The Sledding Hill (edition 2006)

Overall, this didn't blow me away. It starts off strong--the narrator is Billy, who was just killed in a freak accident involving a stack of sheetrock and is now hanging around to help his best friend Eddie through the loss (Eddie having lost his father to a different freak accident a few months earlier). What could be a great story about friendship and healing and inner strength--or something--becomes a story about censorship and book-banning. Which could also be a good story, but Crutcher chose one of his own books to be the one censored. I understand the appeal of using a real author and a real book, and I'm always happy to see authors who are pissed when their books get banned for idiotic reasons (viva intellectual freedom!), but in this case the book just seemed too personal. The second half of the book, when we get into the book-banning section, reads like a long lecture that Crutcher delivers to yell at whatever small town was found banning his book.

This is the first Chris Crutcher book I've read, I think, and I'm planning to read more--not because I think he's great, but because I suspect this was a minor work that he wrote to get over a writer's-block hump. ( )

Crutcher is one of my go-to authors for YA fiction and probably the most inclusive when it comes to the ugly life issues kids face. He's a champion of telling like it is and keeping books in the hands of the reader where they belong. This work,(cool and unusual twist) read just like some of his interviews. It was interesting, impassioned, and right on, but he's preaching to the choir, as it were. I don't know if the equivalent of the Red Brickers would really read it. ( )

I have to say that I loved this book. I don't rate books a 5 star unless I absolutely love it. The Sledding Hill is about a boy who loses his dad and his best friend within months of each other. He feels pressure from the preacher to become baptized. He misses his dad and his friend. Then he is introduced to a book (fictional) by Chris Crutcher. This book makes him realize that he isn't alone in the world and feels like he has friends again.

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The following contains spoilers so please stop reading if you don't want to spoil the book.

First I want to say that I believe that you have to be saved to be baptized. There were a few other things I don't believe in as well but they helped build the book. Religious beliefs aside, I loved this book. I am a future English teacher and know that the greatest books can and will be on the banned book list. I loved how Chris Crutcher wrote himself into this novel because he has been on the banned book list. The relationship that Eddie and Billy's dad was great in this novel. Billy's dad reached out for him when Eddie came over and gave him what he needed. He didn't push Eddie to talk like the Tarter did. When I first picked up this book I wasn't sure what it was going to be about it. I can certainly say I didn't think it was going to be about censorship. Crutcher did a great job with this book. It may be one that I teach in the classroom one day. :-) ( )

I adore Chris Crutcher's books and have read almost all of them; I never seem to tire of his themes of compassion, intellectual freedom, standing up against bullies, and open discourse. That said, this book did not work well for me, although I appreciate that he tried a new approach. I think that might be the problem: the book's two unusual elements each might have worked better alone, giving the author time to work them out more successfully.

(SPOILERS FOLLOW)

The first element is that the author is narrating posthumously; Billy is killed in a freak accident (he kicks a pile of sheet rock and it falls on him) and he then narrates the story, popping in and out of the other characters' heads as a dead person. I have no problem with this idea, but Billy relates the thoughts he sees/hears, sometimes in third person and sometimes in first person, even within the same paragraph. Since he also narrates his own portions in first person, I had to keep stopping to figure out whether a particular thought belonged to Billy or to his friend Eddie, whom Billy visits and helps throughout the narrative.

The second unusual element is that Crutcher inserts himself into the narrative; the book that some characters want to ban is a fictitious book by Chris Crutcher himself. The characters fighting both for and against banning the book check out Crutcher's website and give lots of facts about his life. It comes across as a bit gimmicky and in my mind doesn't add much to the story.

This book is also shorter than most of Crutcher's work, and it feels as though he rushed to the conclusion, which seemed mostly an excuse to have a couple of characters give impassioned speeches. In my opinion, a clever argument given as a speech should rarely be the climax of a book; it then makes the book seem too much of an excuse for the author him/herself to give a speech.

Finally, while I agree with Crutcher that the people/characters we see as the "bad guys" do not generally think they are doing bad things, such as the reverend/school board member who is trying to ban the book, the fact remains that what they are doing *is* wrong, so I'm not willing to just accept that "bad guys aren't that bad" on face value. The characters against censorship lose the battle (all of Crutcher's books are banned in the school) and supposedly win the war (the janitor and librarian who've lost their jobs over this issue get jobs at the public library -- which is completely unrealistic). Somehow, this ending just didn't satisfy.

All these criticisms aside, I think Crutcher is a fantastic writer and I will continue to buy and read his books. I've already pre-ordered his next one! ( )

This is a clever book that adopts an unusual narrative point of view to explore the concepts of friendship, love, well-being, and censorship. It is particularly welcome as a YA text with a male narrator and centred on a male protagonist that doesn't explore sexual relationships; instead, it explores issues of intelligence, authority, conformity, and integrity.

Eddie, the protagonist, is grieving sudden, deep losses and confronting the challenges of being a teenage boy. A community fight over the removal of books from the school library gives him a focus for healing and working through his emerging sense of identity.

Readers are likely to be challenged by the narrative concept, by the arguments around censorship (particularly the contamination theory and the responsible-community theory), and by the author's presence in the text. This book invites thoughtful conversation and mature engagement. It could be rewardingly used in a classroom, for it is sure to stimulate discussion, but is more likely to be successfully introduced to individual readers through recommendation from a trusted source. There are few language concerns per se, but any careful reader will encounter narrative asides, knowing winks, and paraphrasing that signal typical hot-button topics.

I'm very glad to have read this novel. It's thoughtful, approachable, and so, so smart, and I enjoyed it.