Customer Reviews

The Sledding Hill

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I began this book thinking Crutcher had finally lost it, writing about a dead person who hangs around to help out his grieving friend, but then Crutcher threw a curve and I discovered the book is about censorship.

Chris Crutcher is a hero to adults who believe that the only way to edify our childeren is allow them to be free-thinking beings who can make their own determination of what is "good" or "bad" in literature or in life. The important thing is that our kids read, and if that means they have to read books like Crutcher's where if you count bad words and taboo plot topics, you will be worn out after the first chapter, then, so be it.

Crutcher makes lots of good points in this novel, and I will respect the review readers out there enough to let you read the book to see what I mean.

My only disappointment is that Crutcher didn't give me some publicity on page 226 when listing authors who were banned from a library in the novel. No respect. Story of my life.

I recommend this book for teens who have been a part of some of the censorship battles that have been going on all over our nation, especially the last 4-5 years. I also recommend this book to teens who have no adult in their life who gives them the respect that a young adult deserves.

I recommend this book for adults who fight for the rights of our teens to read what they like to read.

DISCLAIMER:
This book is not for everyone. There is no profanity in this book. There are, however, subtle plot references from the fictional fictional book Warren Peece that mention taboo issues which are not appropriate in the minds of those who believe solving problems can only be done by telling our youth what is righteous and moral, and never discussing any other viewpoints, or never allowing our kids to take what they have been taught at home and in life, read the offending literature, and make their own determinations based on their own rational, well thought out thoughts.

I was so happy when I heard there was a new Chris Crutcher book coming out. I loved Sarah Byrnes so much, and Whale Talk too. In this book, there are two friends named Eddie and Billy. Billy is like the one person who sees all the good in Eddie and knows how to talk to him. Eddie's father dies, and then Billy dies too, and Eddie stops talking. There is a Christian minister named Reverend Tartar who wants to baptize Eddie. The reverend is also against a Chris Crutcher book in one of the school classes. The best part of the book is Billy talking to Eddie after he is dead. He's very funny. What is not as good is how bad a guy the author made Tartar. He is so evil, and to have this evil guy be the person against the Crutcher book seemed kind of unfair. He is like the worst reverend ever and is a racist, too. There were also way too many speeches in this book, especially at the end. There were speeches in church and speeches at the school meeting and even a short speech by Chris Crutcher where he said he agreed with another speech. I thought all the speeches hurt the book. All in all, this is an okay book, but not nearly as good as Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes.

Mr. Chris Crutcher is still one of my favorite writers, but The Sledding Hill is not one of my favorite books. I am in tenth grade and I mostly agree with the person who posted the very first review of the book. The story of The Sledding Hill is pretty simple, and the other reviews say it right so I will not repeat. I will only give my opinion on the book. It is better than a lot of books and that is why I give it three stars. I think the first part is four stars and the second part is two stars which is how I got to three stars. I thought that the first part was a lot about the friendship of Eddie and Billy and how hard it is for everyone to deal with tragedy like two people dying on you. But later, when the story got into the whole censorship thing about the book, I started to lose interest. It is not because I am not interested in the subject, either. I am totally into free speech. I just thought the book got less interesting, not like Stotan which got more interesting as it went on.

Chris Crutcher does some very good things in The Sledding Hill. His main point about the availability of literature to young people is exceptionally well taken, and for a good chunk of the novel he writes deftly, especially of the friendship between Billy and Eddie. Yet as I came to the conclusion, I found myself thinking more and more of what Cervantes has Sancho Panza say this in Don Quixote:

"Whether the pitcher hits the stone or the stone hits the pitcher, it bodes ill for the pitcher."'

That is, no matter how fiercely one might agree with Crutcher's politics, by book's end it feels as if the stone of polemic [According to Wordnet 2.0, not just an argument, but also a "writer who argues in opposition to others (especially in theology)"] had seriously cracked the vessel of the narrative.

To illustrate, I point straight to the first pair of teen reviews here at Amazon. What's especially great about these reviews is how fair they are. There is nothing in them that come close to criticizing the book as anti-Christian. Instead, the teens raise other, more legitimate reservations. Leave it to the kids to make the most astute observations about teen literature.

One young critic points out the novel's many speeches. He or she is absolutely right. In fact, over the last thirty-five pages or so, speeches dominate The Sledding Hill - Eddie's at church, various people at a critical school board meeting, even a short one by Chris Crutcher himself (via the Edmund Morris technique from the Reagan biography of making himself a character in his own story) at that same board meeting.

Any novelist who creates a plot that demands a lot of speechmaking does so at his or her own narrative risk. For me, the effect was to stress the political and polemical at the expense of the emotional. It risks having young readers skim at the very moment when you want them emotionally engaged. When the young reviewer said he or she lost interest as the book went along, I understood why. Speeches, no matter how good, are still speeches.

I also found the teen review on the mark when it points out how detestable a guy Crutcher (the author, not the character) has made his antagonist, the Reverend Tarter. Though the text pointedly ascribes "good" intentions to this fundamentalist religious leader/high school teacher who spearheads the charge against a mythical Crutcher novel, the fact remains that the man is an intolerant bigot far to the right of even real life Revs. Falwell and Robertson. Tarter preaches an abhorrent brand of Christianity that even these conservatives never would. He turns our stomachs by espousing the most vile of racial theologies (how African-Americans are black because they hold the sign of Cain). Across town in his public high school classroom, Tarter's discipline methods border on child abuse. As for his views on literature, they are extreme to the maximum. Tarter doesn't just want to bar certain novels from the classroom. He wants to take them from your local public library, too.

Surely people like Tarter exist in real life. In fact, they seem preternaturally attracted to wanting to decide who its okay for the rest of us to sleep with and what literature is okay for the rest of us to consume. The problem with Tarter as a character in this novel isn't that he isn't real. It's that with this Darth Vader of a villain, Crutcher overstacks his deck. And overstacks it and overstacks it, until the opposition crumbles under its own sick and twisted weight.

Granted, the strategy works to a degree. But at the same time it raises uncomfortable echoes of the identical tactics of the very people Crutcher seeks to confront, when they try to prove (however disingenuously) that their beliefs are true. That is, they hold up the best of their point of view and contrast it with the worst of anyone else's. This may be an excellent way to score debating points, but it begs a key question. Why be reluctant to engage in a serious and thoughtful discussion with a serious and thoughtful opponent? Surely there are some reasonable things to discuss when it comes to the appropriateness of certain books for certain schools or classrooms. In hypothetical political terms, it's as if President Clinton chose to debate David Duke instead of John McCain. Victory against Duke would be assured, but a one-on-one with McCain would a whole lot more interesting.

There's a lot more to talk about with this ambitious novel, including Crutcher's self-insertion into the text and his decision to have the banned novel in question be a self-penned work called Warren Peece (either the apex of cleverness or the nadir of hubris) and the Sebold-esque technique of having a dead narrator.

That discussion could be interesting, but I don't think it would affect my overall sense of The Sledding Hill. That is, adults who've had it up to here with stupid book challenges may well respond with cheers as Crutcher joins Richard Peck, Nat Hentoff, Nancy Garden, and so many others in fighting the good fight. But I strongly suspect that many teens might not share the enthusiasm for the story, regardless of how in synch they might be with the message. Making a great point is a great thing, and it might make for a great sermon, but it doesn't necessarily make for a great novel.

Has anyone tried to seize a right of yours? In the Sledding Hill, the main character, Eddie, endures this seizure, but he takes action. After his father and his best friend Billy die, he refuses to talk until he discovers a book that he could relate to. However, someone attempted to ban it. Meanwhile, Eddie receives some unexpected visits from Billy's spirit.
The Sledding Hill was a great book, and I could not stop reading it, everything was happening and you cannot stop because you want to know what is going to happen next. In my opinion, Chris Chrutcher did an excellent job writing the story, because you really felt like you were there. He made everything seem so real. It was also easy to concentrate on the story; because you are so interested, the book is all you think about. I think people of all ages would like this book because it is an extremely fun book to read, and that anyone who likes funny books should read it. I would also recommend this book to both boys and girls. This is a great book!!!

To make things interesting from the start, the narrator of this story is dead. Billy Bartholomew is the dead best friend of Eddie Proffit, a boy who lost both his father and best friend within a month--and, to further the trauma, Eddie was the one to discover both of their bodies.

Billy, however, is not exactly gone. He's stuck around, even though he's dead. He's an observer in Eddie's life, and, occasionally, he can even find a way to talk to his best friend. He watches Eddie go through his life, running, sleeping, going to school...

And then Eddie starts the class at school he and Billy were both excited to sign up for: Really Modern Literature, taught by the school librarian, Ms. Lloyd. The only class requirement? To read fifteen books by authors who are still alive, including one of Ms. Lloyd's choosing.

Ms. Lloyd chooses Chris Crutcher's ersatz book, Warren Peece. She says that it's a great book, and passes out copies. Unfortunately, it also deals with some very controversial issues--including abortion, religion, and homosexuality.

Needless to say, this does not please the conservatives in town. They challenge the book, and Eddie and a few courageous others are going up against Christian fundamentalism and censorship, with Billy along for the ride.

The Sledding Hill is a brilliant, thought-provoking, original and intelligent novel. It is certainly a controversial one, and may well be banned just like Warren Peece was in the story. It isn't immediately captivating, but it will capture the attention of readers who stick with it. The characters are realistic and interesting, and the tough issues are tackled very well. This is a book that needs to be read!

Reviewed by Jocelyn Pearce
Posted: 02/15/2007

4.5-Books on WUAT = 5-Stars on Amazon

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.

Reviewed by: Long Nguyen

Chris Crutcher knew what he was doing when he wrote this book. I am a senior in high school and recommend this book to anyone who stands up for what they believe in. Thats exactally what Eddie Proffit did in this book with a little help from the dead narrator Billy. Okay so a dead narrator is a little weird, but the story was great. It's definately a good read.

I love banned books. I remember reading The Satanic Verses when it was first published (of course, at the time I didn't understand the book or the controversy) and a slew of other banned titles. But controversy strictly for controversy's sake is silly. Case in point: this book. It starts out pretty good-The Lovely Bones-like, narrated by a dead teen named Billy Bartholomew, who dies in a freak accident involving quadruple-stacked sheetrock (note-gyp board comes in four foot by eight foot panels, which would logically be leaned in the short direction, which makes his cause of death monumentally unlikely-but don't get me started) but hangs around (21 grams worth at least) to help his fourteen-year-old best friend, Eddie Proffit, deal with the death of his friend and father (in an almost as unlikely accident three weeks prior). Turns out that Eddie seems substellar in the academic realm, but is, in fact, exceedingly smart. Unfortunately, only Billy and his father, smart guy turned school janitor, know it. Eddie, trying to come to terms with loss in his own way, is thrust into the limelight when thrown (by his mom) to the sharks-the Christian church (cue Jaws music), by way of a pushy, meddling, bible-thumping minister with a religiously-twisted past (in one of the most ridiculous scenes of the book-p166-Mom admonishes him for playing with matches by holding a lighter near his fingers and screaming for him to `PRAY TO JESUS!' to avoid having them burned) named Reverend, (p 68) "African Americans wear the marks of Cain" Tarter. Of course, in an entirely white, small northern Idaho town (population 3,065), church and state are hopelessly intertwined and so the Reverend happens to also be a Bear Creek High School English. Eddie's interactions with Reverend Tarter as a youth, in the form of his questioning the logistics of (and logic behind) certain bible stories including that of Jonah and the Whale and Moses parting the Red Sea, are among the more tolerable parts of the story. But instead of just pushing the envelope, Crutcher feels compelled to rip it to shreds, going so far as to insert HIMSELF in the story as (drum roll please)...a controversial author of books often banned (what a shocker), specifically, one entitled Warren Peece, which covers the very things that The Sledding Hill tackles, primarily religion and homosexuality. It is assigned as mandatory reading but promptly withdrawn after protests are filed about its content. The students are able to finish reading the story in spite of being forced to return the books. Things come to a head when Eddie (under the pretext of reciting the testimony required for him to be baptized into the church) surprises everyone with a speech outing himself as a spy for the anti-banners and Reverend Tarter as the mastermind behind the banners. Chris Crutcher even shows up in the flesh to help save the day!
Whatever happened to the art of subtlety?
Although Crutcher's writing (ultra-controversy aside) occasionally verges on pretty good, he seems a bit too focused on his self-promotion as Highly Ban-able Author. And there is no excuse for misspelling the name of (p 150) Stephen Hawking. Skip this one in favor of the hundreds of better-written books, which can be found at, among other places, the American Library Association site.

This is the first Chris Crutcher novel I have read and I am eager to read his others. THE SLEDDING HILL is probably best enjoyed by thoughtful readers who have strong opinions in regard to the need for free thought and the dangers of censorship. This unusual thought provoking book is readable and accessible to those of average reading ability. The book is obviously aimed at the teen market but like many of today's children/young adult books can be equally enjoyed by those well beyond high school.