Running Loose

Bibliographic Info

Title: Running Loose

Author: Chris Crutcher

Publisher: Greenwillow Books

Publication Date: 2003

ISBN: 978-0060094911

Plot Summary

Louie Banks starts out his senior year with everything looking good.  His summer workouts have paid off and now he’s a starting football player in a town that shuts down early for high school football games.  For reasons he can’t fathom, a beautiful girl with a solid head on her shoulders has decided to be in a relationship with him.

Things are going so well until the day that the football coach makes a target out of a black football player from an opposing team.  When the kid gets hurt in an intentional onslaught by one of Louie’s teammates, Louie quits the team. The coach sees no repercussions, but a far greater injustice is just around the corner for Louie.

Critical Evaluation

This is an exceptional book showing the workings of small-town football, the pains of growing up, and the difference that caring individuals can have on the lives they touch.  As usual, Crutcher’s voice is genuine, allowing a reader in.  The story and characters are relatable, even for readers who haven’t grown up a football starter in small-town Idaho.

Reader’s Annotation

Louie Banks’ senior year started out so right, he was pretty sure he’d be able to coast right through to graduation.  He was wrong.

Author Info

Chris Crutcher was born on July 17, 1946 in Dayton, Ohio.  He grew up in Cascade, Idaho, a small logging town.  He studied psychology and sociology at Eastern Washington State College, which is now Eastern Washington University.  He later earned a teaching certificate and taught in Washington and California.

Crutcher served as the director of an alternative K-12 school in Oakland, California.  The school was racially diverse a place of last resort for many students.  Crutcher claims that the students he worked with there provided a lot of inspiration for the characters in his stories.

Crutcher moved to the Northwest after around ten years at the Oakland school.  He worked as a child advocate and began writing.  He continues to act as a therapy consultant.    He has written more than a dozen books and several more short stories.

Genre

Sports Fiction

Curriculum Ties

None

Book Talking Ideas

Do you ever feel like right as things are coming together, something comes along and changes everything?

Reading Level

12-17

Challenge Issues

Touches on child abuse.

Challenge Responses

Active Listening

Refer to library’s collection policy

Provide complaint form

Refer to book reviews

Selection

The teacher mentioned the author.