About book Athletic Shorts: Six Short Stories (2002)
I am reviewing the book Athletic Shorts’ “A Brief Moment in the Life of Angus Bethune”, by Chris Crutcher; I think Crutcher’s purpose in writing this book was to have a few short stories that are like his other books. He also states, that in his other books he lets the reader choose how the story ends. The short stories in this book are about people and what happened to them before or after the book was written. I think the Crutcher’s intended audience is teenagers and the feelings of kids who don’t fit in and might be overweight or different in some little way. I think the reason he choose this group is to show kid’s/ teens how the other kids live their lives who might not be as pretty or as skinny as the other teen’s or as we call them the popular group. The narrator’s point of view is first person. The person telling the story is Angus. The reason why I feel it’s important that Angus tells the story is so we can see and feel with great detail what happened;(spoiler alert) like when Angus takes Rick’s feet out from underneath him and he lands hard on the ground and when he gets on the stage and dances with Melissa. I think Crutcher wanted Angus to be from this time period and his situation is like how teens get treated in school now, unlike how they use to. The whole thing is accurate to real life except one part when the fat kid wins by taking Rick’s feet out from underneath him and the really hot girl chooses him over her boyfriend and gets chose to be winter ball king the reason why is because most kids would be afraid to try to take on one of the most popular kids in the school and think they would get in trouble or hurt, also they wouldn’t try to take out the popular kid right in front of their crush or even the pretties girl in the school. The rest of it is accurate to how fat kids or unpopular/ different kids get treated in school and how some people may be different, but know how to stick up for themselves.tI think I connect most with Angus because I would stick up for my parents if they were that way, but if I had a problem with the most popular kid in school I probably wouldn’t do the same thing though I would just ignore it and finish enjoying the night like he did. I think that Crutcher was very successful in writing this book; I learned that its not what’s on the outside that counts it’s what’s on the inside. The message he was portraying which was even though some teens may act different don’t treat them different, because you don’t know what their home situation is like and they could have a low self esteem and it could potentially backfire on you like it did for Rick and you could loose everything you worked so hard for. Like when Melissa says “would you leave with me?” to Angus and Rick, Melissa’s boyfriend gets really mad.tThe movie “Remember the Titans” relates to this book because just like Sunshine one of the main characters in “Remember the Titans” he gets treated different just because he has long hair and kind of looks like a girl, but is very good at football and the team then realizes that they really need Sunshine on the team. I don’t think the title of this book really has a purpose. I would recommend this book to teens so they can know how it feels to be left out or be the one who doesn’t fit in or gets laughed at all the time. I do agree with Crutcher’s messages to teens on how discrimination and teasing can harm some teens but other teens it doesn’t really affect them. This book was very engaging and interesting to me. I think the way Crutcher ends his books is very interesting on how he lets you pick what happens at the end and if it turns out good or bad. I would rate this book a 4 because it was very interesting and made me want to read it more, but I don’t really like picking my own ending to books and would of liked to know more about what happened to Angus.
Copy and past your book review in this space:Have you ever wanted to relate to someone or something? If you are athletic, a teenager, or an athletic teenager, then the chances are you might relate to one of these awesome short stories in “Athletic Shorts” by Chris Crutcher. Each of these fun exciting shorts tell a story with a different theme and moral. Among these many morals young boys Angus, Johnny, Petey, Lionel, Jack, and Louie have to overcome many feats. These include embarrassing families, excessively tough fathers, getting the girl, differences, and loss of close family members. In addition to having a moral, all of these stories involve sports as well as the average teen drama. Wrestling, football, fishing, swimming, and fencing are all sports in this sweaty, tiring book. One of the stories is about a boy named Angus Bethune. Angus is an ordinary kid who plays football. Except for a few things, he is completely normal. For one he is overweight, towering over the other kids in both height and weight. Secondly of all his parents are extremely, embarrassingly perverted. In order to get the girl of his dreams, he has to fight against everything that is against him, including the special girl’s boyfriend. Angus isn’t the only teen with an interesting story. All of the main characters have interesting stories. Johnny is pushed to the limit by his competitive, and sometimes abusive dad. Petey is embarrassed about being beaten by a girl. Lionel has to overcome the death of his family. Jack learns that race doesn’t necessarily matter. Louie has to deal with a friend with AIDS. All of these boys learn from their beautiful but hard adventures. tIn my opinion, this book was a pretty good book overall. It was fun to read, intense, and nicely written. However, the book did seem to lack what I thought it would have more of. The title, Athletic Shorts, gives the impression that what you are going to read is going to be all about sports. After reading the book, I noticed that some of the stories had almost nothing to do with the sports. That disappointed me a little bit. I think that this book is good for teens, ranging from 11-18. This is definitely a book for teens. It has some sex references and some bad language. As I read this book I felt motivated to work harder. I wanted to get better at, not only sports, but things in general. Some stories were very sad, and made me respect what I have. This book has strong female characters, and good messages in almost every story. The book is filled with inspirational quotes including a quote that sums up the book in a nutshell with “When you're different, on the down side, you learn to live from one scarce rich moment to the next, no matter the distance between.” You should appreciate what you have, because some people have it a lot worse.
Do You like book Athletic Shorts: Six Short Stories (2002)?
I found A Brief Moment in the Life of Angus Bethune to be a decent story. It manages to accomplish a lot in a short amount of time, but the story itself isn't very exciting. While Angus's home-life is certainly unique and something I had never imagined before, the story still seemed rather generic in the sense that it was ultimately one of countless "Unpopular/bullied kid has a crush on the popular girl and wins her over from her jerk, popular boyfriend" stories. That's not to say I didn't find it to be entertaining. The descriptions of the characters and scenery were done in an interesting and thought-provoking way. I was able to easily paint a picture of everything that was being described which helped bring the story to life.On a grander scale, I believe the story does a better job of reminding the reader to be conscious of other people's situations than other stories. It successfully blends a subtle undertone to the issue of bullying while maintaining a lighthearted and comical surface.
—Andrew Wisler
Margaret A. Edwards Award--my choiceI liked this book, it was more of a quick read that would appeal especially to boys.This book consists of six short stories that are based off of true encounters by the author Chris Crutcher.The stories are centered around sports, wrestling in particular. They also deal with pressures boys have by their parents to be the best in athletics. We meet characters such as Johnny who has an overbearing father who belittles him and his mother. His father, Cecil B. Rivers, was a 2nd place wrestler back in his college days and Johnny is an aspiring wrestling champ himself. They have the opportunity to wrestle each other and when that day comes Johnny wrestles his dad hoping for some sort of satisfaction, to be able to get back at his dad for all the years of degrading comments. However, he doesn't feel the way he always imagined.The other stories deal with body image, bigotry and AIDS. I would probably promote this from the athletic perspective so that it will appeal to boys. I think these issues are important for teen boys to understand and they should have a resource to go to if they are feeling the same pressures that these characters are. The voices are very authentic because they deal with common situations. For example, dealing with parents, questioning ideals and peers. I would hope that the fact that it is a bunch of different stories will help sell the book. 5Q4PM,J
—Christine Kloss
Chris Crutcher achieved what he wanted within this book. It is composed of short stories, and some of them are continuations using the characters from other books. Of course I want to read all of the other books now to totally understand these characters. Another aspect of the book that I appreciated was the prelude to each story. Crutcher provided why he chose to write that particular story, or who encouraged him in the writing process for that story. It was interesting to be in an author's prewriting thoughts picking plots and character names.There are six different stories within this book. Although the characters deal with athletics, it's really a secondary conflict in all of their lives. The characters each face something much more serious including: gay parents, a gay friend, a sick friend, the death of a best friend...etc. It goes to show stories within stories. Even within a short story, Crutcher writes in a way that shows such character growth within teens. In the story about a friend with AIDS, the main character, Louie, grows tremendously from a friend afraid to be near the AIDS victim to learning a lesson about living a full life. "I'm going to see how far I can go in the time I get."Main characters include all high school teenagers.Angus-a fat kid always bullied and ready to take his stance.Petey Shroshrire and his father who wrestle each other in front of the student body and parents in an effort to show more than just the best wrestler.Petey and Chris Byers who are scheduled to wrestle each other this school year. Chris Byers is a female wrestler and Petey is afraid to forfeit but also afraid of losing. Lionel Serbousek and Neal were best friends. Neal is the cause of the death of Lionel's parents and brother during a boating accident. Louie and Darren. Louie lost his girlfriend in a prior Crutcher book, and in this story he deals with his new friend and coworker, Darren, an AIDS victim.This book is a fast read, but the material is not light. Crutcher takes serious issues head on and doesn't ignore the fact that teenagers deal with death, love, loss, disease, and even worse.
—Kellie Wagner
