Reviewed by Long Nguyen for TeensReadToo.com

Washington State native and young adult literature veteran Chris Crutcher is no stranger to censorship. Many of his critically acclaimed novels have been persecuted for their content and use of "inappropriate language," as well as the thematically taboo nature of the stories themselves. THE SLEDDING HILL, Crutcher's latest novel, deals with the issue of censorship, and the struggle students, as well as pro-literature advocates, must undergo to ensure the right to read contemporary works.

Narrated by the "spirit" of the recently deceased Billy Bartholomew, Billy tells the tale of his best friend Eddie Proffit, who in the course of three months was the first to discover the dead bodies of both his father as well as Billy. Dealing with the trauma of what happened, Eddie decides to stop speaking altogether, sheltering himself from communication with the people around him. With both his father and Billy gone, Eddie is soon pressured by a local church figure to take the plunge into 'salvation' and join the church. But alas! Billy isn't going to let something as trivial as death come between him and his best friend. With the help of Billy (or rather, his spirit?), Eddie is able to cope and come to terms with, in his eyes, what the right thing to do is.

In each of Crutcher's novels, it is nearly guaranteed that at least some kind of issue is directly put into discussion and, indeed, THE SLEDDING HILL is a story of the censorship of books read by students in schools. Cleverly written, Crutcher manages to poke fun with his writing by instilling himself as the author of the controversial pseudo-novel Warren Peece (pun very much intended). Full to the absolute brim with important questions and thought-provoking answers, what else would one expect from a Chris Crutcher novel?

I personally find any and all of Chris Crutcher's novels incredibly well-written, and very entertaining for the likes of a teenage attention span. The issues tackled are strongly influenced and make good discussion topics as well as a progressive voice for young ears to hear. Anyone who found the heated debates between the uber-conservative Christians and the liberal-minded protagonists from STAYING FAT FOR SARAH BYRNES (an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults, and highly recommended by yours truly) is sure to appreciate Crutcher's whole-hearted commitment towards all human being's rights to certain freedoms, including the right to read contemporary literature containing modern ideas, no matter how verboten they may sound. ( )

Richie's Picks: THE SLEDDING HILL by Chris Crutcher, HarperCollins/Greenwillow, May 2005, ISBN: 0-06-050243-6

"I can bump him, and I will, because the one thing that is as true out here as it is in the Earthgame is connection. Connection is love. Staying connected with Eddie Proffit is as good for me as it is for him, because love is as true on earth as it is in the farthest reaches of the universe.

"So I do it."

"Just Do It." --Nike slogan

In KING OF THE MILD FRONTIER: AN ILL-ADVISED AUTOBIOGRAPHY, Chris Crutcher recognizes Michael Jordan as a hero--not for his legendary on-court accomplishments, but for the manner in which Michael responded to the brutal murder of his father. Chris notes of Michael:

"When asked about his feelings for his father's killers or what should happen to them, in the only recount I ever heard, all he said was, 'My father is dead. That's all I care about.'"

In rereading Crutcher's autobiography I continue to be moved by Michael's response. I'm so touched by it that one day I'm going to make a point of giving Michael a big long hug.

It actually won't be "one day" since, according to Billy Bartholomew, there is no "time" where he now exists. Billy is the dead teenaged narrator of Chris Crutcher's new novel THE SLEDDING HILL. And according to Billy Bartholomew, once me 'n Number 23 are both history I'll be able to hook up with Michael or anyone else who has come and "gone."

Life on Earth, as Billy explains it from his beyond-this-world perspective, is but a game, the Earthgame. Once you get to where he is, you "travel at the speed of imagination" and "laugh in wonder at all the crazy considerations you had while playing the Earthgame because you were so focused you thought things were important."

Nor are there emotions after death, Billy explains, other than a "pure joy of knowledge--and a sense of coming home."

What to many readers will be Billy's most shocking revelation from beyond the grave is that everyone who dies ends up IN THE SAME PLACE! That means me and James Dobson, Tucker Carlson, and Bull Conner are all going to get to spend eternity sharing the same celestial real estate with (formerly) practicing homosexuals and hippies, independent film makers, blasphemers, Bin Ladens, black people, and banned book authors.

Chris Crutcher is a runner, as are so many of the characters he's created over the years. Crutcher's been spending a lot of his time lately running around the country defending his good name and his great books which are being challenged so frequently that you've got to figure there's some serious hit list out there making its way to right-wing pulpits around the country.

Of course, there's supposed to be a separation of Church and State, at least in theory. That wasn't the reality when it came to Crutcher's own childhood experiences--as he recounted in KING OF THE MILD FRONTIER--and it sure doesn't seem to be the case today if you've paid attention to as many recent articles about book bannings as I have.

Many of the childhood stories of religion and death that Crutcher includes in his autobiography find their way into the plot of THE SLEDDING HILL. And if you've read the autobiography you realize there are going to be a bunch of huffing, puffing, scowling preachers when they start getting an earful of Billy Bartholomew.

But they're going to have a bit of a problem deep-sixing this baby. Crutcher's written a book without ANY "naughty" words. Not a single f-word, sh-word, n-word, b-word, or a-h word. If they want to ban THE SLEDDING HILL from school libraries, they're going to have to get it banned because of Billy Bartholomew's blatantly blasphemous revelations.

And that's the catch, because in Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District No.26 v. Pico, the landmark 1982 Supreme Court case concerning school-library censorship (I quote from Russell Freedman's IN DEFENSE OF LIBERTY: THE STORY OF AMERICA'S BILL OF RIGHTS.),

"[T]he court held that students' rights were violated by removal of the books and said that a school library provides 'an environment especially appropriate for the recognition of First Amendment rights of students.' "School officials have a great deal of power to decide which books should be in their school libraries, but they 'may not remove books from school library shelves simply because they dislike the ideas contained in those books,' said the Court. 'Allowing a school board to engage in such conduct hardly teaches children to respect the diversity of ideas that is fundamental to the American system.' "

Now along with the recent book banning news stories, there have been some pretty articulate words from certain teens who feel the same way about having their school libraries raped by the Religious Right as I felt about the Nixon White House invading the offices of the antiwar group I belonged to when I was their age.

As recently explained so articulately in the Kansas City Star by a Kansas high school student named Sasha Mushegian,

"It's true that some words and ideas should not be introduced to students who have not reached a certain level of maturity. But the amount of sheltering these parents are trying to accomplish is more appropriate for elementary school children than for people capable of earning wages, taking college-level courses and driving cars. These are all actions that require a degree of personal responsibility and capability of rational thought that these parents seem to think we lack.
"Yes, we're not completely mature yet; sure, we often make bad decisions--but maturation is a process. There's no magical age at which we mentally and emotionally become adults.
"How can you expect children to mature if you don't expose them to books in which reality is messy and confusing, morals are not immediately clear, making the right decision requires analysis of subtleties, and characters make the wrong choices? How do you expect students to think for themselves if you never expose them to situations that are challenging and unfamiliar (yet still safely contained within the pages of a great work of literature)?"

I can easily see all this leading us toward another Supreme Court showdown to determine whether in reality we're a theocracy or a democracy.

Then on the other hand, I can just imagine some overly-pierced, black-attired, parentally-oppressed young person reading all of this discussion, rolling his or her eyes, and impatiently wanting to know the important stuff:

"Come on, Richie! Who the fuck cares what those right-wing assholes are bitching about now? Just tell us whether the new Crutcher book is worth a shit!"

Okay, well, as a matter of fact it is. THE SLEDDING HILL caused me to laugh a lot, cry a little, and exercise some brain cells.

"Everyone thought our friendship was odd; what was a smart kid like me doing hanging out with a kid with an IQ short of triple digits? Truth is, Eddie's IQ turned out to be off the charts. His mind bounces from one thing to the other pretty much however it wants, though, and long before he should be finishing up one thought, he's on to something else. Eddie doesn't come to very many conclusions."

Longtime friends Eddie Proffit and Billy Bartholomew like to run. It's the one thing that can keep Eddie's mind focused. But then--in a rather short period of time--Eddie discovers both his dad and his best friend Billy dead from totally random accidents. And things go downhill from there when Eddie's nemesis, the Reverend Tartar, starts hanging out with Eddie's grieving mom.

Fortunately, Eddie discovers something that begins to help him get his mind around what has happened in his life. No, it's not a controlled substance--it's a book.

And, unfortunately, you can guess what the Rev. and his followers from the Red Brick Church want to do to that book.

Enough said. I recommend taking it for a spin. (But remember to turn INTO the slide.)

Richie Partington
http://richiespicks.com
BudNotBuddy@aol.com ( )

There's a lot going on in this book because Crutcher -- true to form -- hits on so many elements that will interest teens. There religious persecution, censorship, death, peer pressure, and school issues going on here. Not only that, but there's a life-after-death friendship that holds this whole book together. I especially liked the Chris Crutcher twist at the end; you'll have to read to find out what I mean by that! ( )

I didn't really enjoy this book. I thought it was kind of boring. I did not like how he mentioned himself alot of the time. I thought it was wierd how it was from the dead person's point of view. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone unless they are interested in a class like best sellers. It did not take long to read but it took a long time to get into. ( )

The Sledding Hill is not an ordinary book. It is a book which talks, without any diffidence, about the issues of the today world. Its main protagonist is Eddie Proffit, an over smart guy, who has to undergo two really hard strokes. In a time period of only three months, he loses his Dad and his best friend Billy Bartholomew to violent accidents. With these happenings his world changes immediately.
The whole story is told by nobody else then ghost Billy who supports his friend Eddie also after his death. A support that is strongly needed. Eddie has to deal with Mr. Tartar, who is both a feared English teacher at school and the minister to a flock of Protestant fundamentalists at the Red Brick Church. Not an easy starting position for Eddie and a pretty hard thing to do, but he still has Billy’s help, even when in a very special form...

We had to read The Sledding Hill for our Beyond Bestsellers class. First I wasn’t very motivated and the start truly confused me but the book became better and better and it has many intelligent thoughts and ideas included. It is one of the books, which make me feel, that I have learned something. Therefore: Yes, read it ;) ( )