The Whole Nine Yards

Things That Make White People Uncomfortable by Michael Bennett
Chicago, Ill. : Haymarket Books, 2018.
xxxviii, 220 p. : ill. ; 23 cm.

Seattle Seahawks defensive star (until 2018), Michael Bennett, has a lot to say about injustices in the United States in this remarkable book from Haymarket Books.

It is a great read, revealing Bennett's passion for social justice - especially around issues of racism and police violence.  But Bennett is not a single issue crusader; he is also a feminist, food justice activist and workers' rights advocate. 

Though called Things that Make White People Uncomfortable, the first half of the book could as easily have been called Things to Make Football Fans Uncomfortable as he exposes the heartless, predatory "business" of college football and the tough exploitation to be found in the actual business of professional football.

Whatever you end up thinking of the positions that Bennett takes on issues, you have to admire him as a man of integrity and heart.  I would definitely recommend his book.

An Inside the Park Home Run

One Shot at Forever by Chris Ballard
New York : Hyperion, [2012]
viii, 255 p. : ill., map ; 25 cm.

I added this book to our high school library last April after seeing that it was a 2016 Abraham Lincoln Award Nominee, and that it won a 2013 Alex Award (given to books for adults that have great young adult appeal).

After reading it, I wish it had won the Lincoln Award; it's that good!  It's a great book with so much to recommend it: a great baseball tale, an underdog story with heart, an homage to the counterculture of the 60s & 70s, a nostalgic coming-of-age saga, and a local setting!

I won't spoil the ending, but the book, with the subtitle A Small Town, an Unlikely Coach, and a Magical Baseball Season, recounts the unlikely successes of a very small town high school baseball team during the 1970 and 1971 seasons.  I was surprised to find out that in the 70s, Illinois high schools (at least in baseball) competed for state playoffs against schools large and small.  There were no classes and divisions, so a little school of 300 students might play a Chicago, powerhouse school of 5000 students.  This uneven competition is part of what makes the story so compelling.  Also, at the heart of the narrative is an iconoclast teacher/coach who - because of his big heart and unconventional notions - brings out the best in students and players.

I will highly recommend this book to students and teachers.  Some of the events of the story take place right here in Champaign-Urbana, and just 70 miles away in Macon, Illinois.  Also, the sports writing is crisp and interesting, but what really makes this book wonderful is the great passion and love that shines in the retelling of the Macon Ironmen "Mod Squad."  It is a lovely tale of some of the best aspects of teaching, coaching, and playing sports for the love of the game.

Game Over

Against Football: One Fan's Reluctant Manifesto by Steve Almond
Brooklyn : Melville House, [2014]
178 p.; 20cm.

In late summer this year, I heard Steve Almond on several talk shows [you can hear him talking with the superb Dave Zirin at the 13 minute mark here] discussing this book, Against Football.  Hearing him talk about the moral problems of being a fan of football was interesting, especially because he was a devoted and obsessed fan of professional football, mainly of the Oakland Raiders.  He brought to the discussion an element missing in some criticisms of football - a passion for the thrills of the game for the fans.

To my mind, Almond has written a powerful and passionate denunciation of the popular love of football by the American public - something that polling data backs up.  Almond manages in this short [178 p.] manifesto to expose football as a brutal [even lethal] sport that embodies many of the shortcomings of US society - sexism, racism, militarism, and unbridled capitalist greed.  However, he also tries to explain why it is such an appealing sport for millions of fans.  He backs his critiques up with facts and data that are hard to dispute. 

Of course many fans will be angry or frustrated with Almond's critique.  Any fan reading this book, will have to confront that their support of football, is a support for a sport that ravages the brains and the bodies of its players [including this tragic injury at a nearby high school this fall].  For those reluctant to give up football, I would suggest checking out this moving video from Time magazine which explains a lot about CTE - the brain injury that is a direct result of football violence and is at the heart of the injury crisis confronting football.

Want to keep watching, enjoying football?  If you do, you at least owe it to yourself and your conscience to read this passionate renunciation of American football.

A Tough One

Inexcusable by Chris Lynch
New York : Atheneum Books for Young Readers, c2005.
165 p. ; 22 cm.

I nearly didn't post on this book, mainly because it's getting a bit old (2005), but it was such a powerful and tough little book that I had to write up a review.  I've wanted to read the book since my son read it years ago, and I'm glad that I finally did.  Inexcusable is the story of a date rape and is written from the point of view of Kier Sarafian, the perpetrator, who relentlessly tries to excuse and justify his deed.  The book moves right along, and - with it's strong character development, nice sports angle, and dramatic relationship crises - should appeal to both young men and women.  

The novel received a lot of praise when it came out, including being a National Book Award finalist. And after reading it, I can see why.  The strength of Lynch's book, as pointed out by reviewers, is his ability to keep the book from being an easy "black and white" case of good guy / bad guy.  Instead  Lynch gives us a character study of the kind of "good guy" whose charm, recklessness, immaturity, arrogance and self-denial are, in fact, the very components of a self-centered and self-serving sexual user and potential rapist.

By telling the novel from the point of view of the accused, Lynch is able to explore the blurred morality of a perpetrator who refuses to accept that he has done anything wrong.  In this way he is able to draw the reader into the same moral questions around consent, manipulation, and violation.  Students who read it will have to wrestle with how reliable a narrator Kier is and just how much of a "good guy" is he.  The book would be a great book for sparking discussions and would pair well with Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak.

Heartwarming, Sort Of

Back cover illus. by Bosma

Winger by Andrew Smith
New York : Simon & Schuster BFYR, 2013
438 p. : ill. ; 22 cm.

Winger is a readable, entertaining book.  Smith is great with dialogue and humor and the plotting moves along well.  It's a coming of age novel told in the voice of Ryan Dean West, aka "Winger" who is starting his junior year at a boarding school for wealthy kids in the Pacific NW.  He's smart, scrappy, a hard-playing, talented rugby player with heart, apparently cute, but...he's only 14 - two years younger than his peers (and especially Annie, his friend who he desperately loves and hopes will feel the same).  Winger is also immature, crude, completely obsessed with sex and rating the attractiveness of girls and women, and prone to fighting.  The Booklist reviewer nailed it: "In short, Ryan Dean is a slightly pervy but likable teen."

I would have said "somewhat likable" - I found at least one his pranks creepy and repulsive, his constant ranking of females tiresome, and his jealous possessiveness both hypocritical and annoying.  These would not have bothered me so much - except that Smith has written essentially a male fantasy tale.  Winger, in spite of his immaturity, and insistence on what a loser he is, ends up with the two most attractive and interesting girls in the school in love with him. As the School Library Journal reviewer noted about one of the girls: "One wonders what she sees in Ryan Dean."

The novel ends with a shocking act of violence that doesn't seem believable (at least not in the context of the novel) and raises a lot of questionable issues about the supposed motives and behaviors of closeted gay guys. 

In spite of my criticisms, the novel is funny, fun to read, and likely to appeal to both boys and girls.