17 January 2001 WHALE TALK by Chris Crutcher, Greenwillow Books, April 2001

WHALE TALK, set in eastern Washington State, is the story of a group of adolescent outsiders who are brought together into a most unusual high school swim team by an adopted/Black/White/Japanese classmate who has a bone to pick with the local racist jock fraternity of Neanderthals. TJ (Tao Jones) is recruited by his English/Journalism teacher, Mr. Simet, a former competitive swimmer himself, who is looking to begin a school swim team. Mr. Simet's hope is to center a team around TJ, who is a barely-under-control hothead with a reason. Fortuitously raised by extremely conscious adoptive parents, and previously unwilling to participate in school teams despite his incredible and well known athletic ability, TJ recruits the creme de la creme of the school's losers for the new team. Then he and Mr. Simet take on the school's athletic establishment, fighting to get the resources and the coveted letter jackets, for their dedicated team.

There is a lot more to the plot, the context, and the significance of this story than I am telling. This is Chris Crutcher's first published novel in six years. He had a novel completed just before the brutal Columbine incident, which he felt was too close to reality, and which was then consigned to the dustbin except for holding onto some of the characters to whom he'd given birth.

Last year I felt that GIVE A BOY A GUN, by Todd Strasser, contained the most vitally important message of anything I'd read during the year. In that story, inspired by Columbine, the two main characters saw no hope of deliverance from the unremitting torture they received at the hands of the popular school jocks who acted with the sanction of the teachers/coaches who also had no use for the outcasts.

Here, in vivid contrast, the outsiders are given validation and a reason to keep on keepin' on. TJ is surrounded by the small group of adults who had collectively and successfully transformed him from his brutal beginnings as a severely neglected crack baby. Given the continued support of that group along with Mr. Simet and Icko, the assistant coach, TJ has the determination and the tools to begin the process in which the outsiders are brought back from the precipice. At the beginning of the book TJ seems too much like a saint, but as the story progresses you learn it is the adult guidance and support that has made him so great. In a better world this is the kind of book which would be required reading for all parents.

Richie Partington

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