Ghost by Jason Reynolds (Ezra)

 

Ghost by Jason Reynolds Ghost. 

It’s a middle school classic. Well in my case, my middle school had been assigning this book for ages. However, just because it was assigned, does mean that it was a bad book. In fact, this was my favorite book in middle school. 

    Ghost is about a teenage boy, Castle “Ghost” Cranshaw, with an incredible talent in track. The book starts off by talking about Ghost’s troubled family life. One time his father, an alcoholic, tried to kill Ghost and his mother. They quickly escaped to Mr. Charles, a shopkeeper, and he called the police. Obviously, the father was convicted. However, this event traumatized Ghost and it partially contributed to his academic failure. Ghost was an angry kid at school. He was always getting into fights, and he did not get good grades. However, his life would change when he met Coach. 

    One day while eating in the park, Ghost saw a group of kids racing. The coach for this team was an Olympic athlete. Anyways, Ghost watched to the end of the practice, and he decided to challenge the fastest and cockiest runner, Lu. However, when they raced, Ghost and Lu were so fast that the coach can not determine the winner. As a result, Coach Brody decides to invite Ghost onto the team. 

    During practice, the next day, one of Ghost’s teammates makes fun of his shoes. They are just basketball shoes because Ghost’s mom did not have enough money to buy him track shoes. Anyways, later that night, Ghost cuts the tops off his shoes; however, he just gets made fun of more, especially at school. Because of this, Ghost runs away from school, and he decides to steal a pair of running shoes from a sporting goods shop. 

    One Friday after practice, Coach takes the team out for dinner. During dinner, many players on the team share their secrets, and Ghost learns that many of them grew up in a similar situation to him. However, things get rough when Coach finds out that Ghost stole the shoes. He has Ghost go back to the store and apologize, then Coach buys Ghost the shoes.

    The book ends when Ghost is on the starting line for his first race, and he realizes his hope for the future. 

       I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. Reynolds had the reader hooked from the beginning. He did a great job of describing Ghost’s emotions. I felt like I strongly connected with Ghost and his situation. I think that much of this book was about learning to control your emotions and Reynolds did a great job of showing Ghost’s improvement on this topic. I also loved how Ghost followed the theme that if you work hard enough, you can get out of anything. Reynolds did a great job of showing this message through Ghost’s actions. In conclusion, I would highly recommend this book to anybody who likes a relaxing story.