1. The Sledding Hill
2. Chris Crutcher
3. None
4. Published by Greenwillow Books a Harper Tempest book, 2005
5. Genre: Young Adult Literature, focus is on censorship, homosexuality, religious indoctrination concerns, ADD, death, and more.
6. 15 and older
7. Students that struggle focusing their attention to soley academia or on any topic for that matter would get a lot out of this book as the main character suffers from some form of ADD. Also, students that are dealing with a loss of a loved one, specifically those that are struggling with coping through traditional means would love this book as it focuses on the issues, both personally and socitally, dealing with these issues. Students that are interested in anything that has to do with censorship, public realtions, and/or issues with the prevailing religious body of their community would also get a lot of this book.
8. Summary:
This book begins with the main character, Eddie, finding his father dead due to a mistake, not deflating a tire before working on it, that Eddie’s father has warned him numerous times to avoid doing. This story, we later find out, is told in narroration by Eddie’s now dead best friend Billy Bartholomew who has choosen to stay with Eddie after his own tragic death from kicking a stack of sheet rock that then falls on top of him. Eddie has some form of ADD that makes it impossible to stay on task unless he is running or riding a bike, which leads many in the educational community to believe that he is dumb which he is far from. We meet Rev. Tater, pastor of the Red Brick Church on into the novel. Rev. Tater is a very conservative Christian who makes his beliefs a part of the church he leads and the school he teaches English in. Tater is portrayed as the central “evil” figure, but the author later tells us that childhood abuse has created him and his subsequent actions. Rev. Tater takes special interest in Eddie after the atrousities that has been laid on him by the universe. His main goal is to get Eddie, who has stopped talking, to talk. This becomes very important later in the story as Rev. Tater tries to manipulate Eddie into helping him remove the book, Warren Peece written by the same author, from the public schools. The concluding action of the novel evolves Eddie, who has teamed up with Billy’s dad after his death, standing up in the church giving his testimony on how the book should not be banned, utilizing notecards from his dead friend. At the end of the novel, after being nearly locked up in an insane asslym, Eddie has the author Chris Crutcher come give a speech in which he only says, “What she said!” after a student has given her own speech about the immorality of taking the book out of schools.
9. Personal Response:
I enjoyed the book in many ways and I hated it in many ways as well, which makes this one of the better novels that I have read in the last few years. Most books are simply read, directly applied to the classroom, and then forgotten as a “good book.” This book breaks that mold, forcing its readers to look within themselves and ask the question “Are you a censor of ideas or a teacher of ideas?” This notion haunted me through the entirety of the novel because I often felt offended by the authors vast generalizations of the Christian South, while at the same time loving his other ideas and finding some of the same questions that I have asked others before. For example, I had the SAME experience as Eddie once in my own family when my mother explained to me that the mark that Cain received was in fact the mark of the “Blacks.” I felt the same emotions that Eddie felt, however I find one particular portion of greatest significance to me personally because I had no idea what to say while Eddie knows the exact wording, “I’ll bet that’s how white people let themselves have slaves…I’ll bet that’s why they wouldn’t let black people eat at lunch counters with them or pee in the same restrooms…People can make excuses for anthing, he thinks. Anything” (Crutcher p72). I would also like to point out that the book does go too far in that it never, except one small time, gives the viewpoints of others, which made me a little uncomfortable since all ideas are beautiful and by only giving his side, while it is his book, tends to take away something from the novel. As a whole, it is a good book to have read and I am thankful for the experience of it, especially the end, “What she said!”
10. Teaching ideas:
If I were to ever teach this book and I think I shall teach a portion of it, I would probably teach the “Black Like Cain” chapter through a multi-media presentation on misinformation and how some use that to create an environment of acceptable racism in modern cultures.
This would probably be in the middle of a slavery unit in American Literature, 11th grade, or during the Nazi propaganda unit in World Literature, 10th grade.
Let’s do a 10th grade example:
I would show Nazi propaganda posters through a multi-media (Pictures of posters and propaganda videos) PowerPoint because that is the easiest to make, and have students reflect on this issue. Also, I would ask that students think about a time in their lives they might have encountered propaganda and then read the chapter in the book. Then I would have students discuss the parallels there.
Websites I Would Use:
Posters: http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/posters2.htm
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