Synopsis
A gifted athlete who's twice qualified as a swimmer in the Junior Olympics, disenfranchised high school senior T.J. Jones (the only student of color in his school) has always shunned school athletics. It is only after his favorite teacher, Mr. Simet, begs him to help form a swim team for the school (thus helping save Mr. Simet's job), that T.J. becomes a high school athlete. Given the right to assemble his own team, T.J. recruits only fellow outcasts and winds up with "a representative from each extreme of the educational spectrum, a muscle man, a giant, a chameleon, and a one-legged psychopath." Named one of the Best Children's Books 2001 by Publishers Weekly.
Intellectually and athletically gifted, TJ, a multiracial, adopted teenager, shuns organized sports and the gung-ho athletes at his high school until he agrees to form a swimming team and recruits some of the school's less popular students.
| Details | | Publication Date: | 2001-04-01 |
| Size | | Length: | 220 pages | | Height: | 9.0 in | | Width: | 6.0 in | | Thickness: | 0.8 in | | Weight: | 15.2 oz |
Publisher's Note
There's bad news and good news about the Cutter High School swim team. The bad news is that they don't have a pool. The good news is that only one of them can swim anyway. A group of misfits brought together by T. J. Jones (the J is redundant) to find their places in a school that has no place for them, the Cutter All Night Mermen struggle to carve out their own turf. T. J. is convinced that a varsity letter jacket--unattainable for most, exclusive, revered, the symbol (as far as T. J. is concerned) of all that is screwed up at Cutter High--will be an effective carving tool. He's right. He's also wrong. Still, it's always the quest that counts. And the bus on which the Mermen travel to swim meets--piloted by Icko, the permanent resident of All, Night Fitness--soon becomes the cocoon inside which they gradually allow themselves to talk, to fit, to bloom. Chris Crutcher is in top form with a cast of characters--adults, children, and teenagers--fighting for dignity in a world where tragedy and comedy dance side by side, where a moment's inattention can bring lifelong heartache, and where true acceptance is the only prescription for what ails us.
Industry Reviews
"In the hand's of a lesser storyteller, the tale would fall apart under its own weight, but Crutcher juggles the disparate elements of his plot with characteristic energy, crafting a compulsively readable story that rings true with genuine feeling and is propelled by exhilarating swimming action to an ending that is both cataclysmic and triumphant."
Kirkus Reviews (03/01/2001)
"Crutcher's superior gifts as a storyteller and his background as a working therapist combine to make magic in WHALE TALK. The thread of truth in his fiction reminds us that heroes can come in any shape, color, ability or size, and friendship can bridge nearly any divide. A truly exceptional book."
Washington Post Book World - Kelly Milner Halls (05/10/2001)
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