Anyone who’s felt gravel crunch under their spikes will recognize Coach’s workouts - the exhausting fartleks and distance runs, the competitive banter.
As Ghost puts it, “I got a lot of scream inside.” At school, he gets in trouble and struggles to contain his fear and anger. At night, Ghost sleeps near the door, in case he and his mom have to run again. At first, he lacks the gear and the tenacity to perform well. Ghost’s transformation is slow and believable. “Don’t nobody go to college for free to run no races.” But when the cocky sprinter Lu gets ready to run, Ghost lines up alongside, nearly beating him, and Coach offers a life-changing invitation to join the team. When he hears Coach telling his elite track team, the Defenders, that running could lead to a college scholarship, Ghost talks back in his head. Ghost is cynical, dragged down by the weight of his past. The revelation will hit many readers hard, but Ghost tells it in the same matter-of-fact tone he uses to talk about sunflower seeds or the kids he sees working on running - which perplexes him because running was never anything he had to practice. Like many Guinness-obsessed kids, Ghost dreams of being the best at something too.īut five pages into “Ghost,” Jason Reynolds’s new middle-grade novel, Ghost’s stream-of-consciousness narrative drifts into the secret that has taken over his life: the story of the day he learned how fast he can run, fleeing his apartment with his mother as his father shot at them. Ghost is funny, sharp and real, spitting out sunflower seeds along with world-records trivia as he watches a track team practice at the local park. (Middle grade ages 8 to 12)Ĭastle Crenshaw, or Ghost, as he has nicknamed himself, begins his story by telling about the man who holds the world record for blowing up balloons with his nose.
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