Guys Read: The Distance: A Short Story from Guys Read: The Sports Pages
About this ebook
CJ just blew the half-mile relay for his track team, but the race on his mind is the one that's happening off the field in this short story from all-star author Jacqueline Woodson.
His chest is on fire, his legs are trembling, and Coach will not offer easy sympathy. He wants to blame the wind on the back straightaway, yet the challenge to stop choosing to be regular stings far worse than burning lungs.
Between a teammate boasting about a silver spoon and quiet talks with his mother in an old car, Calvin James Cashay must reckon with what hard work demands. Watching the next race from the track leaves him determined to run his own future.
This short story from the collection Guys Read: The Sports Pages is a winner.
- Realistic Fiction: Captures the raw grit of competition at the Penn Relays, from brutal split times and burning lungs to the crushing feeling of hitting the wall.
- Identity and Self-Discovery: Highlights CJ’s grounded life with his two supportive moms in their top-floor brownstone, balancing family discussions of inheritance with real-world expectations.
- School Drama: Follows the tensions between teammates as Laurence brags about his family’s silver spoon while Coach challenges the boys to discover what working hard really means.
- Middle Grade Fiction: Delivers an accessible, fast-paced read, tracking Coach’s background as an Olympic trials hurdler and Laurence’s lightning-fast quarter-mile relay leg.
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About the author
Jacqueline Woodson is the 2014 National Book Award Winner for her New York Times bestselling memoir Brown Girl Dreaming, which was also a recipient of the Coretta Scott King Award, a Newbery Honor Award, the NAACP Image Award, and the Sibert Honor Award. She is also the author of New York Times bestselling novel Another Brooklyn (Harper/Amistad), which was a 2016 National Book Award Finalist and Woodson’s first adult novel in twenty years. In 2015, Woodson was named Young People’s Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation. She is the author of more than two dozen award-winning books for young adults, middle graders, and children; among her many accolades, she is a four-time Newbery Honor winner, a three-time National Book Award finalist, and a two-time Coretta Scott King Award winner. http://www.jacquelinewoodson.com/
