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Juvenile Fiction. Juvenile Literature. HTML:Sunny tries to shine despite his troubled past in this third novel in the critically acclaimed Track series from National Book Award finalist Jason Reynolds. Ghost. Patina. Sunny. Lu. Four kids from wildly different backgrounds, with personalities that are explosive when they clash. But they are also four kids chosen for an elite middle school track team�??a team that could take them to the state championships. They all have a lot to lose, but they all have a lot to prove, not only to each other, but to themselves. Sunny is the main character in this novel, the third of four books in Jason Reynold's electrifying middle grade series. Sunny is just that�??sunny. Always ready with a goofy smile and something nice to say, Sunny is the chillest dude on the Defenders team. But his life hasn't always been sun beamy-bright. You see, Sunny is a murderer. Or at least he thinks of himself that way. His mother died giving birth to him, and based on how Sunny's dad treats him�??ignoring him, making Sunny call him Darryl, never "Dad"�??it's no wonder Sunny thinks he's to blame. It seems the only thing Sunny can do right in his dad's eyes is win first place ribbons running the mile, just like his mom did. But Sunny doesn't like running, never has. So he stops. Right in the middle of a race. With his relationship with his dad now worse than ever, the last thing Sunny wants to do is leave the other newbies�??his only friends�??behind. But you can't be on a track team and not run. So Coach asks Sunny what he wants to do. Sunny's answer? Dance. Yes, dance. But you also can't be on a track team and dance. Then, in a stroke of genius only Jason Reynolds can conceive, Sunny discovers a track event that encompasses the hard beats of hip-hop, the precision of ballet, and the showmanship of dance as a whole: the discus throw. But as he practices for this new event, can he let go of everything that's been eat… (more)
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This was weird. Admittedly at the end of the book the author comes on and says that this is the book about the weird kid, but I had a hard time with the train of thought - maybe it was because it was audio (and the reader did a great job making it seem like train of thought - half sing song, half ramble, weird emphasis). I appreciated the look into Sunny after reading the first two books in the series but if it started with this I don't think I would have continued.
Ghost, Patina, Sunny, and Lu each are new kids on the track team this year, and each get their story in this loose series. I say loose because while they happen in a certain chronology, any of the three books I've read so far could be picked up with no prior knowledge of the others and still be a good read. There may be minor spoilers, but it's so much about each character's development that it really doesn't matter. Sunny's writing in a diary was a surprising change of pace for this one, and if you like audiobooks, the performance by Guy Lockard is phenomenal and really brings the words off the page with all of Sunny's cadences and humor and sound effects.
The story being told was good though. Sunny's mother died the day he was born. He's grown up calling his wealthy father "Darryl," and being tutored instead of going to school. His father has never addressed his own grief from the death of his wife, and as such, has not been a warm parent to his son. Always taken good care of him, but never given him the deep personal love Sonny craves. This is the real subject of the book. The whole track aspect (Sonny has always been a runner but starts throwing the discus in this book) feels like a somewhat irrelevant side story to the tale of the boy and his dad coping with their grief.
I've read most of Jason Reynolds' books, and rated all of them before either a 4 or 5 star. This one wasn't up to par with his usual work.
Book 3 in
Sunny is really "weird," as he likes to describe himself, and following his train of thought will amuse you but also endear you. Such a sweet, weird, lovable kid.
This third book in the series did not work for me. It's in diary format, and it suffers from the same issues that I've seen in other books for this format. For instance, there are several entries detailing the events of a track meet. Are we supposed to believe that Sunny brought his secret diary to the meet and whipped it out to write in every few minutes? And other entries are much more believable in terms of voice -- they're basically stream-of-consciousness -- but I just don't love Sunny's narrative voice the way I expected to. As one might expect by now, the book ends on a mild cliffhanger. All in all, I can see myself recommending this series to kids interested in sports books, but I won't revisit it.