Deadline by Chris Crutcher

1. Title: Deadline

2. Author: Chris Crutcher

3. Illustrator: N/A

4. Publisher and Publishing Date: Green Willow Books 2009

5. Genre: Teen fiction, YAL, Death and loss

6. Age range for which the book is appropriate: 10^th-onward

7. Students will like this book because it deals with many of the issues that they go through in their own lives. The book deals with death and dying, which is something everyone can relate to and might help students who have recently lost someone. The book also deals with sports so that would interest many of the young male teens.

8. A summary: Deadlines is about a boy named Ben that finds out he is dying from an incurable form of cancer. He chooses not to inform his parents or friends until much later in the book, and one of the main premises of the book is finding the right way and time to tell his family. His doctor agrees to with hold the information and not to treat him if he agrees to go to a psychologist that eventually leaves him because she cannot deal with the pain of watching such a great kid die. Ben decides to find out as much about life as he can in the year he has to live, so he reads and questions his teachers until a point of annoyance trying to find out the subtleties of every piece of knowledge. He also starts dating and has sex with his ideal woman Dallas who also leaves him because she can’t deal with the thought of losing him. He begins playing football and is a star on the team with his brother. Even though he receives a scholarship to go to school, he becomes ill and dies before he can.

9. Personal Response: I did not particularly like the novel because I felt like it was unrealistic. I do not think that he would keep the secret from his family for as long as he did and I think that a normal person would do anything they could to save their own lives, yet I do know of cases where some might choose to follow his path. I connected this book to – because the main character in that book is helping people commit suicide and I truly feel that, in a way, he is making the same choice. Also, the writing style is very similar with a similar main character.

10. Teaching ideas.

I probably wouldn’t teach this book, but if I did I would teach it within my Composition class because of the writing style. It is also a very easy read. I would probably show a media clip on homecoming and focus on the themes of death, loss, and relationships within the novel itself.