Webjobs Team Team থেকে Marienfels, Germany থেকে Marienfels, Germany

Margaret A. Edwards Award--my choice I liked this book, it was more of a quick read that would appeal especially to boys. This book consists of six short stories that are based off of true encounters by the author Chris Crutcher. The stories are centered around sports, wrestling in particular. They also deal with pressures boys have by their parents to be the best in athletics. We meet characters such as Johnny who has an overbearing father who belittles him and his mother. His father, Cecil B. Rivers, was a 2nd place wrestler back in his college days and Johnny is an aspiring wrestling champ himself. They have the opportunity to wrestle each other and when that day comes Johnny wrestles his dad hoping for some sort of satisfaction, to be able to get back at his dad for all the years of degrading comments. However, he doesn't feel the way he always imagined. The other stories deal with body image, bigotry and AIDS. I would probably promote this from the athletic perspective so that it will appeal to boys. I think these issues are important for teen boys to understand and they should have a resource to go to if they are feeling the same pressures that these characters are. The voices are very authentic because they deal with common situations. For example, dealing with parents, questioning ideals and peers. I would hope that the fact that it is a bunch of different stories will help sell the book. 5Q 4P M,J