Genre: Realistic Fiction
Annotation: This realistic fictional story is about sports heroism and ambition. Ben Wolf was a senior in high school who was diagnosed with severe leukemia. He was told he had only a year to live and rather than being deflated, he decided to keep his diagnosis a secret and live his life to the fullest. He forgoes treatment that would have given him extra months to live but with intense pain and physical deformities and despite his medical condition and physical limitations, he tries out for the school football team. At the end of the story, he joins the high school football team and becomes a champ and dates the beautiful and gorgeous girl, Dallas that he had secretly admired. Ben does a lot of self exploration in this story and built some confidants along the way. With the help of his spiritual guide “Hey-Soos, Ben achieved his ambition.
Justification for Rejection: This is a very inspiring story with lots of life lessons to learn from it but I will not nominate it to young readers. The subject matter is a little too heavy and deep for most teens and although the subplot about romance might seem appealing but there is also the presence of incest which would put off some people. I also think that this story has limited “readership” due to the numerous vivid sport action scenes depicted in the text. It would appeal to the male teen readers more than the female readers
No comments:
Post a Comment