Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher
ISBN: 9780061771316
Greenwillow Books, New York, and 2001
Plot Summary: The Tao Jones (T.J.) is black, Japanese and white and he is the only bi-racial kid in his high school. This fact is one that he has gotten used to, but the one thing he can’t accept is how the jocks at his school get preferential treatment and are allowed to bully anyone that doesn’t bow down to them or follow the prescribe rules. When he is approached by his English teacher Mr. Simet about heading a swim team the idea of putting together a team of misfits forms. Having them all earn a letter jacket would stick it to the arrogant jocks. The All-Night Mermen will have to use a small pool at the local 24/7 gym, but that isn’t a big deal since they really only have one good swimmer. Overtime the team bonds and as friendship forms they begin to see that the journey together is better than the reward.
Critical Evaluation: The character of T.J. has almost too much going for him to seem realistic. While his rough beginning and subsequent therapy would plausibly make him more conscientious of other’s situation and give a reason for the times where he seems to have wisdom far beyond his years sometimes clashes with how he doesn’t take into account what could have happened to his team of “misfits” if things hadn’t worked out as planned. For being someone who is thoughtful enough to help with therapy his lack of regard of how the team might feel if they found out why he picked them is a bit off-putting.
There is some foreshadowing for the major even in the end of the book in chapter three with the baby deer, T.J. and Rich Marshall. The abusive relationship between Rich and Alicia is very realistic and it adds depth to Alicia in that she recognizes that she has a problem, but knows that she is going to continue to crawl back to Rich until he does something unthinkable. All of the character’s issues are so vividly described that it helps the reader connect to their pain.
Reader’s Annotation: When a group of misfits is brought together to form a swim team they learn that winning isn’t what matters, but the friendship that is the end result of their time together.
Author Biography: Author information retrieved from Chris Crutcher’s website. http://www.chriscrutcher.com/biography.html
Chris Crutcher was raised in Cascade, Idaho, a lumber and cattle ranch town located in the central Idaho Rockies, a two hour drive over treacherous two-lane from the nearest movie theater and a good forty minutes from the nearest bowling alley. In high school he played football, basketball and ran track, not because he was a stellar athlete, but because in a place so isolated, every able bodied male was heavily recruited. “If you didn’t show up on the first day of football practice your freshman year,” he says, “they just came to your house and got you. And your parents let them in.”
His early interest in stories came principally from reading Jean Shepherd and other fine authors in the Playboy Magazine delivered monthly to his house because, as he overheard his father saying to his mother, “Some of the very finest contemporary American literature graces the pages of that magazine.” Full disclosure, there is justified suspicion that he may have perused some of the photography before settling down to serious reading.
Crutcher’s years as teacher, then director, of a K-12 alternative school in Oakland, California through the nineteen-seventies, and his subsequent twenty-odd years as a therapist specializing in child abuse and neglect, inform his thirteen novels and two collections of short stories. “I have forever been intrigued by the extremes of the human condition,” he says, “the remarkable juxtaposition of the ghastly and the glorious. As Eric ‘Moby’ Calhoun tells us at the conclusion of Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes, ‘Ain’t it a trip where heroes come from’.”
He has also written what he calls an ill-advised autobiography titled King of the Mild Frontier, which was designated by “Publisher’s Weekly” as “the YA book most adults would have read if they knew it existed.”
Chris has received a number of coveted awards, from his high school designation as “Most Likely to Plagiarize” to the American Library Association’s Margaret A. Edwards Lifetime Achievement Award. His favorites are his two Intellectual Freedom awards, one from the National Council for Teachers of English and the other from the National Coalition Against Censorship.
Five of Crutcher’s books appeared on an American Library Association list of the 100 Best Books for Teens of the Twentieth Century (1999 to 2000). A recent NPR list of the Best 100 YA and Children’s books included none of those titles. Time flies.
Crutcher no longer listens to, nor contributes to, NPR.
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Curriculum Ties: Social Issues
Book Talking Ideas: This novel is over ten years old, but it is still as valid today as it was when it was written. In what ways are people mistreated that is still seen within schools today as they were when this book was written?
Reading Level/ Interest Age: 8th-12th grade
Challenge Issues: Violence, Language, Drinking
Challenge Resources:
- Handout of the ALA’s Library Bill of Rights and Right to Read
- Know your library’s collection development policy and have a copy of it on hand. Being able to show how this book fits the necessary requirements for purchase will give you a leg to stand on.
- Have both positive and negative reviews from sources such as SLJ, VOYA, Booklist, Kirkus Review, Common Sense Media, Publishers Weekly, Hornbook, and Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books.
- Be familiar with the material. If you have not read the book mention this in your conversation and ask for time to review it and invite the patron back for a more in-depth conversation once you have been able to look it over thoroughly.
- Be prepared to cite any awards the book has won.
- Have a rationale prepared on why the book enhances your library’s collection and be able to offer alternative titles on the same subject that might be less controversial.
- Stay calm while talking with the patient and practice active listening skills. The patron might calm down if they are allowed to air their grievance.
- Have a copy of the Request for Reconsideration of Library Materials form handy as a last resort and be able to explain the process to the patron.
Why I picked this book: While Sarah Dessen is the queen of chick lit, Chris Crutcher is the king of writing a novel that is a mash-up of athletics and problem novels. This is a classic underdog story and the reader will fall in love with the All-Night Mermen; they are the all-male Breakfast Club. Not everyone is going to love his style, including myself, because they don’t connect with using a sport to sort out their problem or feelings. However this might draw male teens into reading the book when otherwise they might not have. The types of problems Crutcher writes about are not ones that are going to fade out quickly. . The staying power of his books alone should earn him a spot in a library’s young adult collection.
Kate Daigle's Mini Collection 