Read “Deadline”
While definitely a book for teens, “Deadline” by Chris Crutcher, isn’t half bad. Okay, I really liked it. It had a character named Dallas Suzuki and I couldn’t resist it. It’s a fairly depressing topic - 18 year old kid finds out he has a terminal illness and has a year to live. He decides not to tell anyone but to have the best senior year of high school ever. He talks back to his teachers, goes out for the football team (even though he’s a small guy) and falls in love.
His spiritual questions are fairly normal and never answered to my satisfaction, but it worked with the story. This is not a life changing book, but it’s good. It reminds me vaguely of the movie “Life is Beautiful” which was a fantastic movie because it was funny and sad at the same time. This book has a little bit of that charm. You’re not going to buy a copy of it for all of your friends, but if you read it with a teen and talk about it, I guarentee you’ll be glad that you did.
This is probably most appropriate for kids 13 and over. There’s some fairly rough stuff and I would read it along with them. It’s not as poignant as “A Walk to Remember” or “Tuesdays with Morrie”, “Deadline” is aimed at more mainstream teens. Still if you can get them to start with “Deadline”, “Walk” or “Tuesdays” would be good follow ups.
Posted in Children/Teen, Funny