The first book in author Jason Reynold's Track series, Ghost is the story of Castle Crenshaw, also known as Ghost. Living in a tough part of the city, not particularly successful in school, living with his single mom who is working full time and trying to get through night school classes to improve life for her and Ghost - all present challenges for our protagonist. He happens upon a local city track team in his neighborhood and ends up wanting to be part of that team. But does he have what it takes to work for it? And does he have the stamina to stick with it, and do it honestly? Can Ghost use a horrible event from his past to make his future better? Or will the past hold him back, heading towards a life much like his father is living now, a life of fighting...will Ghost run away from his past or towards his future?
Reynolds is one of my all-time favorite authors, and if you've never experienced a Jason Reynolds book, do yourself a huge favor and read one today! This one is a great place to start, but you won't go wrong with any of his books. He writes excellent stories, realistic fiction, all with African-American characters and most with race as one of the themes of the story. Sort of a modern-day version of Walter Dean Myers. While I haven't read all four books in this series yet, I have read the first two, and they are really good, with Ghost being better than average, for sure! A pretty quick read, an excellent story...read this! 5 paws!
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