Whale Talk

Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher

ISBN: 9780060293697

New York:  Greenwillow Books, 2001

Plot - The Tao Jones, adopted at age two from a mother who had great imagination when it came to naming her son and not much else to offer him, is a mixed race senior at Cutter High School in a tiny, all-white, openly bigoted town near Spokane, Washington.  His parents, a successful child-advocate attorney and her husband, a heart-of-gold ex-trucker who might look like a biker bent on revenge, but spends his time volunteering as a court-appointed child advocate, guide their son to live by his strengths and conquer his demons.  “T.J,” as he is called to avoid more attention, is also an exceptional athlete.  Through this coming of age story, T.J. must find his way between twin forces within himself—one that has an uncannily wise understanding of how the world works and how to get things done in it, and one that knows that doing the right thing sometimes requires doing what the adults think is the wrong thing.  T.J. openly rejects his high school’s intense athletics department because it is a football dominated old boys club, rewarding only those who play on the team and play the game.  But then he sees the star of the team abusing a brain-damaged boy for wearing a letter jacket that is not his, and he decides that forming a winning swim team, even if he is the only one who can win, is the way to make the good old boys listen.  The boys who join him are either not athletes, or certainly not swimmers, but together they form a team that is far more important to T.J. than he ever dreamed.  With the help of a vagrant Burger King employee and their coach, who also holds no love for the athletic department, the team charges through their season, becoming exactly the set of friends that can support each of them as they determine who they are despite forces inside and outside themselves that want to determine that for them.

Critical Evaluation - Whale Talk is engrossing, disturbing, and at times funny.  Much more than a story, it takes the reader deep into the heart of its characters and their hometown.  As with the “magnify” option one has when rolling over icons on an Apple computer, taking this book off the self and cracking its cover delivers an experience of intimacy that a reader might not anticipate and one that carries the joy and horrors that any intimate moments force us to endure.  Crutcher's storytelling is fast-paced without shoving events through the reader’s mind, and his characters stand, unfazed and as full as life, from the moment we open the book until we are finished.  There is no doubt that they will go on, with or without us. The author manages to create a community of disharmony and inescapable interdependence where every actor in it needs to be there and finds his or her destiny unfolding as it should.

Reader's annotation - T.J. is an exceptional athlete, intelligent, a good looking mix of Black, White, and Japanese, and he knows all of it.  But being who he is is dangerous in the small Iowa town he comes from because more than anything, he is determined to fight for justice.

Information about the author - Chris Crutcher was raised in a town much like the fictional Iowa backwater in which he sets Whale Talk.  According to his website, Crutcher's hometown of Cascade Idoaho was nothing if not dedicated to its local athletic teams.  Crutcher could play, and did participate in competitive football, basketball, and track, but was dwarfed in ability and performance, and intellect he claims, by his older brother, John.  Beginning in the early 1970's, Crutcher spent ten years as Director of the Lakeside School in Oakland, CA, a last-chance school for kids at risk.  He claims to have been a mediocre teacher before he landed at Lakeside, but on his website reports that to the kids at Lakeside he gave his best.  They also had a huge influence on him personally and on what he chose to write about in his novels from then on.

Genre - YA Problem Novel or Contemporary Fiction
Curriculum Ties -  None immediately evident.
Booktalk ideas  

1. Read, p. 44, "In the locker room, I peel off...," the sauna scene where T.J. meets Icko for the first time. End with, "to find out who Oliver Van Zandt turns out to be, read Whale Talk."
2. Outline the plot line of T.J.'s determination to get the whole team letters, finishing with the meeting the Athletic Council has while the team is away, where they vote that the agreed-on qualifications for lettering don't count.  Read p. 185, last section where we see T.J. setting up for and diving into his own last match-up.  Finish with "find out what he does when you read the book."
   

Reading level - 9-12th grade

Challenge issues - Vivid descriptions of child abuse, offensive language, family violence
Challenge defense ideas:

• Librarian has read the book carefully and decided to include it in our school's 7-12 grade library as a resource intended for older high school students.
• Librarian greets students and regularly discusses their reading choices; she provides individualized, age-appropriate guidance in book choice.
• Explain the ways in which the librarian accompanies and guides younger students looking for books, and knows students well as individuals.

 Why I included this book - It's a gripping story and a great representation of classic Crutcher style and content--heavy hitting with a big heart.