And She Could Not Find a Single Young Adult Fiction Book about a male-identified person of African Descent who runs. But they are also four kids chosen for an elite middle school track team—a team that could qualify them for the Junior Olympics if they can get their acts together. But the craziest thing was, I felt like the shot—loudest sound I ever heard—made my legs move even faster.

When I'm not reading, I also like knitting, crafty things, baking, eating, walking, taking photos, watching traumatising medical dramas and nurturing a close relationship with my sofa and blankets. Jason Reynolds does an amazing job of getting this kid's heart onto the page, and even when you're like "Nooooo, Ghost! There’s been a monumental push for increased diversity in children’s literature in the last few years. But Ghost has been running for the wrong reasons -until he meets Coach, an ex-Olympic Medallist who sees something in Ghost: crazy natural talent.

Charles has to hold the record for saying, Let me guess, sunflower seeds, because he says that every single time I come in, which means I probably also already hold the record for responding, loudly, the exact same way.

I took my month break after what should have been the impetus for major conflict (when Ghost steals the shoes) because I just couldn't figure out how it was going to be the source of enough conflict to make me want to keep reading and to make me want to see Ghost come through on the other side. So I check that out for a little while like it’s some kind of movie: The About to Pass Out Show, starring stair-stepper person one through ten. The first time he ran -- truly ran -- he was running for his life: running ain't nothing I ever had to practice.And as Coach takes him under his wing, Ghost discovers that even if you can’t run away from where you come from, you can run towards where you want to be. You have this kid who does a number of "bad" things, but it's hard to get mad at him because his reasons, for the most part, are good. My sixth graders are reluctant readers who like fast paced, realistic fiction with characters they can root for. Of middle-grade education professionals and middle-grade novel enjoyers, I am definitely in the minority of this one.

But when Ghost impulsively challenges an elite sprinter to a race — and wins — the Olympic medalist track coach sees he has something: crazy natural talent. He wants to be on the team and one day he decides to show up these fancy people on the track and show them he can run too. He’s got a load of anger inside that he doesn’t know how to deal with so he tends to take it out on others at school.I can definitely see the appeal here with sports, single parent, outsider, urban, black representation and more. This book was heartfelt and definitely teaches kids a great lesson about not letting certain situations define your character. I had such high hopes for this book to be a companion read to The Crossover by Kwame Alexander with my 6th graders. This was just a pitch perfect middle grade / youngish YA book that was a total delight from start to finish. Charles, who, by the way, looks just like James Brown if James Brown were white, has been ringing me up for sunflower seeds five days a week for about, let me think… since the fourth grade, which is when Ma took the hospital job.

This is the first book in the Track series: What conflicts do you think Ghost is going to face in the next book? His voice seemed like an adult trying to disguise his life lessons by making them come from a kid who uses hip vernacular. Closely read the last few pages of Chapter 5 and the beginning of Chapter 6, making sure to pay attention to the author’s use of figurative language. You may choose to create a book trailer for the novel or adapt a scene in the book into a screenplay and film it. It's real, it has a very strong voice and character (I'm actually sad that the rest of the books in the series are supposed to be about other characters), and it's about a sport/fitness activity that a lot of people can do easily: we need more lit about stuff like this.But when he wanders onto a field where a track team is training, Ghost proves he has what it takes to run with the best of them. When Ghost stumbles onto a local track team and decides to show them a thing or two (they think they can run? Ghost wants to be the fastest sprinter on his elite middle school track team, but his past is slowing him down in this first electrifying novel of the acclaimed Track series from Coretta Scott King - John Steptoe Award–winning author Jason Reynolds.