This is a problem on two fronts. Jess is surrounded by girls at home. He doesn't need another girl in his life. The other problem with hanging out with a girl at Jess's age is that he'll get teased about it. The other students won't be able to see that Leslie is a friend that happens to be a girl. They'll just tease Jess about his "girlfriend":
At first they avoided each other during school hours, but by October they grew careless about their friendship. Gary Fulcher, like Brenda, took great pleasure in teasing Jess about his "girl friend."
The other reason that Jess avoids Leslie is because he is mad at her. He's trained all summer to win those races, and Leslie comes in with no experience and wins it all. Leslie destroyed his dreams of winning, so he doesn't want her around:
This was the day he was going to be champion—the best runner of the fourth and fifth grades, and he hadn't even won his heat. There was no cheering at either end of the field. The rest of the boys seemed as stunned as he. The teasing would come later, he felt sure, but at least for the moment none of them were talking.